10 lakh women to be covered under RMK in next 3 yrs: Maneka

The Union Women and Child Development Ministry today set a target to cover at least 10 lakh women under Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK), a national credit fund for women, over the next three years.
This was announced by Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi at the 52nd Governing Board meeting of RMK which has been recently reconstituted to make it more effective.
"The RMK should assist women in various ways including training, marketing as well as financial assistance. At least 10 lakh women should be covered under RMK over the next three years," Gandhi said.
She asked the members to draw plans within a month to identify states and clusters along with timelines, the number of women and skills to be imparted as well as the financial assistance to be given.

The RMK should also identify partners already working in the field, to increase its outreach as suggested by the restructuring committee appointed earlier in August, 2014, Gandhi said.
The new members of RMK said they feel it is important to provide forward and backward linkages to make the projects taken up under RMK sustainable.

The members suggested that the targets and goals of RMK must be identified clearly to be achieved within a specified time and standard operating procedures should be developed for better management especially financial management of RMK.
Some members suggested that there is a great demand by banks for hiring of business correspondents in rural areas and this offers a big potential for generating employment for women.

Some of the other areas identified by the members include Information Technology and other soft skills, organic farming, plumbing, mobile repair, operating machines, among others.