Kudumbashree will start She Lodge enterprises in all cities in the State in the 2020-21 financial year.

Projects for ₹1,550 crore have been announced for Kudumbashree in the Budget presented by Minister for Finance T.M. Thomas Isaac on Friday. Besides a budgetary allocation of ₹250 crore, ₹200 crore will be made available to Kudumbashree from the Rebuild Kerala Initiative for livelihood ventures.

Including the assistance from local self-government institutions, the total outlay for Kudumbashree comes to ₹600 crore. Centrally sponsored schemes for urban areas amounting to ₹950 crore are also being implemented through Kudumbashree.

Bank loans

Neighbourhood group members will be given bank loans totalling ₹3,000 crore at 4% interest. Besides 5,000 new labour initiatives, 14 tribal micro projects on the Alappuzha model will be launched.

Kudumbashree will start 200 Kerala Chicken outlets and 50 hotels with a daily turnover of ₹30,000 a day. It will also manage 500 toilet complexes.

A significant initiative is bio group farming on 20,000 acres of land and 1,000 green initiatives in partnership with Haritha Karma Sena. Kudumbashree home shops will be rolled out in all districts based on the Kozhikode model.

In a boost to its women empowerment initiatives, 500 gender resource centres will be started. It will also start an internship programme. Kudumbashree will also be part of a programme to give employment to 1.5 lakh people a year through local ventures in the non-agrarian sector. These will be started through local self-government institutions.

Kudumbashree Chits will also be started this financial year.

The Kudumbashree membership had increased from 40 lakh to 45 lakh, the Minister said.

Bank linkage loan available to Kudumbashree increased from ₹5,717 crore in the period from 1998-99 to 2015-16 to over ₹10,500 crore from 2016-17 till now. The number of labour-oriented ventures rose to 23,453 from 10,177, and the number of agricultural groups to 68,000 from 54,000.