Strengthen Dwcra groups for women empowerment

Eluru: District collector K Vetriselvi has directed the officials to work towards women empowerment by further strengthening the Dwcra groups in the district financially.

She reviewed with the officials the annual credit plan of the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty and the livelihood programmes of Dwcra communities at Collectorate here on Thursday.

She said that the state government is giving top priority to women empowerment and the officials should achieve the targets assigned to them in line with the aspirations of the state chief minister to develop women as entrepreneurs. The district has a suitable environment for setting up food processing units in the agriculture and allied sectors, and she said that priority should be given to women of Dwcra groups in setting up food processing units, especially through the horticulture and fisheries departments. Out of the 41,525 self-help groups in the district, 39,396 groups have been provided micro-loan plans worth Rs 1,688 crore, and the collector instructed the officials to take steps to provide loans to them and to immediately set up the self-employment units they have applied for. She said that steps should be taken to encourage women farmers in natural farming in the agriculture and horticulture departments.

Steps should be taken to identify women aspiring entrepreneurs, provide them with training in technical fields and provide all possible support to set up industries, and awareness programmes should be organised for this. Farmer producer organisations should be formed with women from Dwcra groups in the district, and steps should be taken to purchase dairy cattle, sheep and goats, and set up processing units in the aqua sector. Efforts should be made to further improve online marketing facilities for the products of Dwcra groups.

The use of drones should increase in agriculture, and the beneficiaries should be trained and drones should be sanctioned with the subsidy provided by the state government.

DRDA PD R Vijayaraju, Agriculture Officer Habib Basha, District Horticulture Officer Rammohan, District Industries Centre General Manager Subrahmanyeshwara Rao, Animal Husbandry Officer Dr Govinda Rajulu, NABARD AGM Anil Kant, LDM Niladri, and others participated in the meeting.