NEW DELHI: Soon, the last-mile connectivity in remote villages of the country’s backward pockets may be provided by transport services run by women’s Self Help Groups.
The Centre is working on a scheme to provide interest-free loan to women’s SHGs to enable them to buy vehicles and hire drivers. These vehicles will serve as public transport to villages not connected to the main town by any such service. Besides a mode of commute, the idea behind the scheme is to ensure that farmers are able to carry their farm produce to markets for sale, source of their daily living. The plan flows from a study done by the rural development ministry in Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh.
Slated to be launched on the Independence Day, the scheme, to be part of the ongoing National Rural Livelihoods Mission, envisages interest-free loan to women’s SHGs with the objective that they buy 6-8 vehicles to service an entire administrative block.
Plying transport in backward blocks would mark another avenue of self-employment for women, even if on an experimental basis.
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