Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday announced that the State Government targeted for credit linkage of one lakh women self-help groups (SHGs) under the Odisha livelihoods Mission (OlM) with credit requirement of Rs1,000 crore during the current 2013-14 financial year.
Addressing the first governing body meeting of the OlM, the Chief Minister said that in order to make the poor people credit worthy and valued customers of the banks, the WSHGs would be given priority for bank linkage under the programme which aimed at poverty reduction and skilling.
The Chief Minister told newsmen that as per the provision under National Rural livelihood Mission (NRlM), it was also decided to provide interest subvention over and above the interest rate of 7 per cent per annum to reduce the interest burden to poor households, WSHGs and motivate them for regular payment. In the IAP districts, all women SHGs and non-IAP districts, the NRlM compliant will be eligible for additional three per cent interest subvention on prompt repayment.
Stating that the State Government has made further interest subvention reducing it to 2 per cent annual for all SHGs who would repay the loan in time, Patnaik said that this would help motivate more and more poor women to come into the SHG fold and access formal credit.
Informing that more than 70 lakh households will be supported through the SHGs and network of their community based institutions; the Chief Minister said that such groups would be provided with financial assistance up to Rs15, 000 as revolving funds. Besides, to meet their investment needs, loan of large size will be made available to them through their panchayat level federations.
He said that the State Government would provide placement linked skill development facilities to rural unemployed youths. “There is a target to train 50,000 rural youths and place at least 75 per cent of them in the organized sector during 2013-14,” he said.
Patnaik also informed that under the Mahila Kissan Sashaktikaran Pawriyojana, as many as 30,000 women farmers, mostly from the IAP districts, would be provided with different supports for promotion of agriculture based livelihoods under seven projects approved by the Union Ministry of Rural Development during the 2013-14.
He said that different pilot programmes will be undertaken to address issues like human trafficking, bonded labour , disability, migration, transgender and other such issues in order to achieve vulnerability reduction. To create scope for the Panchayati Raj institutions to play a significant role in implementation of rural livelihood programme as a mandate for poverty allegation, the OlM will facilitate convergence between the PRIs and community based organisations, he said.
Among others, Panchayati Raj Minister Kalpataru Das, Chief Secretary Jugal Kishore Mohapatra, Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) UN Behera, Secretaries of different departments and representatives from UNDP and NABARD attended the meeting.