Karnataka - Bangalore   

Bengal to tap new market for SHG products

Bangalore: Even as various State Governments are struggling to find a market for products produced by women’s self-help groups (SHGs), the West Bengal Government is hoping to tap new market avenues such as ration shops and the vast network of Indian Railways.

Minister for Self Employment and Self Help Groups of West Bengal Rekha Goswami, who was on a visit to Karnataka, told The Hindu that the Ministry is hoping to market products such as mushrooms grown by SHGs through ration outlets so that they have a wider reach.

Mass production of this item would bring down its price. The Ministry has also written to the Railway Ministry to use SHG products for their services. She has appealed to the Rural Development Ministry to identify more such market avenues. The midday meal scheme of the State is already being run entirely by members of SHGs and there is a proposal to employ the services of SHG women in other government services.

West Bengal has the distinction of being the only State to have a separate Ministry for SHGs and has a network of 6.5 lakh groups under it. It hopes to cover all BPL families by 2010.

Ardhendu Sekhar Biswas, Principal Secretary to the Department, who accompanied the Minister, said that the formation of a Ministry had helped bring all SHGs, earlier scattered among various departments, under one umbrella.

The Ministry had set up a core group to coordinate the activities and provide feedback.

The task ahead of the Ministry, said Ms. Goswami, was training the women and making them skilled so that their products had wider marketability. Stressing the larger social role played by SHGs, she said that they were not only about employment generation, but were important in improving literacy and building public opinion against dowry, child marriage and so on.

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