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Calcutta, Jan. 21: Mamata Banerjee today announced welfare schemes for self-help groups, promising to set up marketing centres for their 1.4 crore members and involve them in government work, the move apparently taken with an eye on the 2013 panchayat polls.
The 14 lakh self-help groups (SHGs) in Bengal, whose members are mostly women, play a key role in rural development.
Addressing an event organised by the self-help group and self-employment department at Netaji Indoor Stadium where some SHGs were given financial assistance, the chief minister said the groups faced problems in marketing their products.
“I know you make beautiful products but you face problems selling them. The government will help you by setting up marketing centres at the state, district and block levels,” Mamata said.
“I will try to set up the state-level marketing centres as early as possible. I will take up the issue with the officials concerned after I reach Writers’ Buildings today. The centres at the sub-division and block levels will not come up overnight. It can take one year to set up all the marketing centres. The products that the SHGs fail to sell on their own can be sent to the marketing centres.”
The chief minister said the government would try to build a marketing centre for the SHGs in each industrial hub. The SHGs make a host of products, including incense sticks, candles, leather bags and wooden handicrafts.
Mamata promised to involve the groups in government projects and schemes so that they could increase their income. “I will ask the authorities concerned to place orders for school uniforms with the SHGs. I will speak to the finance minister as his department will issue the circular,” she said.
Describing the SHGs as a “readymade workforce”, the chief minister said she was planning to involve them in generating awareness to reduce child deaths. “We have to increase awareness in remote areas to reduce the child death rate. I would like to engage them under the National Rural Health Mission,” she said.
Mamata said the government would take steps to ensure the SHGs get more bank loans. Without naming the Left, she said “those who don’t want development might launch a campaign” against her. “Let them say whatever they want, you just carry on with your work and the government will stand by you.”
Mamata criticised the erstwhile Left Front government for “failing to improve” the SHGs’ condition. “All these should have been done much earlier, but nothing was done.”
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