Eyeing women voters, Rawat govt plans cash boost to self-help groups
The state goes to poll early next year and the strengthening of the SHG groups will provide means of employment and livelihood opportunities to more than a lakh families.
Eyeing the votes of nearly fifty lakh women in Uttarakhand, the Harish Rawat government in the state is planning budgetary aids to more than women 10,000 Self Help Groups (SHGs), at a cost of about Rs 25-30 crore.
According to a plan mooted by the state rural development department and subsequently stamped by chief minister Harish Rawat, as many as 10,100 women SHGs will be given monetary and other aid to ensure the success of chief minister’s Women Self Help Group Empowerment (WSHGE) Scheme.
The state goes to poll early next year and the strengthening of the SHG groups will provide means of employment and livelihood opportunities to more than a lakh families.
According to principal secretary to the chief minister Manisha Panwar, 4,000 SHGs will be roped in for livelihood preservation under MNREGA, 3,000 each would come under community investment fund and seed capital, and 100 SHGs will get a special financial package for running Indira Amma Canteens across the state.
Rural development additional secretary YK Pant said the overall cost for the programme would come to around Rs 25-30 crore, with MNREGA SHGs getting around Rs 5-8 crore and the rest going to the other groups.
Panwar said the main areas of focus for MNREGA SHGs will be agro-forestry, horticulture, sericulture, developing nurseries, cattle sheds, bio fertilisers, fish-farming and other means of livelihood that will support the groups and their members to create their own assets in due course of time. It will also include construction of post-harvest warehouses for food grains.
Under community investment fund, the government will provide Rs 20,000 to each of the 3,000 reconstituted and newly created SHGs under this plan for starting their works till their micro-credit plan and credit money is approved and disbursed by the banks.
Another major component of WSHGE is to open and run 100 new Indira Amma subsidized food canteens in the state, subject to the condition that urban or rural local bodies will have to provide basic infrastructural facilities like furniture and adequate spaces for the same.
As per Panwar, under seed capital programme, WSHGE will provide Rs 5,000 to each of the 3000 reconstituted or newly formed SHGs for opening their bank accounts and starting the works. Later, these women SHGs will be able to seek banks’ helps for loans of their proposed projects.
