More than Rs 19K cr released to over 8L SHGs in 2022-2023
Kolkata: West Bengal State Rural Livelihood Mission (WBSRLM) of the state Panchayats and Rural Development (P&RD) department has achieved a record-breaking credit disbursement with Rs 19150.63 crore released to 8,98,283 Self Help Groups (SHGs) in the financial year 2022-23.
The highest amount of credit disbursement has been for East Midnapore where Rs 2161.75 crore have been provided to 61,830 SHGs. Birbhum is second in the list in credit disbursement where Rs 1407.19 crore have been released for 52,963 SHGs.
Murshidabad witnessed a disbursement to the highest number of SHGs, 67,304, followed by South 24-Parganas where 65,841 have received credit. However, in terms of amount, SHGs in South 24-Parganas have received credit of Rs 1357.61 crore with Murshidabad getting Rs 1068.14 crore.
West Midnapore is another district that has had quite a hefty amount of credit disbursement amounting to Rs 1195.69 crore with 48,395 SHGs reaping benefits. In East Burdwan 41,275 SHGs have received credit of Rs 1166.24 crore.
In the case of North Bengal, Cooch Behar has had a credit disbursement of Rs 971.71 crore for 47,364 SHGs while Malda got a credit of Rs 790.85 crore for 46,429 SHGs.
Interestingly for 10 places like Darjeeling, North Dinajpur, Cooch Behar, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Hooghly, South 24-Parganas, East Midnapore, West Midnapore the percentage of achievement against disbursement have been 100 per cent.
The NPA amount is as low as 1.99 per cent which bears testimony to the SHGs’ commitment towards paying back loans.
WBSRLM popularly known as Anandadhara is aimed at mobilising the rural poor and vulnerable people into self-managed federated institutions and supporting them for livelihood connectives.
About 10,978,957 women have been mobilised in 10,68,679 SHGs under Anandadhara where saturation is 95 per cent of target household. All SHGs have been federated into 40,000 Upasangha (SHG federation at the village level). 3,339 Sanghas (SHG federation at Gram Panchayat Level) have been formed out of which 3,338 Sangha has been registered under West Bengal Co-Operative Act.
“We have a mandate of forming 1.5 lakh SHGs in the 2023-24 fiscal. In 2022-23, about 1,29,696 SHGs have been constituted,“ a senior official of the P& RD department said.
