 "Sonia promises special livelihood package for North East, hill states")
As general elections draw close, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is considering rolling out a host of packages. The scheme Gandhi mentioned is likely to be part of this raft of schemes.
She was speaking at a function to mark the second anniversary of Aajivika or National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), a revised version of the Swarna Jayanti Grameen Swarojgar Yojana which was originally started by the NDA government in 1999 .
''In the next ten years we have to bring seven crore families out of poverty. This is not an easy job,’’ Gandhi said adding that the self help group based programme funded by World Bank has proved to be an effective instrument for social and economic empowerment of women in villages.
She lauded the programme for liberating thousands of women financially. ''No other country has a livelihood programme of this size and scale,’’ she said, adding that ''You have proved that this programme can liberate women from poverty and it is a liberation that is self made and not dependent on the mercy of others…’’
The self help based programme provides loans upto Rs 10 lakh to groups of women and on repayment rewards them with a bigger loan at an interest rate which was recently slashed to 7%.
Referring to the interest slashing, she said: The UPA has taken one more important decision to provide a three lakh loan on seven% interest.
Any group that repays on time would get additional reduction of 3% on interest, she said. She also referred to the Women’s Bank announced by the Union Budget and said: The bank would be run by women with a capital of Rs 1,000 crore. It would give service only to self help groups (SHG), she said.
She also announced that a special package of the programme was being readied for North East and hill states like Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal.
She referred to the recent Cabinet decision to slash the interest rate of loans given to self help groups under Aajivika to 7%. She said that those who repaid on time would get a further reduction of 3% on the interest charged.
She said the women’s bank announced in the Union Budget would soon be in place to cater only to self help groups.