Selling nutritional food supplements and introducing ‘barefoot’ health workers are among the new entrepreneur development programmes proposed to be promoted among women self-help group members in GVMC where bank linkages are not translating into improvement of livelihood.
Though Rs.241 crore was extended to around two lakh women members of urban SHGs in 2015-16 through bank linkage, only 8,000 units are being run by the women, each investing around Rs.30,000. The units have been documented and uploaded.
An in-house survey last year found that most of the assistance through bank linkages is going towards consumption meeting the needs of the members of the groups rather than helping them improve their livelihood through self-employment or some business. It covered 12,005 of the 23,000 groups in GVMC and said that a mere 17,559 members had invested, 34,000 proposed to invest and 78,000 did not show any interest.
Rising cost of education, healthcare and meeting other family needs are attributed to most of the bank linkage going towards consumption. The ultimate goal of financing through self-help groups is to improve the means of livelihood of poorer sections.
“To improve the entrepreneurial abilities we intend to provide them training through APITCO and ALEAP. One of the new initiatives is to make them take up selling of nutritional supplements like ‘ragi laddu’ and other millet-based food, sprouts and selling ragi malt on the Beach Road,” says UCD Project Director D. Srinivasan.
Training
Training to some groups had already been given by the Home Science Department of St. Joseph's College here. The idea is to sell the nutritional supplements in educational institutes.
Another activity is introduction of health workers on the lines of ‘barefoot’ doctors in slums after capacity building through Red Cross. They will basically check blood pressure and sugar count so as to increase health awareness among people.
SHG members run units like small provisions stores, pan kiosks, tailoring units and other petty businesses to earn a living.
“The target is to promote at least 20,000 units to improve livelihood this year,” says Mr. Srinivasan.
This year the bank linkage is expected to be between Rs.250 crore and Rs.270 crore.
The SHG women have to meet the cost of the units through the bank linkage given to the group which is shared equally by the group members.
New entrepreneur development programmes proposed for the groups
