By Pankaj Yadav
NEW DELHI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A unique "Livelihood Fair" is on these days in Delhi in which hundreds of women from self-help-groups (SHGs), particularly from far-flung and remote areas, from across India are participating.
The fair is being organized under the aegis of "Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana -- National Rural Livelihoods Mission" (DAY-NRLM), which is one of the flagship programs of the Central Ministry of Rural Development to alleviate rural poverty. It aims to organize rural poor women into their own institutions like SHGs.
Since its launch in 2011, the mission has spread to 4,456 blocks of 584 districts across all the states and union territories. Women from over 47 million of the poorest and marginalized families have been mobilized into 4 million SHGs, which have been federated into 220,000 village organizations and 19,000 cluster level federations.
Women SHGs have now accessed Rs. 151,000 crores (over 22 billion U.S. dollars) of funds from banks. The mission has succeeded in identifying and working with more than 3 million women farmers, to increase the productivity of farms and promote diversified livelihoods, especially by promoting entrepreneurship.
The participating women are exuberant even as they got an opportunity to showcase their hand-made craft items, mostly decorative hangings, paintings, and food items like pickles.
Geetika Jha, aged 38, who has set up a stall of "Madhubani Paintings" at the exhibition says the exhibition gave her an excellent opportunity to bring her hand-made paintings before prospective buyers in the country's capital city.
"Madhubani paintings" are world famous. They are made by hand with natural colours in India eastern state of Bihar.
"Every day I get hundreds of inquiries about these paintings. I have also booked a couple of orders in the last few days. This exhibition has given me an excellent opportunity to increase my business. This is the first time I have participated in such an exhibition in Delhi," she stated.
Y. Manphen, aged 25, another women entrepreneur from north-eastern state of Nagaland, has set up a stall of hand-made craft items at the exhibition.
"We have a SHG bank home where 10 women work on daily wages. We got government aid initially in 2014 to set up the SHG and purchase raw materials to make these craft items. Slowly we expanded and today we have reached a stage of participating at an exhibition in the country's capital," she said.
Manphen added "We don't have too many employment opportunities in northeastern states which are mainly hilly with difficult terrains. The government's scheme of setting up SHGs is a good move to create self-employment. Today, every woman at our SHG earns around 310 US dollars every month which is a good amount to make a living in our state."
The "DAY-NRLM" also provides support for establishing Rural Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs) in each district of the country in collaboration with the banks and the state governments to provide training to the rural youth from the poor households to take-up economic activities.
Currently 582 RSETIs are functioning in the country. Cumulatively, 2.6 million youths have been trained and 1.7 million have been settled till January 2018, said government sources.