Centre to promote women SHG products to revamp village economy

NEW DELHI: In a bid to revamp village economy by bringing women into mainstream economic activities, the Centre plans to take more steps to promote products of women self-help groups across the country.

By strengthening women self-help groups, rural poverty can be eradicated easily and overall development of village economy can be achieved, the government said.

"The Centre is taking all steps for effective and decentralised marketing of SHG products in the country," Union Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said today.

"The Government will soon announce a scheme to organise the largest ever Haat in Delhi where Self-Help Groups can sell their products at reasonable prices," he said at a function to give the first ever awards to best performing SHGs and village organisations.

Informing that at present there are 29 lakh women SHGs with a membership of over 3.40 crore, Tomar said, "The Centre is spending Rs 3,000 crore per year for capacity building programmes of SHGs. Banks disburse around Rs 30,000 crore as loans to these groups."

Pushing for expansion of self-help groups in the country, the Union Minister said SHG movement can check migration from rural areas caused due to poverty and unemployment.

Speaking at the same event, Union Minister of State for Rural Development Ram Kripal Yadav said by bringing in women into the mainstream of economic activities, the government can achieve its purpose of overall development in the country.