Ghaziabad admin to bring women SHGs under umbrella body, announces plans

The officials said that they are now trying to bring the SHGs under an umbrella body at the block level. The district has four development blocks — Loni, Rajapur, Murad Nagar and Bhojpur.

The Ghaziabad administration on Independence Day announced that it is working to form a cluster of nearly 400 self-help groups (SHGs) of women that have come up in past several months.

The groups comprise nearly 4,000 women who have been joining SHGs to achieve financial independence. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

The groups comprise nearly 4,000 women who have been joining SHGs to achieve financial independence.

The officials said that they are now trying to bring the SHGs under an umbrella body at the block level. The district has four development blocks — Loni, Rajapur, Murad Nagar and Bhojpur.

“The idea is to strengthen these groups and also ensure that they gain from the businesses and experiences. Recently, we also outsourced food supply for three government hospitals in Ghaziabad to women’s SHGs. Under a new initiative, patients admitted to the hospitals will also get baked buns that will be supplied by Dasna jail inmates,” Ministhy S, district magistrate, said.

The health department officials said that the three hospitals — Sanjay Nagar, MMG and Women Hospital — require nearly 200 buns on a daily basis.

“The buns will be a part of the daily meal for patients. Further, to get rid of the issue of clean linen, a women’s SHG has been roped in for cleaning linen at Dasna community health centre. The food prepared by SHGs is supplied to patients in the morning, afternoon and night,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer, Ghaziabad.

The exercise to rope in women SHGs is to enable them to be financially stable and also to minimise dependence on contractors and middlemen, who often fail to provide quality and timely service.

Each SHG has 10-12 members, comprising women, in both rural and urban areas in the district. “The SHG is a small beginning that helps us earn money and not depend on men of the family. Our primary objective is to repay our loan first and then think of profits,” Sangeeta Devi, a member of an SHG from Loni, said.

“We generate an income of nearly Rs15,000 per month by selling our bakery products. It was our first priority to repay our loan, which we have done. Now, we are looking for tie-ups with other SHGs to sell our products and mutually benefit each other,” Vimal Pal, an SHG member from Dasna, said.

The DM said that the administration has also initiated a process to provide green vegetables to Dasna jail inmates with the help of SHGs run by women. If the proposal is cleared, an SHG will be selected to grow fresh vegetables for supply to jail. As per norms, jail authorities don’t purchase vegetables from the open market and procure it from higher jails.

“The Dasna jail procures vegetables from the Meerut jail but often, the supply of green vegetables is hampered. We require nearly nine quintals of green vegetables. We have written to our headquarters to seek permission for selecting an SHG,” Dadhiram Maurya, superintendent at Dasna jail, said.