Rawat govt plans cash boost to 10K SHGs
Eyeing the votes of nearly 50 lakh women in Uttarakhand, the Congress government in the state is planning budgetary aids to more than women 10,000 Self Help Groups (SHGs), at a cost of about `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 `25-30 crore, with MNREGA SHGs getting around `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, fishfarming 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 include construction of post-harvest warehouses for food grains. The government will provide `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.