President of Gahil self-help group Ranjana Bharti (right) educates women on how to become self-dependent in Purnea. Telegraph picture

Purnea, March 1: Self-help groups across the villages in the district have stepped up initiative to empower women in Purnea.

Ranjana Bharti, the president of Gahil self-help group, has been visiting every household under Banmakhi sub-division of the district, giving them lessons on how to become self-dependent. She spoke about the importance of savings, irrespective of the income scale.

Bharti aimed at identifying women who live in abject poverty and are subjected to domestic violence. She is assisting women in forming self-help groups, training them on the banking system and educating them on various provisions under schemes like Swarn Jayanti Gram Self-employment Yojana.

Around 400 self-help groups have been formed under Bharti’s guidance covering 23 panchayats of Banmankhi sub-division in Purnea. After receiving the training, 100 of the 400 groups are properly functioning.

“They are now utilising the central government’s scheme, Swarn Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, and reaping its benefits. The remaining 300 groups are in the primitive stage and they are still being trained,” Bharti said.

All the self-help groups are functioning under the aegis of different banks providing loans to them and getting the repayments on time. These self-help groups are involved in different occupations, including vegetable farming, dairy, poultry, fishery, goat farming and they are also involved in manufacturing of domestic products (papad, pickles, badi among other things). There are 30 groups who are involved in dairy farming, three groups in poultry, three in goat farming and others in fisheries and vegetable farming.

The secretary of Hemkaran self-help groups, Anita Devi, told The Telegraph her husband Jay Kishore Yadav was addicted to smoking and drinking and he quit those with the improvement of their economic condition after she started earning from a self-help group promoted by Ranjana Bharti. She said she became economically independent and earned Rs 7,000-8,000 a month. Bharti had committed to work for the uplift of women. She was encouraged by the lead district manager of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development Rakesh Kumar Singh and branch manager of Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank, Ram Sunder Singh.

In 2003, Bharti formed her own self-help group. Bharti told The Telegraph that it was a Herculean task for her to convince women living behind the curtain to come forward and work for their development and particularly when male members interfere in the groups. “Even women of the groups are threatened by the big landlords that they would not give them the work if they go to the self-help group meetings,” she said.