Govt launches campaign to mobilise 1 crore rural women to join 'Self Help Group' movement

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday launched a national outreach campaign “Sangathan Se Samridhhi– Leaving no Rural Woman Behind” - that aims to form over 1 lakh self help groups (SHGs) in villages and mobilise nearly 1 crore women from eligible rural households to be a part of the groups till June 30.
Data available on the dashboard of the rural development ministry shows that under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) nearly 9 crore households have been mobilised into SHGs nationally so far. The total number of SHGs stands at over 83 lakhs.
Launching the special campaign on Tuesday, minister for rural development and panchayati raj, Giriraj Singh, said, “We are launching the “Sangathan Se Samriddhi” campaign to mobilize an additional 1 crore women to the 9 crore women already part of the SHG movement. Even then, let us not stop at 10 crore. Let us go beyond and ensure all rural women across the country join the SHG movement.”
“The rural population accounts for 65% of India’s total population. Hence, it is extremely important that women from these areas are accorded all possible opportunities to enable them to contribute significantly into making our country a 5 trillion economy,” he added.
This special drive gains significance in the backdrop that last month during a post budget webinar on “economic empowerment of women” Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought focus on the important role of SHGs at the grassroots and their contribution and potential. In her budget (2023) speech, the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that SHGs will be enabled to reach the next stage of economic empowerment through formation of large producer enterprises or collectives and they will be supported to scale-up to serve large consumer markets, as has been the case with several start-ups growing into “unicorns”.
According to a statement by the ministry of rural development the special drive launched on Tuesday aspires to bring all the vulnerable and marginalized rural households under the SHG fold to enable them to draw benefits provided under the programme. The aim is to forming more than 1.1 lakh SHGs till June end through interventions like organizing general body meetings of village organizations and experience sharing by SHG champions to motivate left out households to join SHGs, reviving defunct SHGs and creation of a common database of SHGs promoted by other stakeholders.