The West Bengal State Rural Livelihood Mission, known as Anandadhara, is a flagship poverty alleviation program aimed at empowering rural households.

The Government of India has launched The National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) under the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). In West Bengal, NRLM has been launched as ANANDADHARA on 17th May, 2012. With the focussed intervention of the State Government, Department of Panchayats and Rural Development through Anandadhara (West Bengal State Rural Livelihoods Mission) has been acting as a pivotal organization in accelerating women empowerment through formation of Self Help Groups (SHGs) in the State since 2011. The vision of the Government is to eradicate rural poverty by enabling the poor households to access gainful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities, resulting in appreciable improvement in their livelihoods on a sustainable basis as well as improvement in the rural economy.

The National Rural Economic Transformation Project (NRETP) is the World Bank funded project under which National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) is working very closely with the State Rural Livelihoods Mission for entrepreneurship promotion and development amongst the rural women with the vision of enabling them to increase their household income through sustainable livelihood enhancements and improved access to financial services.

Van Dhan an initiative targeting livelihood generation for tribal people by harnessing the wealth of forest as a measure to support MFP market development and ensuring fair returns to the tribal gatherers Ministry of Tribal affairs has already been implementing schemes on mechanism for marketing of minor forest products through minimum support price and also develop value chain for this type of products.