Union Government of India Approved Proposal for Setting up BRLF

The Union Government of India on 3 September 2013 approved the proposal for setting up of the Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation (BRLF) as an independent charitable society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.

About Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation (BRLF)

• The role of BRLF is to facilitate and upscale civil society action in partnership with Government for transforming livelihoods and lives of rural households, with an emphasis on women, particularly in the Central Indian Tribal Region.
• BRLF will provide financial grants to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in order to meet their human resource and institutional costs for up-scaling of proven interventions
• It will also facilitate to invest in institutional strengthening of smaller CSOs and capacity building of professional resources working at the grassroots.
• Projects supported by BRLF would be able to reach 10 lakh poor families by the end of the fifth year.
• BRLF will also additionally support the capacity building of 1000 CSO professionals and institutional strengthening of a significant number of smaller CSOs within the above time frame.
• BRLF will have the country-wide mandate, but for the start-up the the initial focus of the organisation will be on the Central Indian Tribal Region, centered on blocks having significant tribal population across 170 districts in the States of Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Formation of Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation (BRLF)

• The Union Government of India will release 500 crore Rupees for creation of the corpus fund of the new Society, in two tranches.
• BRLF will be constituted as a partnership between Government on the one hand and private sector philanthropies, private and public sector undertakings (under Corporate Social Responsibility) on the other hand.
• The proposal was, at first considered by the Union Cabinet on 18 April 2013. It was then referred to the Group of Ministers under chairmanship of the Finance Minister. The GoM eventually held its meeting on 21 August 2013 and recommended the proposal.