What happened (FY 2025-26 evaluation results announced)

The Government commissioned evaluation of central rural sector schemes, including the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana–National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY–NRLM), in the financial year 2025–26 through the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO), NITI Aayog. The stated objective was to assess programme outcomes using household-level evidence and to strengthen monitoring and learning systems.

The evaluation covered 2,206 rural households across 11 States and 2 Union Territories (UTs), covering 36 districts and 216 villages.

The Government’s reported findings for DAY–NRLM include SHG mobilisation, livelihood-linked changes, and women-centred empowerment outcomes:

Key reported outcome areas for women and SHG households were:

SHG scale (reported): DAY–NRLM has mobilized over 10 crore rural households into nearly 92 lakh SHGs.Women’s empowerment (reported): 58% reported enhanced confidence; 52% reported improved access to income-generating opportunities; 46% reported becoming capable of managing banking transactions independently.Livelihood diversification (reported): women-led enterprises reportedly diversified into activities such as tailoring, goat rearing, and agri-trading to strengthen income sources and support sustainable rural livelihoods.SHG-linked credit use for livelihoods (reported): 34.0% cited establishment of livelihood activities; 29.1% cited support to existing livelihood activities.Group-level activity lending (reported): among SHGs that initiated group-level activities, 51.7% took loans to start group-level activities.Social/community contribution (reported): 75% of respondents reported SHGs contributed to social and community development in villages.Role in reaching vulnerable women (reported): 54.6% of respondents reported involvement in mobilizing vulnerable and poor women.

Related current affairs