Nearly 50,000 women from BPL families in Himachal Pradesh have been integrated into mainstream through 9146 Self Help Groups (SHG) under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), an official spokesperson said.
The National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) was implemented in five blocks of Kandagaht, Mandi Sadar, Nurpur, Haroli and Basantpur which were selected as Intensive Blocks, the spokesperson said.
The remaining non-intensive blocks would be covered in a phased manner in next four years, he added.
The NRLM was made operational in the state from April 2013 and the Centre has approved Rs 1492.11 lakh since the inception of programme of which Rs 333 lakh was state share.
Initially, the NRLM would cover all the BPL families and later families which are marginally above poverty line would be selected through the process of participatory identification of poor by organizing them into SHGs.
Under the programme, these groups have been linked with banks for micro-financing which would provide a loan of Rs 2-3 lakh at 7 per cent interest to each SHG for initially starting its venture and it would be repeated upto Rs 10 lakh depending on performance of the group.
In Shimla and Mandi districts, banks will lend loans upto Rs 3 lakh to all women SHGs at 7 per cent interest and these SHGs will also get additional interest subvention of 3 per cent on regular repayment of loan, reducing the effective rate of interest to 4 percent.
As of today, 6345 SHGs have been linked with banks providing them credit of Rs 59.09 crore against target of Rs 148 crore and revolving fund of Rs 2.97 crore has also been distributed amongst the groups by the Rural Development Department.
The major focus during the year 2015-16 would be on social mobilization, institution building, and communisation and to create human resource, the spokesman said.
