German help for Bengal workers

Four women met German Chancellor Angela Merkel on her visit to Mumbai.

For four women members belonging to self-help groups (SHGs) from villages of West Bengal, meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the experience of a lifetime.

The four were in Mumbai recently to showcase their art form in an exhibition visited by Merkel. Their trip was sponsored by Nabard (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development).

Each of the four SHGs received £200 from the Chancellor as a token of appreciation.

However, for the four women, their maiden flight from Kolkata to Mumbai was more important than any token of appreciation.

Lina Mana, a member of the Netaji SHG from a remote village of West Medinipore, was wary of travelling on a plane, as she had never stepped out of her village before. However, back home, she is a confident entrepreneur, as she regrets not having scrapped the old price tag while selling her hand-woven mat to the German delegate accompanying Merkel.

"I could not interact with freely with her this time because I do not know English. Next time I meet her, I will be better prepared and more importantly, I will scrap the price tag," she says.

After being exploited several times by local money lenders soon after her husband lost his limbs in an accident, Mana got a new lease of life when she enroled in mat-weaving classes sponsored by Nabard. Life has changed for Mana since then, as she earns Rs 50 a day now. The mats stitched by her are now not purchased by local middlemen, but are sold directly to wholesalers.

Lina now has more than Rs 6,500 in her UBI bank account. She is planning to take a loan from the bank for a stitching machine to expand her business.

Similar is the story of Dipali Sen from a village in North-24 Parganas, who used to make dolls with the help of an SHG in 2000. The eleven members of her SHG started saving Rs 20 per week at the State Bank of India and now have a credit limit of Rs 2 lakh from the bank.

The group has diversified into bamboo, jute and kantha items now, and their monthly income ranges between Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000. Sen now supervises about 400 artisans in an artisan cluster at Shantiniketan.

Fultushi, a brass and bell metal craft worker from a remote village of the Burdhwan district and Mousumi, a graduate from a remote village from Birbhum, were the other SHG members who met Merkel.

Fultushi was shy and feeble when she left for Mumbai, say Nabard officials.

However, now she desires to go Germany to sell her brass products as they were in heavy demand in Mumbai.

The four groups in total earned about Rs 4,000 from their exhibition in Mumbai, which was initially not meant for sale.

According to recent estimates, the total number of Self-Help Groups in West Bengal is close to 380,000, with about 5.3 million members. Of these, nearly 142,000 groups obtained loan from banks on the strength of their own savings last fiscal.

According to state finance minister Asim Dasgupta, the number of SHGs is likely to exceed 700,000, with more than 7 million members by 2008-09.

Nearly 150,000 SHGs are likely to be formed in the state this year with job potential for about 450,000 villagers.