KARIMNAGAR: The State Government has decided to intensify the women SHG movement in urban areas by forming more number of SHGs during the next one year.

Initially, the State Government had decided to constitute new SHGs in the towns as well as strengthen the existing women groups in all the 42 APUSP (Andhra Pradesh Urban Services for the Poor) implemented towns in the State.

The APUSP project coordinator, B Janardhan Reddy, said on Wednesday that they had decided to strengthen women SHGs in urban areas as part of the social development programme. "The women SHG movement had reached penultimate level in rural areas with the savings of the women by forming thrift groups. But, in urban areas where the poverty is very high, the women SHG movement is yet to gain momentum," he said.

To boost the morale of urban poor women, they had decided to reorganise all women SHGs in urban areas of the APUSP-implemented areas. Though, there were about 34,000 women SHGs in 42 APUSP-implemented towns, only 9,000 groups were functioning well with `A' grade. The remaining groups were either defunct or functioning poorly.

Survey report

Quoting a survey report, he said that by the year 2020 about 50 per cent of population would be residing in urban areas. The urban poor who were taking up various self-employment schemes and other trades were spending a huge rate of interest for securing loans from pawn brokers, money lenders and other financial agencies.

He said only 0.8 per cent of the urban poor, who were doing small business and trades, were approaching banks for financial assistance.

By forming new women SHGs and by organising orientation programmes, they had decided to increase access for the urban poor to the banks. He said they would form mutually aided cooperative societies (MACS) with women SHGs in urban areas.

Later, the APUSP project coordinator participated in a training programme for women SHGs of Karimnagar town in Kalabharathi on Wednesday.

He spoke on the importance of self-help group concept, savings, rotation of money among themselves, opening of bank accounts, bank linkage, repayment of bank loans etc. He instructed the district authorities to conduct a training programme for women SHGs of urban areas on July 1 by inviting the bankers and the DRDA authorities.

The DRDA project director, T Chiranjeevulu, and the Karimnagar municipal commissioner, N Satynarayana were present.

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