Parties to woo self-help groups

As campaigning for the forthcoming elections gathers steam, political parties are leaving no stone unturned to win over the 900,000 self-help groups operating in the country.

With these groups commanding the loyalty of almost 14 million women spread across the country, political parties have realised that they can ill-afford to ignore them.

What is drawing the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, the AIADMK, the Left parties to the self-help groups is the multiple benefits of leveraging these groups, especially in the rural areas.

The TDP has assiduously cultivated the self-help groups over the last few years and it expects to harvest a rich electoral crop in the next Assembly as well as the Lok Sabha elections.

Assuming that each of the 14 million women is able to influence at least four other members in a family, the number that the parties are aiming at is a whopping 56 million voters, roughly 5.6 per cent of the country's population.

Besides door-to-door visits, street corner meetings, mega rallies, yatras and road shows; political parties are devoting some of their energies to the focus on the self-help groups.

The self-help groups evolved to help the rural poor, especially women, to fight the malaise of poverty. The rural poor, living below the poverty line, are organised and nurtured by non-government organisations, farmers' clubs, local bodies, field personnel of government agencies and bank staff into self-help groups.

The four Southern states account for almost 60 per cent of the 900,000 self-help groups that have spawned during the last decade.

Andhra Pradesh alone has around 45 per cent of the estimated 540,000 self-help groups operating in the South.

Concerted efforts are now being made by other states to replicate the successful self-help groups experiment in South. Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh are some of the States where the Group learning formula is picking up.

"SHGs are spawning at the rate of almost 25 an hour. What this means is that almost 375-400 women become members every hour in various parts of India. Hence, the groups are a big opportunity for political parties to make out their case with the prospective voters," observers said.

It is estimated that the number of SHGs in India will shoot up from nine lakhs to 15 to 17 lakhs in the next three years.

Further the average loan size per SHG is expected to jump from the current Rs 28,560 to Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh.