Ministry wants alliance of self-help groups to improve SGSY

"We have been emphasising the need for creating federation of SHGs at various levels to improve their capacity, proper book-keeping of the records, which in turn would help in effectively accessing the bank finance.

Organising the poor into SHGs and federating them up to the national level has been identified as an important support activity of the ministry," an official said.

These federations are engaged in various activities such as social mobilisation, articulation of common concerns, organising awareness campaigns, undertaking procurement operations, provision of forward and backward linkages to marketing activities, they said.

At present, the main support activity of the ministry for marketing the products made by the SHGs is the SARAS fairs, which provide ideal venues to the rural masses below the poverty line (BPL) to sell their products directly to the buyers. Since 2003-04, the ministry has organised 93 SARAS fairs in different parts of the country. Officials said more than 29,000 rural SHGs/artisans have benefitted from these fairs.

There are also other constraints for the SHGs like their uneven spread across the country, inability to take up livelihood promotion as well as larger issues like gender and social inequality and women's empowerment, apart from limitation of promoters to provide capacity building and other necessary inputs at a desired scale in realising their potential.

Inability of banks to understand and accommodate the needs of these groups is another problem, officials said. The ministry wants to overcome all these problems by federating the SHGs.

A total of 28,35,772 SHGs have been formed under the SGSY, since its inception in April 1999 till March 2008. Of these, 23,29,528 were women SHGs which formed 82 per cent of the total groups formed.

More than 10 million people have been assisted during the period. So far, the total investment incurred since inception is Rs 22,099.30 crore. Of this, Rs 14,857. 41 crore is credit and Rs 7,241.9 crore is subsidy. The average per capita investment during the period stands at Rs 22,031.