Some Important Programmes in Livelihoods: Searching for Focus?
43
credit, AP has taken the lion’s share of the
total allocation. The Outcome Budget for
the year 2014–15 has a target of
`
120 billion
of bank credit for SHGs in AP and Kerala,
and only
`
2 billion for all the other states.
Out of a total of
`
4.76 billion provided by
way of interest subvention on SHG bank
loans in 2013–14 and 2014–15,
`
3.69 billion
went to AP.
Southern states have had more than a
fair share of NRLM funds and support as
they were early movers in the SHG move-
ment. In credit, 67 per cent of the groups
that accessed credit in 2014–15 were from
the southern region and had a share of 82
per cent of the total credit amount facilitated.
The Subvention Scheme on credit was intro-
duced in the year 2014 under NRLM. The
subsidy amounts too have been flowing in
to southern states as the programme is slow
to make headway in other states. Of the total
interest subvention amount of
`
4.76 billion
disbursed in 2013–14 and 2014–15,
`
4.40
billion has been received by southern states
(92 per cent). Of the total 1.65million groups
that were eligible for subvention, 80 per cent
(1.33 million SHGs) were in the southern
states. Under MKSP, of the total 3.2 million
women farmers covered, AP (including erst-
while Telangana) accounted for 2.62million
women farmers. The achievement in AP
alone was higher than the targeted coverage
of 2.45 million. In the rest of the states, not
much by way of livelihood initiatives have
been reported. Thus, NRLM—in the first
four years of its existence—has been focussed
on the southern states andmostly on the state
of AP. The distribution of NRLMbenefits has
been highly skewed, which is untenable given
the mission of “organizing and support-
ing the poor to come out of poverty”. As a
national programme and amatter of priority,
it should have also focussed on other states
with preponderant poor population and not
just continued to fund one state or region.
There have been problems in the credit
arrangements made for SHGs under NRLM.
By end of March 2015, there were 2.63 mil-
lion SHG loan accounts with banks with an
outstanding loan amount of
`
342.49 billion.
Roughly, one-third of these accounts were in
default. Approximately,
`
48.45 billion i.e.,
14 per cent of the total credit was defaulted.
In the southern states too, significant
defaults were reported. In a total of 13 states,
the defaults were inmore than 50 per cent of
the accounts and in 10 states, 50 per cent or
more of the loan amounts were in default.
At such high levels of default, banks find
it difficult to continue the credit facilities.
While the “
Panchsutra
” is an inalienable
part of the programme of SHGmobilisation
and support, the disseminated principles
of financial discipline do not seem to have
Figure 3.7:
SHGs’-promoted state-wise comparison
Source:
Mid-term Assessment of NRLP–National Mission Management Unit, NRLM; MoRD, GoI, 2015.
110,000
100,000
90,000
80,000
70,000
60,000
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
Assam
Bihar
Chhattisgarh
Gujarat
Jharkhand
Karnataka
Madhya Pradesh
Maharashtra
Odisha
Rajasthan
Tamil Nadu
Uttar Pradesh
West Bengal
Haryana
Himachal Pradesh
Jammu and Kashmir
Punjab
Uttarakhand
Arunachal Pradesh
Manipur
