The Ministry of Rural Development has launched the 'National Campaign on Entrepreneurship-II' under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana–National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) for a three-month period from 21 August to 21 November 2026. The campaign aims to accelerate rural women entrepreneurship with an expanded focus on both farm and non-farm enterprises and marketing of SHG products, contributing to the vision of creating 6 crore Lakhpati Didis.
This intensive campaign will strengthen rural women's entrepreneurship through several key initiatives: promoting entrepreneurship among SHG women across farm and non-farm livelihoods, strengthening community enterprise promotion cadre, promoting enterprise formalization, expanding digital and e-commerce adoption, and strengthening producer groups and producer enterprises. Community Resource Persons-Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EPs) and Business Correspondent Sakhis (BDSPs) will be recognized as 'Udyam Sakhis' to provide greater visibility to the community cadre supporting enterprise promotion.
The campaign will promote e-commerce through platforms such as ONDC, GeM and other digital platforms, while facilitating buyer-seller meets and linkages with buyers, aggregators, retailers, and institutional purchasers. States will undertake orientation of Cluster Level Federation (CLF) leadership, exposure visits, entrepreneurship development training, and support for business planning, financial literacy, product development, branding, and digital marketing.
Specific outcome targets have been set for the campaign: orientation of 50,000 community cadres, entrepreneurship and livelihood training for 5 lakh SHG women, creation of a database of 5 lakh adolescent girls from SHG households, formalization support for 50,000 enterprises, strengthening membership of Producer Groups and Producer Enterprises by 2 lakh members, promotion of agro-ecological practices among 20 lakh women, and onboarding of 25,000 SHG members on e-commerce platforms.
A key priority is strengthening the farm and non-farm livelihood architecture by converting viable livelihood activities into sustainable women-led enterprises. The campaign will complement existing frameworks including CRP-EP, Entrepreneurship Development Program (EDP), Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP), and Opportunity-Skill-Finance (OSF) architecture.
Concurrently, Secretary Rohit Singh released 'Sankalp Shakti', the first Rural Enterprise Technical Bulletin of DAY-NRLM, which will be a monthly publication focusing on the empowerment of Lakhpati Didis. The launch event was attended by Secretaries/Principal Secretaries of Rural Development Departments from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, West Bengal, and Goa, with virtual participation from State Mission Directors/CEOs of 34 State Rural Livelihoods Missions (SRLMs).