A meeting of the State Level Microfinance Committee (SLMC) of Microfinance Vision 2011 was held yesterday.
A proposal moved by Special Secretary, Finance cum State Microfinance Co-ordinator Amit Singla, IAS, to provide interest subsidy to the SHGs through Apex bank, SBI and APRRB was approved by the committee.
In addition, it was decided that the impact assessment of existing SHGs as well as the work done by field level functionaries of Social Welfare Department would be done by third party to get objective idea of the work done by SHGs and identify credible SHGs from among them.
A sum of Rs 3.00 cr has been earlier announced in the budget speech of Finance Minister for the current year (2009-10).
Amit Singla informed about the activities under Microfinance Vision till now, including, the first Self Help Mela was organized in the month of April 2009 which was inaugurated by President Prathibha Devi Singh Patel.
Microfinance Vision 2011 was launched by the State Govt. in 2008 with an ambitious programme of forming 5000 Self Help Groups within three years period. The vision envisages covering all the poor families of the state under the massive micro saving movement. It will empower women and thereby bring about socio economic development in Arunachal Pradesh.
A separate Cell has been formed in this regard under the leadership of Special Secretary, Finance Amit Singla. The partners to fulfil the vision are State Govt., NABARD, Arunachal Pradesh State Women Commission, SIRD, State level Bankers Committee and Essomi Foundation Trust. NABARD has established a Support Center led by Essomi Foundation to implement the vision successfully and to assess the impact.
NABARD, DSW and SIRD has already conducted training programmes for Master Trainers and now in turn they will train the grass root level functionaries.
The Support Centre is already in action to collect the data of existing SHGs, assessing its status and the need. The center will also publish a bi-monthly bulletin on the developments, covering success stories and role models, starting from January 2010.
Amit Singla stressed on convergence of SHG component of various Centrally sponsored schemes.
The meeting was chaired by Commissioner V K Dev, Development Commissioner Finance, Yeshi Tsering, Commissioner, Social Welfare, Ankur Garg, Secy. Planning, Dr B G Mukhopadhay General Manager NABARD, R T Riba, Director, Women & Child Development, Vijay Swami, Executive Director, Support Center Micro Finance and representative of Banks and Dept. of Rural Development