The Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) is a rural development program of the Government of India launched in Financial Year 1978 and extended throughout India by 1980.
It is a self-employment program intended to raise the income-generation capacity of target groups among the poor.
The target group consists largely of small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers and rural artisans living below the poverty line.
The pattern of subsidy is 25 per cent for small farmers, 33per cent for marginal farmers, agricultural labourers and rural artisans and 50 per cent for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes families and physically handicapped persons.
The objective of IRDP is to enable identified rural poor families to cross the poverty line by providing productive assets and inputs to the target groups.
The assets which could be in primary, secondary or tertiary sector are provided through financial assistance in the form of subsidy by the government and term credit advanced by financial institutions.
The program is implemented in all the blocks in the country as a centrally sponsored scheme funded on 50:50 basis by the Centre and State.
The Scheme is merged with another Scheme named swarnjayanti gram swarozgar yojana (SGSY) since 01.04.1999
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