Cooperative movement shows way to self-help groups
| The good old cooperative movement is much better for empowering women than the aimlessly mushrooming self-help groups. |
| Padma of Karapalli village in Ganjam district, Orissa, is an example of what micro credit could do if only they took a leaf from the cooperative movement in the state. |
| For here Padma was a beneficiary of not just credit from a cooperative bank but also received training from the National Cooperative Union of India's (NCUI) cooperative education project for women on what could be done with the money. |
| Padma, who was earning a living by working as a house help, bought a sewing machine taking a Rs 5,000-loan from the Laxmi Narayan Mahila Multi-purpose Cooperative Societies. She did not have a clue that it would turn her into a business woman from a helpless widowed mother of three children. |
| She was again sanctioned Rs 10,000 to undertake small business along with the tailoring work after two years of the first loan. She is now doing garment business which fetches her around Rs 40,000 annually. |
| Padma was a member of a self-help group and was also getting small credit from a cooperative society. The NCUI's Cooperative education project for women in Behrampur besides making her a part of a self help group and linking her to a bank loan also provided the required capacity building. |
| The NCUI has three more similar projects in Shimoga , Bhopal and Imphal. Behrampur and Shimoga were the first projects launched by the centre in 1995. Chabita Padihari of Rajanapalli village in Chhatrapur village is another beneficiary. |
| A landless woman, Chabita was cultivating groundnut by taking land on lease in the village. She could earn Rs 8,000 in a single crop in half a hectare. "It could be possible only when we formed the Raja Laxmi Mahila Multi-purpose Cooperative Society on the advice of the instructors of the NCUI project,'' Chabita said. |
| Gayatri Gouda of Lathi village along with 20 women of Lathi, located on the outskirts of Berhampur is making agarbati (incense) sticks by taking loans from the society. |
| The marketing of the agarabati sticks is done by Sunil Products, a cottage industry in Berhampur. |
| "It fetches me an income of about Rs 50 to Rs 70 per day," said Manjari Behera of the same village. The agarbati-making training was given by the NCUI project under Nabard's Micro Entrepreneurship Development Programme. |
| Till March this year, 454 SHGs have been formed by the project in at least 100 villages of eight blocks in Ganjam district, says Anita Panda project officer, NCUI. |
| They have mobilised Rs 1.72 lakh as their thrift and about Rs 2.11 crore was disbursed among the needy members of SHGs as loan through the Berhampur Cooperative Central Bank. ncui.nic.in |