TURA: Chief Minister Conrad Sangma has said the potential of the rural economy has to be tapped if Meghalaya has to progress and there is a need to stop focusing economic activity only in the core areas of Shillong, Tura and Jowai.
“Meghalaya is a rural economy and our resources are in the villages. We cannot focus only in the cities and towns but need to strike a balance. If we want to see real growth then the economic activity must be centered around villages too,” said the chief minister while addressing Women Self Help Group members during an interaction programme in Tura on Monday morning.
The programme included handing over “community investment funds” to over one thousand village organisations or women SHGs and the felicitation of eight women community resource persons who played a key role in mobilising women to form SHGs in various blocks of Garo Hills.
Stressing on the need to promote rural livelihood, the chief minister said SHGs can play a very important role in raising the economy provided they are given necessary assistance from the government side.
“Earlier, SHGs were not given the due importance but after taking over I held a review meeting in 2018 wherein it was found that out of 11000 SHGs only 200 had bank linkages. So we set a target for 2000 SHGs linking with banks within one year which has been a tremendous success. Our new target is to ensure another 2000 plus SHGs link with the banks,” said the chief minister.
He told the gathering of several hundred women members of various SHGs that such a model is extremely crucial for rural economy as it creates an eco-system of financial inclusion.
Emphasizing his desire to revolutionize the SHG movement in the region, the chief minister urged all block development officers to make efforts in bringing the movement forward. “One must work with passion in his heart and a desire to make a difference to peoples’ lives,” advised the chief minister.
Elaborating further on the rural sector’s potential, the chief minister said the challenge is in linking the human resources in the villages and using the available raw materials to create economic value and jobs that can be sustained.
“When we have a lot of local resources why do we need to replicate what others are doing across the world. Agriculture, horticulture and veterinary are all areas we are naturally good at and have our strengths in,” said Conrad as he encouraged the SHGs to give emphasis on these crucial sectors.
He also informed the gathering that the state government is planning to promote SHGs run by the men folk across the state in line with the success shown by the women SHGs.
Meghalaya’s community and rural development commissioner and secretary, P Sampath Kumar who also addressed the SHGs revealed that out of the 50,000 SHGs in the state, 25,000 hail from the Garo Hills region.
“There are 5.15 lakh active job card households participating in various works of MGNREGA and a vast majority of whom have also formed SHGs. Our goal is to ensure within the next three years that every needy household becomes an active SHG member,” said Kumar.
