National Rural Livelihood Mission and livelihood security promotion of tribal communities in Jungle Mahal: an assessment

Though India has made momentous progress in reducing poverty, still 364 million Indian, especially the rural and backward caste would continue to experience acute deprivation. Thus, the Government of India has introduced National Rural Livelihood Mission with the prime focus on organising the unprivileged women section into SHGs. Hence, its role in promoting livelihood security for the tribal communities should specially be taken care of. Here, an attempt has been made to find out what livelihood security factors could be detected as relevant as per improvement based on the perception of both tribal and non-tribal members of SHGs? Whether any difference in perception exists in between different socio-demographic groups? If so whether any intra-difference can be found in responses of the tribal members? Keeping these issues in mind, the study has undertaken a micro-empirical analysis where a tribal dominated area like Jungle Mahal, West Bengal has been selected purposively.