‘Pretenders with vested interest cannot withstand the eye contact of poor friendly Minister K.N. Nehru’,’ said Selvamani, a resident of Angarai in a meet of SHGs.Transport Minister Mr.K.N.Nehru urged the self help group women of Trichy District to redouble their efforts to eliminate rural and urban poverty by making use of the services provided by Government of Tamilnadu and also reputed NGOs of the District.“Let’s all fight against rural and urban poverty”, said at a SHG meet arranged by SEVAI, a local NGO in Allur recently. Minister noted that, despite all the work done to combat poverty, there are families are still living under poverty line, and their poverty is often expressed in under-employment, or downright unemployment. Such problems are being tackled by Government, through SHG movement for promoting need based production and marketing services for SHGs by providing support to economic activities and also bulk revolving fund for Panchayat level federations for creating self employment and business promotion.
Tamilnadu Government has reposed in the ability of SHGs drawn from BPL families to usher in an economic transition through their income generation activities, he said. “Many people ask themselves what they can do to combat poverty, if they don’t know how to do anything”, the Minister said. One possibility, he suggested, to opt for short courses teaching basic skills which people could then use to sustain themselves with the support given by the State. If such people had some technical training, which gave them know-how to solve common problems, they would be able to find work, and this would reduce poverty. He was confident of scaling up credit linkage with subsidy component from banks to Panchayat Level of women SHGs and transforming the clusters of SHGs into entrepreneurs, some of the products, which are conveniently produced / marketed by SHGs include: Fibre based products, like carry bags, hand bags, decoration items etc, Coconut shell products, , fruits, terracotta etc, Cut flower items, and bead ornaments, manufacturing jute, terracotta, textiles, and automobile products with Professional institutions skill-training support for value addition and marketing.
Mr.K.N.Nehru was concerned about the hygiene practices adopted in rural and slum areas. “There are mothers who watch their children playing in muddy water”, he said. “You don’t need to put your hands in it to see that the water is dirty, but they do nothing to stop their children playing in it”. Such attitudes, K.N.Nehru added, showed “the presence of poverty in the minds of people”. Pools of stagnant water are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and thus favour the transmission of malaria. Dirty water also spreads diarrhoeal diseases. If such stagnant waters were drained, the risk of disease would be lessened. Minister Nehru thus urged mothers and teachers to work on educating children in basic rules of hygiene to prevent the spread of disease. Mr. Nehru wanted women SHGs to broadbase their income generation even while supporting the agricultural sector through manufacture of organic manure as inputs for fertilisers and manure. In a competitive environment, training support by professional institutions would help the SHGs to reduce product costs. The rise in the number of women SHGs in Tamil Nadu to over four lakh was a reflection of the faith that the Chief Minister. Minister further said’ Self Help Group (SHG) plays crucial role in rural and urban areas by manufacturing and selling the products. Marketing the products made by SHG's is an important and difficult one as the products have to be sold through the rural marketing concept to the rural people themselves.
Marketing these products in the urban areas is much more difficult. The SHG will have to emphasize on the quality and affordable price to enhance the sales. Therefore SHG will have to explore the ways and means of providing products and services that meet the needs of rural consumer and evolve appropriate communication strategy and market promotion’. Earlier, a Lalgudi SHG Federation leader, Vannamathi spoke that Minister K.N.Nehru is very practical and a role model to farming community.As Mr.Nehru hails from a village of Lalgudi area, he is well aware of the problems of farmers and especially of the farming women in the families. Minister Nehru never fails to visit his agriculture field whenever he is in Trichy in his early hours from 5.30 – 7 am. ‘Transport Minister Mr.K.N.Nehru concentrates with his fullest ability in his agriculture operation regularly and also meet hundreds of people every day as a Minister where ever he as there we go to him as he is very approachable and look into their grievances then and there’ said Vannamathi.
‘Whatever be his elevated positions as Minister for more than a decade, Mr.K.N.Nehru is very practical and thinks and plans for the development of the poorest of the Poor but pretenders with vested interest cannot withstand his eye contact’ said Selvamani,a resident of Angarai.’-ENS
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