SHILLONG, Nov 21: Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma, on Saturday, that the Meghalaya government has always felt the need to protect and support the grassroots level systems as he emphasised the importance of self-help groups (SHG) at the SHG Mega Event-cum-Health Mela in Umsning, Ri Bhoi, which was inaugurated by him.
“The government strongly felt the only way to do it was to create an institution at the grassroots level to be able to reach out to every household in the state,” Conrad said in his address.
He added that SHGs are not just livelihood programmes, but they are institutional systems and networks.
Highlighting the success of SHG movement in state, the chief minister said that from a mere 6,000 groups, the number of SHGs has increased to 36,000 across the state.
Similarly, he added, village organisations have increased from 200 to 2,500. Also, the allocation for different community investment funds has increased from Rs 10 crore to Rs 110 crores.
“This is the type of success we have achieved in the SHG movement, where more than 3.5 lakh women are reaping benefits because of the schemes and the programmes is something that we all should be happy about,” Conrad said.
The chief minister also informed that the target is to touch 42,000 SHGs in the next one year.
He also provided an insight on the state government’s flagship programme, FOCUS, which also focus on the grassroots level targeting farmers.
Later, the chief minister also distributed cheques to different SHGs and FOCUS beneficiaries.