Features of Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP)
Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP), launched in 2011, is a sub component of National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) aimed to meet the specific needs of women farmers to enable them to achieve socio economic empowerment. The primary objective of the MKSP is to empower women in agriculture by making systematic investments to enhance their participation and productivity, as also to create and sustain their agriculture-based livelihoods.
Three broad focus programmatic areas of MKSP are (i) Sustainable Agriculture (ii) Non-Timber Forest Produces (NTFP) and (iii) Value Chain Development. Livestock interventions are integrated with both Sustainable Agriculture and NTFP projects. The key interventions promoted under the components are as follows:
Sustainable Agriculture
• To improve the skills and capabilities of women in agriculture to support farm and non-farm-based activities;
• To ensure food and nutrition security at the household and the community level;
• To enable women to have better access to inputs and services of the government and other agencies;
• To enhance the managerial capacities of women in agriculture for better management of bio-diversity;
Non-Timber Forest Produce
• To promote regeneration of NTFP species to improve the bio diversity and enhanced productivity;
• To build the capacity of the community in sustainable harvesting and post harvesting techniques to increase their income;
• To promote local value addition of NTFP and market linkages to ensure higher returns;
• To enable women to have better access to their entitlements and services of the government and other agencies;
• To promote the use of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) to improve the livelihoods opportunities of the NTFP collectors.
Value Chain Development
• To ensure higher price realization for the agriculture, dairying and NTFP produce for the small and marginal women farmers;
• To ensure increased bargaining power of small and marginal producers by achieving economy of scale and therefore negotiate better prices;
• To develop robust business models at scale for the commodities produced by small and marginal women farmers;
• To develop scalable and sustainable Producers’ Enterprises to implement the value chain development interventions;
• To take up Capacity building of the community for value addition of commodities, better post-harvest handling, knowledge of quality parameters, etc.;
• To promote the use of ICT for accounting, inventory management, payment to producers and market information dissemination.
A total number of 84 MKSP projects has so far been sanctioned for implementation in 24 States with a target of coverage of 33.81 lakhs mahila kisans. As on 30.09.2019, 36.06 lakhs mahila kisans have been covered in 30,900 villages. A total Central allocation of Rs. 847.48 crore has been made towards implementation of the approved projects, out of which an amount of 579.76 crore has already been released.
All components of MKSP are being implemented with women farmers. State / UT wise targets and achievements are given below:-
NRLM has made collaboration with various organization for sector specific support to improve effectiveness of the implementation of interventions. These organization are supporting States in planning as well as implementation of different interventions under the program.
This information provided in the Lok Sabha session today
