Una cooperative society paves way for women’s empowerment

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Rajesh Sharma

Una, February 6

The Swan Women Multipurpose Cooperative Society (SWMCS) set up in Una district by a collective of women Self-Help Groups in November 2015 with the objective to provide micro finance facilities to the rural women has so far extended credit of over Rs 10 crore for livelihood generation activities.

The SWMCS is a sister concern of the Swan Women Federation, a collective of about 14,000 rural women in Una district, which continues to make possible the socio-economic empowerment of the rural women, without any government assistance.

In 2006, the state government had launched the ‘Swan River Integrated Watershed Management Project’ in short, referred to as Swan River IWMP with financial assistance from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The project aimed at addressing the problem of flooding of the swan river system and its catchment areas during monsoons.

Under the IWMP, water harvesting structures such as check dams were created to hold running water and to reduce its speed, thus giving it time to seep into the ground aquifer.

This also created green zones around the water bodies. The trapped water was used by the farmers for irrigation and fisheries.

A series of other infrastructure was also created in the villages in the catchment area of the River system and the user women were grouped into Self Help Groups (SHGs) to ensure continuity of the project objectives after the project was supposed to close down in 2014.

When the project was drawing to a close, there were about 425 SHGs in 50 panchayats of the district and the total membership of the women was about 5,000. Since the hand holding support of the project would not be available to the women after the exit of the project, they were Federated under an umbrella organisation, Swan Women Federation, which began its independent journey in 2014.

Subhadra Rani, elected chairperson of Swan Women Federation said like in other projects, this organisation too would have collapsed in the absence of support from the then Deputy Director of IWMP, RK Dogra. He, along with an advisory council, gradually helped build and sustain the Federation.

SWF general secretary Raman Kumari said after a 10-year journey, today the Federation has 1,008 SHGs in 104 panchayats of the district with a total membership exceeding 14,000, adding that the number of SHGs is increasing by the day.

She said in order to manage the micro finance activity of the SHGs, the SWMCS was formed in November 2015 and duly registered at the HP Cooperative department.

Raj Kumari, the president of SWMCS said their mandate is to provide credit facilities to the members at interest rates less than the banks and give them 1 per cent more interest on their savings, which could be in the form of savings account, fixed or recurring deposits. She informed that the members are given loans on the guarantee of their own group members and there are no cumbersome legal formalities involved.

SWMCS secretary Sunita Sharma said during the last nine years, the society has given over Rs 10 crore as loan to its members, adding that not a single loan has defaulted till date. She said the women take loan for requirements such as education of their children, income generation activities, constructing toilets, kitchens, cattle sheds, daughter’s marriage besides many others, which justifies our motto ‘Dedicated to women empowerment’.

Sunita Sharma said the working capital of the society today is over Rs 16 crore and in all financial audits conducted by the Cooperative department, the Society has earned “A+” grading.

Sunita Sharma said the Cooperative has resolved to start an educational institution which will include a school, vocational training center and personality development center to enable the children of the area, particularly the girls to get access to good quality education and overall personality development to be able to face the competitive world. She added that acknowledging the service of the Society towards rural women, the government has promised to provide land for the educational institution.