Following that adage, village women transform their lives
THE Andhra Pradesh government has accorded priority to women's empowerment as part of its agenda to tackle rural poverty and socioeconomic issues.The Self Help movement through thrift and savings has kicked off as a mass movement by women—a path they've chosen to shape their future.The development agenda of the state in the past few years had been to place the poor,especially women, at the forefront. This facilitated the formation of a large number of Self Help groups throughout the state.
More than 20 lakh women from poor families are members of such groups, with the majority of them saving a rupee a day.On its part, the state government is assisting these groups by providing revolving funds under the Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) scheme.About Rs 125 crore was sanctioned to 79,000 groups covering 11.25 lakh women as revolving funds against their savings of Rs 120 crore. About 40 per cent of the DWCRA groups in the country are in Andhra Pradesh alone.
Interestingly, the ripe groups now feel there is a need to form networks to share information, resources and wisdom.The networking effort is also evolutionary in nature where the groups get together at a village or mandal level and later graduate to form a formal or structured federation.
Such a federation is key to savings and retention of local surplus within the region. There are very few outlets for small savings, especially in rural areas.Tiny deposits don't interest nationalised banks. So,a local,reliable and self-managed scheme alone can fulfill the important social need. Further, this need is important for women who are dominantly without assets and have little personal finan-cial security. Moreover, women usually are denied institutional credit, for they lack assets to mortgage and appear non-creditworthy. There's also the perception that loans to rural
women are used in emergencies. It's true that some loans are taken for lean-season consumption and emergency expenses such as hos-pitalisation.But there are valid uses too.A sig-nificant proportion of loans operates to compensate for unpaid labour. Thus, funds are used either for water connections,gas stoves, education expenses,roof-tiling or flooring.
Hence the need to encourage women to organise themselves for a better tomorrow. On forming a society, they should register it under one of the enactments.The voluntary formation of a society enables individuals to collectively satisfy their felt needs.
Meanwhile,the socio-economic survey of such groups conducted by the District Rural Development Agencies (DRDAs) indicated that DWCRA schemes helped women earn additional monthly incomes ranging from Rs 250 to Rs 2,000,depending on the Micro Enterprise Activities taken up by them.Apart from economic betterment of the families, the women have taken the initiative to improve their socioeconomic status by participating in governmental programmes, family welfare, promoting children's nutritional and educational status,awareness of environment, public health programmes through sanitation and clean drinking water.
The survey on 14.17 lakh women reveals that 56.85 per cent of them are in the reproductive age group (19-35 years). And of them,34 per cent belong to SCs,9.1 per cent to STs, 39.9 per cent to BCs and only 16 per cent to other castes.As far as savings are concerned, about 80 per cent of the women are from poor families and their percentage of savings is 92.97 per cent.They do have the regular thrift habit.
Now, who's a Self Help group member? She is a) an agricultural labourer, b) a fruit, vegetable, fish vendor, c) a stone-crusher in the quarry,d) a basket maker,e) a petty shopkeeper,f) a brick maker,g) a construction wor-ker,h) a farmer in the field,i) a manager of milch cattle at home, j) a weaver,k) a potter l) and a provider for her family.