Context: Amid pandemic SVEP has extended its business support services and capital infusion to 153 blocks of 23 states. As of August 2020, around 1 lakh enterprises are being supported out of which 75 percent are owned and managed by women.
About Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Program 

• It is a sub component of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) of the Ministry of Rural Development, as a sub-scheme since 2016.
• With an objective to support the rural poor come out of poverty, supporting them setup enterprises and provide support till the enterprises stabilize, SVEP focusses on providing self-employment opportunities with financial assistance and training in business management and soft skills while creating local community cadres for promotion of enterprises.
• SVEP promotes both individual and group enterprises, set-up and promote enterprises majorly on manufacturing, trading and service sectors.

Beneficiaries under SVEP

• Any Rural poor who is willing to be entrepreneurial and self-reliant is eligible to be part of this programme.
• Highly vulnerable beneficiaries under MGNREGA, marginalized sections, women, SC and ST communities and rural artisans will be given specific preference in selection, as part of this programme.

Activities under SVEP

• SVEP addresses three major pillars of rural start-ups namely – finances, incubation and skill ecosystems.
• Activities under SVEP are strategically designed to promote rural enterprises, one of the key areas is to develop pool of community resource persons – enterprise promotion (CRP-EP) who are local and support entrepreneurs setting-up rural enterprises.
• Another key area is to promote the block resource centre (BRC) in SVEP blocks, to monitor and manage the community resource persons, appraise SVEP loan application and acts as the repository of enterprise related information in the concern block.
• BRCs play the role to support sustainable revenue model to operate effectively and independently.

Key objectives of SVEP are

• To enable rural poor to set up their enterprises, in its proof of concept phase, by developing a sustainable model for Village Entrepreneurship promotion through integrated ICT techniques and tools for training and capacity building, enterprise advisory services and to provide loans from banks/SHG & federations.
• Develop local resources by training a pool of village level community cadre (CRP EP) and build the capacity of the NRLM and SHG federations to monitor and direct the work of the CRP-EPs.
• Help the rural entrepreneurs to access finance for starting their enterprises from the NRLM SHG and federations, the banking systems including the proposed MUDRA bank.
• Handhold the rural entrepreneurs/ enterprises in the initial six months of start-up, with visits from the CRP-EP’s supported by guidance from an advisory panel of experts for the relevant enterprise.

About Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana –National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM)

• National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) is a poverty alleviation project implemented by Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India.
• This scheme is focused on promoting self-employment and organization of rural poor.
• The basic idea behind this programme is to organize the poor into SHG (Self Help Groups) groups and make them capable for self-employment.
• Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) is a new name given to Aajeevika – NRLM in November 2015.
• The initiative to move towards a demand-driven strategy enabling the states to formulate their own livelihoods-based poverty reduction action plan is at the core of the mission.
• The strength of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), Ministry of Rural Development, are the approximately 690 lakh women members of around 63 lakh Self Help Groups (SHGs) across the country.