(Representative image)

New Delhi: Tamil Nadu has taken the lead in skill training of urban poor in the past two years, followed by Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. The southern state has also left others far behind in providing financial assistance for setting up individual and group enterprises besides forming maximum number of self-help groups.

According to a release of housing and poverty alleviation ministry, 4.54 lakh urban poor have been imparted skill training during the past two years out of which about one lakh either got jobs or were self-employed. With the ministry aiming at scaling up placement/ self-employment to at least 70%, it is roping in all the ministries concerned. The ministry has proposed to appoint a central Nodal Agency for speeding up disbursal of bank loans to urban poor besides involving non-banking finance institutions and micro-credit agencies. NGOs are also proposed to be involved in a big way for giving a fillip to urban poverty mitigation programmes.

Implementation of National Urban Livelihoods Mission, which was started in September 2013 began in 2014 in 790 cities and towns and the government had later extended it to all the 4,041 statutory cities and towns. "Based on the experience of its implementation, the government is keen to remove hurdles to enable more credit flow for self-employmentand scale up skill training," the ministry said.

