Chief Minister Raghubar Das, reiterating the commitment of his Government to tackle poverty in the State, has set a deadline of four years to complete the daunting task. The commitment has also come with a specific plan which includes empowering women through multi-facet income generation right at the village levels.
The CM in his address to the silver jubilee celebration of NABARD’s Self Help Group-Bank linkage Programme also outlined the role of the Government in providing market places for the items produced by the rural women entrepreneurs.
“The Government is going to launch JOHAR scheme with Rs 1200 crore in which 1000 panchayats out of total around 4000 would be targeted first. The resource persons would indentify 15-20 poorest families in every village and help them becoming self-employed. We have also directed hospitals, schools and offices here to purchase items such as blankets, bed-sheets, towels apart from egg, lac, tusar etc from the Sakhi Mandals. This massive drive is sure to bring all BPl persons above poverty line in four years,” said the CM on Friday.
He went on adding that in the next three months 4.80 lakh Sakhi Mandals or Women SHGs would be linked with the programme that in the process would solve marketing issues involved. “The idea is to promote ‘Made in Jharkhand’ which is aimed to help the last man in the queue under Antyodaya ideology. 12000 farmers would be trained as master trainers who would train more farmers down the line,” said the CM.
Das, on the occasion, also called on the financial institutions to help the people with accessible loans, especially to the SHGs that can alone reduce poverty in the State. “SHGs have their reach to the poorest living in villages. Role of banks is extremely important. You should understand that the loans given to the SHGs have near complete repayment rate,” said Das in the presence of Additional Chief Secretary Amit Khare, NABARD Chief General Manager Subrata Mandal, RBI’s Regional Director Patrick Barla and GM of SlBC Prashad Joshi.
The CM also referred to the decision of the Government to run rural bus service under ‘Stand-up India’ initiative and informed that TATA Motors has been ordered to supply 364 buses for that. Unlike before, the buses would be given to individuals to operate that would ensure timely repayments to the banks.
Amit Khare underlined the areas such as dairy, poultry, goatery and piggery which have immense potential to increase cash income to the rural households. “Focus of the Government in the last 2.5 years has been on rural areas, especially improving income of women. We produced agriculture and gender budgets for this purpose only. Small steps taken in the direction of income generation can lead to poverty alleviation,” he said.
The CGM of NABARD said that out of over 2.5 lakh SHGs over one lakh were yet to be given credit linkages through bank microfinance. He added that the efforts were on to digitise the entire microfinance system functional through SHGs. Groups, promoters and banks performing excellently in different districts were also facilitated on the occasion.