The Hindu Business Line : World Bank to expand support to SHGs

THE World Bank and the Andhra Pradesh Government on Sunday agreed to expand the scope of the rural empowerment programme for women's self-help groups (SHGs) and allow further lending for greater development. This was a follow-up to a series of visits to rural areas by a team from the World Bank undertaken under the `Andhra Pradesh Immersion Programme.'

The team headed by Mr Praful Patel, Vice-President, World Bank, South East Asia, and the Country Director, Mr Michael Carter, said that they want to replicate in other States and other countries what they had witnessed in Andhra Pradesh.

After a recent visit to Andhra Pradesh, the World Bank President, Mr Paul Wolfowitz, has not stopped praising the women's self-help groups and how they have transformed through empowerment, Mr Patel said.

The visit by the bank team assumes importance, given that the State Government has shown renewed interest to continue the work carried out by these groups.

It is estimated that about 45 per cent of the women's SHGs in the country are based in the State.

The Chief Minister, Dr Y. S. Rajashekhara Reddy, said that the State Government had embarked upon a major project to construct about 40 lakh houses for the poor.

As part of this effort, it had completed about 6.5 lakh houses in the first year.

The State is also confident of meeting the target of 8 lakh houses this year.

However, Dr Reddy said that this alone would not help, as the focus of the State Government is now to bring about holistic development of villages. Once this is achieved, the people themselves would be empowered.

They would have better environs to live in, which would also address their healthcare needs.

Mr Patel said that it was the most energising and humbling experience to interact with these women who are seeking ways to change their lives with revolving credit.

They are gradually getting independent and have begun to send their children to school as against earlier practice of training them as wage earners.

Mr Carter said that the efforts should be made in marketing, building up the value chain and harnessing the enormous power of these self-help groups. The State Rural Development Minister, Mr D. Srinivas, said that the revolving corpus of Rs 330 crore for these SHGs had gone up to Rs 1,200 crore last year and is now estimated at Rs 2,000 crore.

This reflects how the SHG movement has gathered momentum.

For a while, many of the participants were not clear of what the Andhra Pradesh Immersion programme meant.

It was later clarified that the World Bank team, along with various projects leads coming from other States, including Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Rajasthan, and representatives from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, would get a first hand input on the progress made by self-help groups.

It would also explore how some of the best practices could be replicated.

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