C Pradeep Kumar
Vijayawada
Empowering women and making them self-reliant, the State government, under the leadership of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, has been taking care of their welfare and heralding a new dawn for the women across the State through YSR Aasara, one of the flagship programmes of the YSRCP government.
He said the government had so far distributed Rs 19,178 crore to self-help groups of women as part of the promise made to them in February 2019 during his Padayatra. The YSR Aasara is being implemented to help the women stand on their own following his assurance to write off their bank loans that stood at Rs 25,516 crore as on March 31, 2019.
The government distributed Rs 12,758.28 crore in the first two tranches of YSR Aasara towards the repayment of the bank loans of women’s self-help groups.
While the government has entered into MoUs with the corporate companies like the L&T, Reliance, PG, ITC, Amul and Mahindra to guide the self-help groups in turning entrepreneurs, it has also made the banks reduce the interest rate to seven to nine per cent from the 13 per cent, he said, adding it was negotiating with the banks to reduce the rate further.
The other welfare scheme to empower women is YSR Cheyutha. Empowering women economically, socially and politically right from volunteers to Mayors, women were given their place of pride with YSR Cheyutha . Also, house sites are registered in the name of the woman of the household by taking empowerment to new heights and raising their standard of living.
YSR Cheyutha, YSR Aasara, implementation of 50 percent reservation for women in nominated posts, collaboration with Amul Dairy, Disha initiatives and house sites for women beneficiaries are the glaring examples. Women’s self-help groups are being provided financial support under the YSR Zero Interest Loan Scheme.
The Chief Minister visited Kuppam and disbursed Rs 4,949.44 as financial assistance to 26,39,703 women in the age group of 45-60 years from SC,ST, BC and other minority sections under YSR Cheyuta for the third consecutive year. Beneficiaries are encouraged to open grocery shops or rear cattle. The government has also collaborated with firms such as Amul, ITC, HUL and Reliance, besides banks, to enhance business opportunities to the beneficiaries through technical support, training in skills, and providing marketing assistance.
The Chief Minister strongly believes that if a woman is happy, healthy, and content, the community around her will flourish. Keeping this in mind, the Chief Minister has worked out the dynamics for the economic empowerment of women which include employment, access to money and credit and ownership of assets.
Ramyasri SHG secretary K Meenakshi said that after the YSRCP government came to power, they had been getting benefits of the welfare schemes on time and through YSR Aasara, the old debts were being cleared in a phased manner from time to time. She said that the welfare schemes like Aasara, Cheyutha and Sunna vaddi schemes were boon to poor women across the State to grow strong economically.
