PM announces Rs1,625 cr for women self-help groups

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 12

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday interacted with members of women self-help groups (SHGs) across the country through video-conference and released capitalisation support funds to the tune of Rs 1,625 crore to over 4 lakh SHGs.

Besides, he released Rs 25 crore as seed money for 7,500 SHG members under the PMFME (PM Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises) of Union Food Processing Industries and Rs 4.13 crore as funds to 75 FPOs (Farmer Producer Organisations) being promoted under the National Livelihood Mission.

Modi also announced that now the limit for loans available to self-help groups without guarantee has been doubled to Rs 20 lakh.

“The condition of linking your savings accounts with the loan account has also been done away with,” Modi said.

The event in which he interacted with SHG members was christened “Aatmanirbhar Narishakti se Samvad”. These members/community resource persons are promoted under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM).

He released a compendium of success stories of women SHG members along with a handbook on universalisation of farm livelihoods.

The PM noted the contribution by these SHGs in making masks and sanitisers and providing food to the needy and spreading awareness.

“The participation of women and their empowerment is essential for true realisation self-sufficiency by the country,” he added.

He said the earlier governments did not promote women SHGs to the extent needed.

“My government started the massive campaign to open Jan Dhan accounts,” Modi said, adding that today there are more than 42 crore Jan Dhan accounts of which close to 55 per cent of the accounts are of women.

He said the bank accounts were opened to make it easy to take loans from banks. He lauded the honesty of women in the SHGs.