The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
BHUBANESWAR, MAR 15, 2023
Odisha Mission Shakti Department Secretary Sujata R Karthikeyan on Wednesday lauded the role played by the Odisha Regional Office of NABARD in the promotion of the self help groups (SHGs) in Odisha and livelihood generation.
Speaking at a programme organised here today by NABARD Odisha to mark International Women’s Day, the Mission Shakti Secretary highlighted intervention of the Odisha Government in promotion and empowerment of SHGs. She also raised concern about gender inequality and disparity, while sharing the latest statistics. She further said that the Mission Shakti is socially emancipating through lending of Rs.50,000 crore loans by 2025 to boost the livelihood activities of rural women.
In his address, NABARD Odisha Regional Office Chief General Manager C Udayabhaskar shared in detail various support schemes of NABARD for empowerment of rural women through MEDPs, LEDPs, SHGs, JLGs, FPOs, OFPOs, Wadi, watershed, financial and digital literacy camps, sanitary literacy campaign, save water campaign etc.
Stressing the need to triple the volume of credit to women entrepreneurs/ farmers he said this would enable them to take up various remunerative livelihood activities for doubling their family income. He also suggested drawing a roadmap to graduate SHG members into micro entrepreneurs. The NABARD Odisha chief also urged banks to consider extending credit to SHGs through term loans mode.
FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) Chairperson Namrita Chahal emphasised upon the current status of branding and marketing of SHG products and exploration of various routes for marketing opportunities for better returns. She also emphasised that the society at large should always be concerned and sensitive towards the needs, requirements of women and come forward to support the overall development of women.
Prof. Dr. Nibedita Pani, Director, PGIMER & Capital Hospital, Bhubaneswar stressed the overall development of SHG women through taking care of health, sanitation and access to facilities.
SLBC Convenor Goutam Patra lauded the bankers for lending to the SHGs and also appreciated the NABARD intervention in overall improvement of SHGs. He assured that more initiatives would be taken by the banks to enhance the loan ticket size up to Rs.4lakh per SHG.
The SHG micro-entrepreneurs shared their experiences and expressed gratitude for the support received from NABARD.
A documentary video prepared on graduation of SHGs into small micro-enterprises wasalso released during the occasion.
More than 100 women micro-entrepreneurs from 21 districts participated in the event. Of them 21 who transformed themselves into ‘Change Agents’ and contributed for the overall development of the society, were felicitated.
