Monday, July 6, 2009

50 Per Cent of all rural women proposed to be enrolled in self help groups, corpus of Rashtriya Mahila Kosh to be raised to 500 crore in next five yrs

SWARNA JAYANTI GRAM SWAROZGAR YOJNA TO BE RESTRCUTURED AS THE NATIONAL RURAL LIVELIHOOD MISSION 

BUDGET 2009-10 

The Government proposed to enroll at least 50% of all rural women, in the country, as members of Self Help Groups (SHG) over the next five years, and link these SHGs to banks. This was announced by the Union Finance Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, while presenting the Budget for 2009-10 in Parliament today. He said that the Women’s SHG movement is bringing about a profound transformation in rural areas, and today over 22 lakh such groups are linked with banks. 

The Union Finance Minister stated that the corpus of the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh would be raised to Rs. 500 crore from the exiting Rs. 100 crore, in recognition of its role as an instrument of socio-economic change and development. He said that this Kosh has been working towards the facilitation of credit support or micro finance to poor women and has developed a number of innovative schemes for their benefit. 

Shri Pranab Mukherjee also announced in his speech that the Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojna (SGSY) is being restructured as the National Rural Livelihood Mission to make it universal in application focused in approach and time bound for poverty eradication by 2014-15. Here, also, stress will be laid on the formation of Women SHGs. Apart from providing capital subsidy at an enhanced rate, it is also proposed to provide interest subsidy to poor households for loans upto Rs. One lakh from banks.

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