Prime Minister on Thursday lauded women self-help groups for their “unprecedented services” during the pandemic period in making masks, sanitisers and providing food to needy and spreading awareness and asserted that the amount of help his Government provided under the National Livelihood Mission is “many times more than the previous Government”.
Modi said that the SHGs and Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana have brought a “new revolution in rural India.” He added this movement of women SHGs has intensified in the last 6-7 years and today there are 70 lakh SHGs across the country which is more than three times the figure during 6-7 years, he said.
Participating in ‘Atmanirbhar Narishakti se Samvad’ , the Prime Minister interacted with women SHG members/community resource persons promoted under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) via video conferencing.
During the event, a compendium of success stories of women SHG members from all across the country, along with a handbook on universalisation of farm livelihoods was released by the Prime Minister.
He also released capitalization support funds to the tune of Rs 1,625 Crore to over 4 lakh SHGs. In addition, he released Rs 25 crore as seed money for 7,500 SHG members under the PMFME (PM Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises) Scheme of Ministry of Food Processing Industries and Rs. 4.13 crore as funds to 75 FPOs (Farmer Producer Organizations) being promoted under the Mission.
Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Giriraj Singh; Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Pashupati Kumar Paras; Ministers of State-Rural Development, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Faggan Singh Kulaste; Minister of state – Panchayati Raj, Kapil Moreshwar Patil and Minister of state – Ministry of Food Processing Industry, Prahlad Singh Patel, were also present on the occasion.
The PM said that to increase the scope of entrepreneurship among women and for greater participation in the resolve of AatmaNirbhar Bharat, a major financial support has been given today to more than 4 lakh SHGs on the eve of Raksha Bandhan.
He recalled the time before this government when crores of the “sisters” did not have a bank account, they were miles away from the banking system. That is why the government started the massive campaign to open Jan Dhan accounts, he said.
He said today there are more than 42 crore Jan Dhan accounts of which close to 55% of the accounts are of women.