Bhubaneswar: Mission Shakti was launched on 8th March 2001 by Hon’ble Chief Minister of Odisha to empower women by organising them into Self Help Groups. Mission Shakti has now turned into a Silent Revolution transforming the lives of women, their families and the spaces they inhabit. Today we have 70 lakh women organised into 6 lakh Self Help Groups covering all habitations across Odisha.
Mission Shakti today is an unparalleled story of empowerment. SHGs are involved in diverse activities like making of LED bulbs, running buses under the Biju Gaon Gadi, supplying Take Home Ration under the ICDS programme, electricity meter reading and civil construction. Under the initiative of tagging services to WSHGs, an important initiative has been their involvement in paddy procurement operations. This project has been successfully piloted in Kalahandi district involving 17 WSHGs in 17 GPs during the current year.
When Maa Mahalaxmi SHG was selected to procure paddy in Banijhara GP, Junagarh Block, Kalahandi District they were very excited. After an orientation programme , they were told to obtain a DSC certificate and get a laptop with printer to enable online operations in paddy procurement. They had some basic training on
computers and they hired the services of a DEO and a book keeper from among the locality. They started their operations in the local RMC market yard. On the day that the first farmer came with his load of paddy to the mandi, the SHG members were elated and carried out the processes confidently.Like wise the group procured nearly 41,000 quintals of paddy within 30 days. The Block Federation , Junagarh helped the group during the process of procurement. Today they have already received Rs 6.25 lakh in their account as commission and have earned a total amount of Rs 12.94 lakh. They plan to use this money to buy a van for transportation to the nearby markets.
Till now 2.47 lakh quintals of paddy amounting to 44.15 Crore has been procured by all 17 groups with the commission to SHGs being 77.24 lakh. On an average an SHG has
earned 4.5 lakh during the rabi procurement in Kalahandi.
Seeing the success of paddy procurement operations by WSHGs in Kalahandi, the Women & Child development and Mission Shakti Department intends to replicate the
same and scale up operations in more number of districts during the kharif season.
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