How does the National Rural Livelihood Mission seek to improve livelihood options of rural poor? 1) By setting up a large number of new manufacturing industries and agribusiness centres in rural areas 2) By strengthening 'self-help groups' and providing skill development 3) By supplying seeds, fertilizers, diesel pump-sets and micro-irrigation equipment free of cost to farmers Select the correct answer using the codes given below:

The correct answer is B: only statement 2 is right. NRLM, launched in 2011 and restructured from the earlier Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, works through women's self-help groups organised into federated institutions. It builds social mobilisation, financial inclusion through bank linkages and revolving funds, and skill training for wage and self-employment. It was renamed DAY-NRLM in 2016, but the SHG-based model is unchanged. The core concept is community institution building as a route out of poverty, not individual subsidy.

• Statement 1 is wrong. Setting up large manufacturing industries and agribusiness centres belongs to industrial and MSME schemes such as PMEGP and rural industrial clusters, not to NRLM's core design.
• Statement 3 is wrong. Free inputs like seeds, fertilisers and pump-sets come under agriculture schemes such as the National Food Security Mission and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. NRLM does not distribute such inputs free.

For Mains, this links to GS-II on welfare schemes and GS-III on inclusive growth, and to the debate on whether SHG credit actually lifts incomes or just adds household debt.

Trap: candidates pick option D because all three sound like rural development. Ask which scheme each statement actually describes, not whether it sounds developmental.