Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik completed 23 years in office on Saturday and during this period Odisha has transitioned from a backward state into a thriving development model on many fronts including women empowerment through “Mission Shakti”.
Empowerment of women has been one of the key development initiatives of the Naveen Patnaik government.
Notably, the “Mission Shakti” programme, which was launched in 2001, “With an objective, of helping women to achieve economic independence by enabling them to have independent employment and income, today has more than 6 lakh Women Self-Help Groups (WSHGs) with 70 lakh members.
As per the senior official from State Government, the “Mission Shakti” program is among the many other people-centric initiatives that the CM has undertaken and one of the most significant in terms of transforming the lives of the Women in the state.
The senior official said, “Women’s empowerment is something that is very close to the Chief Minister’s heart and it’s his sincere belief that no household, no society, no state, and no country has ever moved forward without empowering its women.”
“The Odisha model of women empowerment focuses to provide equal opportunities irrespective of gender where women are empowered to live with dignity and enjoy economic prosperity by involving women as partners in governance at all levels,” the senior official added.
To strengthen the activities of the existing WSHGs and to provide momentum to the formation of new WSHGs, a separate Directorate of Mission Shakti has been created under the Department of Women and Child Development.
The state Cabinet decision states that Rs 5,000 crore worth of goods and services will be procured by government departments from SHGs. These are pioneering and unique interventions.
Under this initiative, SHGs run paddy procurement centers, produce THR for Anganwadi centers, do electric meter readings, playing important role in urban development by partnering with Housing and Urban Development Department, running Government Ahara canteens, pisciculture in panchayat tanks, and so on.
Recently, during the Make in Odisha Conclave CM Patnaik announced the transformation of these Women SHGs into Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to encourage entrepreneurship among these women.
Micro and Mini Industrial parks are being set up in all 30 districts of Odisha, and for this purpose, a revolving fund is being provided to District Level and Block Level SHG Federations For this a provisioning of Revolving Fund amounting to Rs 324 crores has been set aside.
The Odisha Government is providing interest-free loans of up to 5 lakhs for these SHGs.
This has helped scale up finance for women-run businesses.
Nearly 200 crores were released in interest subvention this year and 1200 crores are provisioned for the next 5 years. The Provision of Rs 2,554 crore under the overarching Mission Shakti program has been made for the financial year 2023-24 under State’s Budget.
“Institutional Finance for SHGs has multiplied manifold From 500 crore a few years ago, 10000 crore bank finance was disbursed to SHGs this year 50,000 crore for livelihood diversification and women-led entrepreneurship is aimed at in the next few years,” the senior officer said.
The success of the Mission Shakti movement can be seen from the fact that in the recently concluded panchayat elections, 70 per cent of the district panchayats are headed by women.
Many elected women representatives at the grassroots are from the SHG movement. Mission Shakti led by the vision of the CM truly provides a platform for the holistic empowerment of women.
