October 13, 2019
Empowerment of rural women – Priority of Bangla Govt
Empowerment of rural women has been one of the focus areas of the Bangla Government in the last 8 years. To make them economically self-sufficient, the women have been encouraged to form self-help groups.
Around 70 lakh poor women in Bangla have been mobilised into 5.5 lakh credit linked Self Help Groups (SHGs). SHG portfolio has also grown from meagre Rs 674.41 crore in 2012-13 to Rs 8200 crore in 2017-18.
Interest subsidy of Rs 157.91 crore was provided to 3,70,137 Self Help Groups (SHGs) under West Bengal Swanirbhar Sahayak Prakalpa (WBSSP).
In 2017, Bangla Government started a special scheme to help people set up chicken and duck farms. Families, specially women, were given free chickens, and baby goats and pigs, for rearing and selling.
Incidentally, Bangla is number one in the country in financing self-help groups (SHG) in the cooperative sector. In financial year 2018-19, the State provided credit to 97,000 SHGs, far ahead of the number two State. Currently there are 2.2 lakh SHGs which are beneficiaries of loans provided by cooperative banks.
