Modern Treads In Sustainable Rural Livelihoods

Agriculture can be a means of income only for a part of the year-for some seasons but for the rest of the time the farmers migrate to towns to find jobs such as Rickshaw pulling, etc. While men migrate in search of jobs during agriculture off-season, they leave behind women and children. A majority of poor families belong to small and marginal farmers’ category (one acre and less than one acre land holdings). Absence of irrigation facilities further adds to their misery. To solve such problems women come together and form groups as to reduce their problems and worries and to earn a good amount of money to support their families with the help of Self Help Groups.

Self help groups WOMEN SELF-help groups (SHG) in rural areas of India have brought several thousands of uneducated women out of the confines of their homes and enabled them to gain not only considerable economic independence, but also an identity and collective voice. The SHG model was initiated by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in the early 1990s. SHG model links informal groups of women in rural areas to the mainstream banking system. As these women are illiterate and lack confidence to transact with commercial banks, nongovernment and social welfare agencies step in as intermediaries. Supervisors from these institutions ensure that the women have the means and the discipline to repay the loans and more importantly, they can conduct the transactions independently. So, they encourage the group to elect their leader and build common group savings for a few months. The group leader, who is educated enough to read and write, collects the members’ savings and records it in registers. The members are told to borrow from the pool and pay back through regular, periodic payments and keep a record of the transactions. Once this fund grows and the supervisor has endorsed the group’s credit worthiness, the bank grants those loans.

Often, the women who manage the groups are Anganwadi workers. Being the hub of so many activities helps them. The supervisors know each family personally; their problems, background, everything. It helps to identify the cohesiveness of the group, which is essential in forming a wellknit self-help group. The members use the loan to start such new ventures as vegetable vending, tailoring, beedi-rolling and agarbatti making or merely to clear old loans or buy consumer products. Kalpatharu Grameena Bank as well as other regional rural banks avail 100 per cent refinance from National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) at 65 per cent per annum and lend to self-help groups at about 12.5 per cent. The SHGs are free to charge their members any amount of interest acceptable to everyone. “Several NGOs provide the self-help groups with vocational training. This helps them decide what to do and do it efficiently. Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) at Kumbalgodu provided training on silkworm rearing to some of the SHGs two years ago. The ’Navodaya SelfHelp Group’ in Tagachaguppe village was able to get a loan of Rs 50,000. Some of its members utilized it to rear silkworms and send it to the neighboring Ramanagaram, one of the well-known silk industry centers in the state.

Case study Poverty unemployment, communal tension…these are the hallmarks of the old city of Hyderabad. But a slow revolution is creeping in the slums of the old city. With the help of NGOs, women in 125 slums are taking advantage of the changing scenario to bring cheer to their families. Out of the 800 odd notified slums in the city, women in 125 slums have formed around 225 self-help groups to extend credit facility to needy members. The members of these self-help groups are successful running credit societies for the past few years and their current membership stands at 4500. The result - happy homes, self employment and communal harmony. Moreover various credit societies operating in different slums have come together to form an umbrella credit society called “Roshan Vikas”. This society has its office quite close to the historic landmark ‘Charminar’ in the old city. The Roshan Vikas helps the women to secure big loans at reasonable interest rates. The membership procedure is quite simple. In every slum 10-15 women come together and form a self-help group. Contributing Rs. 30 per woman, who is very nominal, the group saves Rs. 750

per month. This amount is offered as loan to members of the group at 2 per cent interest rate, much lower than the market rate which varies from 5 per cent to 16 per cent and sometimes depending on the need of the borrower it may be as high as 25 per cent There are several success stories of women in slums journeying from rags to riches after they joined the self-help groups. Take the case of Maya, a widow in her early twenties. With a mentally retarded daughter and two sons, it was the end of the road for Maya when her in-laws threw her out of the house. She came to stay with her parents in Ambedkar Nagar slum in Falaknuma and took up odd jobs as a maid in up market apartments. The turning point in her life came when she was introduced to the self-help group members in the slum. Maya decided to become a member. All that she needed to become a member was deposit Rs. 30 per month. After joining the group she secured a small loan and set up a sweetmeats shop in her house. Slowly she started stocking more things like cosmetics, cool drinks, and daily needs items. She approached the Roshan Vikas credit society for a bigger loan and purchased a refrigerator for storing cool drinks and other eatables. Today Maya is a dealer in her locality for many soft drink brands including Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The case of Ghousia Begum of Hafiz Babanagar is similar. With a small loan from the local selfhelp group she started a vegetable shop at her house. Her husband used to help her in procuring the vegetables from the main market. But it took a lot of time and money to transport vegetables from the main market that was 12 kilometers away from her house. So Ghousia decided to buy an auto van. With a bigger loan from the Roshan Vikas society she purchased an auto-rickshaw. Now transporting vegetables is quicker and her husband drives the auto in spare time to earn extra income. The living condition of the family has improved and the children are going to school. Success stories like these are not restricted to one or two women. There are hundreds of cases of women who brave all odds to find a solution to poverty and unemployment. In slums of Amanagar, Kanchanbagh, Charminar, Malakpet, Hussainialam and Yakutpura, women are slowly realizing their potential. The Roshan Vikas society which is managed under supervision of the Confederation of Voluntary Association (COVA) will soon extend the concept of self-help groups to other slums in Karwan, Golconda, Mehdipatnam and Secunderabad areas. The Roshan Vikas credits society had made a small start but we have now created awareness in 125 slums in the city. They are making efforts to spread their wings. Economic independence is the first step towards women’s empowerment and empowerment leads to emancipation. This was the aim behind promoting women’s self-help groups in India. Rural knowledge centers The initiative has put computers with internet connectivity into the homes of women’s self-help group (SHG) members. In rural, urban and semi-urban areas - for example in New Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka Women and their Self-Help Group (SHG) networks are using ICTs in familiar and empowering spaces with Content developed specifically to meet their needs. Interactive multimedia content is being used to support vocational and life-skills training, where particular attention is given to income generating activities and the need for innovative production and marketing. The RKCs would

provide computer literacy and an array of IT enabled services to the adjacent rural communities, with a special focus on empowering women in these areas. It is envisaged as a nodal point for the delivery of IT skills and income-generating vocational training programs, providing e-governance services, e-learning programs, and community based disaster preparedness initiatives, information related to ecological security, health and agriculture, besides encouraging entrepreneurship at the grass root level. Self Help Groups will run the RKC, which is fully equipped with PCs as well as connectivity solutions. Whether it is city slums or interior villages in rural side, the concept of self-help groups has made a remarkable difference to the life of several women. Women in this region have today found an answer to their misery. By forming self-help groups the women are generating income during off-season to support their families. For example in a town, a group pf 15 women purchased a farm tractor by securing a loan of four lakh rupees from the Municipal Corporation. This tractor is rented to private parties generating an income of Rs. 300 per day. The loan amount will be repaid by the group in installments. In Mahaboobnagar district which is popular for its migrating labor, (labour from Mahaboobnagar district are found all over India) women’s self-help groups are working to promote business. Tailoring works, embroidery, lace work, book binding and carpet weaving are some services offered by the women self-help groups. Now women have become confident and they know their rights. This is helping them to be independent and support their families in the agriculture season to earn extra money as well as in the agriculture off-season. With the help of self-help groups women living in rural areas are earning and working on their own and this helps them in gaining self-respect and independence.