In the first exclusive interview post Budget 2023 announcement, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said she wants women self-help groups (SHGs) to benefit from government policies and to run their businesses professionally.

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“The most important is how we shake up and give life to the women's self-help groups which exist in the rural parts of the country. Some states have done extraordinarily well on SHGs in the last few decades... 81 lakh of such groups exist on the ground, and it is they whom we are now trying to aggregate and bring them together in clusters. see what they want to do in terms of production or services,” Sitharaman said.

In an interview with Rahul Joshi, Group Editor-In-Chief of Network18, the Finance Minister stressed the need for policy support for self-help groups and cited the successful example of private sector FMCG brand ‘Lijjat Papad’ a women's worker cooperative group established in 1959 in Mumbai.

She said, "Lijjat was somewhat a women's self-help group. Look at the kind of project, the quality, the branding, and the perception of what Lijjat is, it can always be superior quality. There's never a compromise on it. And people seek it even though it is slightly higher than the general papad pricing."

Similarly, depending on the skill sets and raw materials available, the government wants that SHGs must come in to benefit from government policies and through digital marketing.

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Sitharaman said India would also pay more heed to use women power in rural India to fast-track the economy's growth. She also acknowledged self-help groups that need to be assisted by microfinance institutions (MFIs) with small loans.

President Kovind presents Padma Shri to Smt. Jaswantiben Jamnadas Popat for Trade and Industry. She is one of the founders of Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad, a women’s worker cooperative involved in the manufacturing of various fast-moving consumer goods. pic.twitter.com/tfdK7Et0ax

— President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) November 9, 2021

Her comments came against the backdrop of a newly-conceptualised initiative called the PM VIKAS (Pradhan Mantri Vishwakarma Kaushal Samman) to empower skilled people engaged in various traditional professions. Under the initiative, skilled artisans and traditional craftsmen will get support from the government in the form of skilling, technology, credit, and more.

The Finance Minister said this scheme touches that layer of people who haven’t been able to avail the benefits of other schemes but were recognised because of the quality of products they made using traditional skills.

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(Edited by : Kanishka Sarkar)

First Published:Feb 3, 2023 4:10 PM IST