TRYSEM stands for Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment. It was a centrally sponsored scheme launched by the Department of Rural Development, Government of India, on 15 August 1979, and it no longer exists: TRYSEM was merged into the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) with effect from 1 April 1999. SGSY was itself restructured into the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in June 2011, which was renamed Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – NRLM (DAY-NRLM) in November 2015. If you are preparing for a competitive examination, the two dates that get asked are 1979 and 1999.
What was TRYSEM?
TRYSEM was a rural skill-training scheme. Its stated objective was to give technical and entrepreneurial skills to young people from families below the poverty line so that they could take up self-employment, and after an extension in 1982-83, wage employment as well.
The logic behind it was straightforward. India already had a credit-and-subsidy programme for rural poverty, the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), which gave a household an income-generating asset such as a buffalo, a sewing machine or a small workshop tool. The gap was skill: handing over an asset to someone with no training in using it was a reliable way to lose the money. TRYSEM was built to fill that gap, and it functioned as the training component attached to IRDP.
Training was delivered through recognised institutions, including government and private Industrial Training Institutes and polytechnics, and through registered master craftsmen. Trades covered agriculture and allied work, village industries, handicrafts, repair services and small business activities. District Rural Development Agencies (DRDAs) ran the scheme on the ground, under the District Collector.
Who was eligible for TRYSEM?
The target group was defined tightly, and the quotas were part of the scheme rules rather than a target:
- Age: 18 to 35 years. The lower limit was relaxed to 16 for inmates of rural orphanages. The upper limit was relaxed to 45 for widows, freed bonded labourers, freed convicts, cured leprosy patients and people displaced by large development projects.
- Income: families below the poverty line, using the same household identification as IRDP. The rupee value of that line was revised across plan periods, from about ₹3,500 a year for a rural household in the early phase, to ₹6,400 in the Seventh Plan, and to ₹11,000 a year in the Eighth Plan.
- At least 50% of trainees had to be from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
- At least 40% of trainees had to be women.
- At least 3% of trainees had to be persons with disabilities.
Selection ran in two stages. A Task Force Committee at village level, made up of the panchayat president and members, a block officer and a bank manager, drew up a preliminary list in the presence of the gram sabha. A district committee convened by the DRDA Project Officer then made the final selection.
What a TRYSEM trainee actually received
The scheme paid a monthly stipend directly into the trainee’s own savings bank account, not through the training institution. These were the norms circulated for implementation in the late 1990s, in the years just before the merger:
| Item | Rate |
|---|---|
| Stipend per trainee per month, training in a recognised and registered institution | ₹350 |
| Stipend per trainee per month, training with a master craftsman | ₹200 |
| Honorarium to the institution per trainee per month | ₹200 (₹100 for a master craftsman) |
| Reward to the master craftsman per trainee per month | ₹50 |
| Raw material allowance per trainee | ₹75 per month, up to ₹600 for the course |
| Free tool kit per trainee | ₹800 |
Training courses shorter than three months were discouraged in the guidelines, on the view that no useful skill could be taught in less time. A certificate was issued on successful completion, and the trainee then became eligible for an IRDP subsidy, credit or income-generating asset. That sequence, train first and finance second, was the whole design.
TRYSEM and IRDP: how they fitted together
This relationship is a frequent examination question, so it is worth stating plainly. TRYSEM was not a standalone employment programme. It was a sub-scheme, the training arm, of IRDP.
- IRDP supplied the money: subsidy plus bank credit for an income-generating asset. It was piloted in 1978-79 and extended to all 5,011 development blocks on 2 October 1980.
- TRYSEM supplied the skill: three to six months of trade training, a stipend, a tool kit and a certificate.
- They shared the same beneficiary identification machinery, the same Task Force Committee at village level and the same DRDA administration at district level.
Other schemes sat alongside them in the same family: DWCRA for women and children in rural areas, SITRA for supply of improved toolkits to rural artisans, GKY (Ganga Kalyan Yojana) for groundwater irrigation, and the Million Wells Scheme. By the late 1990s these programmes overlapped heavily, ran separate accounts and produced scattered results, which is the reason they were consolidated.
What replaced TRYSEM: the scheme timeline
| Scheme | Period | What happened to it |
|---|---|---|
| TRYSEM (Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment) | 15 August 1979 to 31 March 1999 | Merged into SGSY |
| IRDP (Integrated Rural Development Programme) | 1978-79 pilot, nationwide from 2 October 1980, to 31 March 1999 | Merged into SGSY |
| SGSY (Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana) | 1 April 1999 onward | Single self-employment programme absorbing IRDP, TRYSEM, DWCRA, SITRA, GKY and the Million Wells Scheme. Restructured in 2011 and ceased to exist from 1 April 2013 after a transition period |
| NRLM / Aajeevika (National Rural Livelihoods Mission) | Launched 3 June 2011 | Restructured SGSY around self-help groups and institution building for the rural poor |
| DAY-NRLM (Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – NRLM) | Renamed November 2015, running now | The current programme; DDU-GKY is its placement-linked skill training component |
Read as a single line: TRYSEM 1979 to SGSY 1999 to NRLM 2011 to DAY-NRLM 2015.
Where a rural youth goes today instead of TRYSEM
Since TRYSEM is closed, the useful question is which scheme now does its job. Two parts of DAY-NRLM are the direct descendants.
- DDU-GKY, the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana, launched on 25 September 2014 under the Ministry of Rural Development. It is placement-linked skill training for poor rural youth aged 15 to 35, with a wage job at or above the minimum wage as the intended outcome. This is the closest modern equivalent to TRYSEM, with one important change: it is measured on placement, not on the number of people trained.
- RSETIs, the Rural Self Employment Training Institutes, run district by district with bank sponsorship for people who want to start their own small enterprise rather than take a job. They occupy the self-employment half of what TRYSEM used to do.
- Self-help group credit under DAY-NRLM has replaced the old individual subsidy-plus-loan model that IRDP used, which is the single biggest design change between the 1979 system and the present one.
Applications for these run through the state rural livelihood mission and the block office, not through a central portal, in the same district-level way TRYSEM once did.
Why TRYSEM was wound up
Evaluations through the 1990s pointed to the same set of problems: training that was not matched to what local markets would actually buy, a gap between finishing the course and receiving IRDP credit, unequal quality among approved training institutions, and a focus on training targets rather than on whether a trainee ended up earning anything. The scheme’s own implementation circulars are unusually frank about this, instructing officers to inspect every approved institution and to remove bogus ones from the district list.
SGSY in 1999 responded by rolling training, credit, subsidy, technology and marketing support into one programme organised around self-help groups, so that training was no longer a separate silo with its own targets and its own accounts.
References
- Rural Development Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, TRYSEM implementation guide (defunct schemes) – eligibility, quotas, stipend norms and the calendar of events.
- Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India – departmental history and current programmes.
- DAY-NRLM (Aajeevika) – the current rural livelihoods mission and DDU-GKY.
FAQs
What is the full form of TRYSEM?
TRYSEM stands for Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment. It was a centrally sponsored rural skill-training scheme of the Government of India, launched on 15 August 1979 by the Department of Rural Development and run through District Rural Development Agencies.
Is TRYSEM still running?
No. TRYSEM was merged into the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana with effect from 1 April 1999. SGSY was restructured as the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in June 2011 and renamed Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – NRLM in November 2015, which is the programme in force today.
What was the age limit for TRYSEM?
The target group was rural youth aged 18 to 35 from families below the poverty line. The lower limit was relaxed to 16 for inmates of rural orphanages, and the upper limit to 45 for widows, freed bonded labourers, freed convicts, cured leprosy patients and people displaced by large development projects.
What was the relationship between TRYSEM and IRDP?
TRYSEM was the training component of the Integrated Rural Development Programme. IRDP provided subsidy and bank credit for an income-generating asset, while TRYSEM trained the beneficiary in a trade first. A trainee who completed the course and received a certificate became eligible for IRDP assistance. Both were merged into SGSY in 1999.
Which scheme does the work of TRYSEM today?
DDU-GKY, the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana launched on 25 September 2014, is the closest current equivalent. It offers placement-linked skill training to poor rural youth aged 15 to 35 under DAY-NRLM. Rural Self Employment Training Institutes cover those who want to start their own enterprise instead.