Government move may drag 15,000 women back to poverty

Less than a decade ago Lata Mane was a sexworker Vidya Khustale a poor homemaker Jayashree Kamble a struggling mother and Manju Bhagvat a starving teenager Today Mane works with HIV patients Khustale makes perfumes and decorative candles Kamble runs an anganwadi group and Bhagvat sells cakes from her home They along with several thousand other women found a new meaning to life when they were rescued from abject poverty and given grants and training to run their pwn businesses thanks to the central governmentrun Suvarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojna SJSRYLata Mane centre who was once a sexworker now works to improve the lot of HIVAIDS patients in the city PICSPRADEEP DHIVARTheir shops businesses and jobs helped pull their families out of poverty Yet come March 31 and the central government in all its wisdom will pull the plug on the project mdash leaving these women with no financial help and in serious danger of falling back below the poverty line There are currently around 1000 such selfhelp groups and nearly 15000 women who benefit from the schemeNew scheme will it workOn its part the government says it is starting a new scheme mdash the National Urban Livelihood Mission NULM mdash that will focus on helping everyone from beggars the homeless and the jobless with money According to the new scheme as long as a group of such people come together and come up with a business plan they will be eligible for a one time aid to the tune of Rs 10000 irrespective of the number of people in a groupLR Manju Bhagvat Shraddha Mandav and Ranjana Shinde make cakes and chocolates thanks to the funds sanctioned under SJSRYIn the earlier SJSRY scheme by compariison each member of a group would receive a onetime payout of Rs 2000 mdash a clear incentive to these poor women to work in larger groups so that they could have additional capital to sustain their businesses Further whenever any group took a loan to expand their business while the lender bank provided 60 per cent of the loan amount the yojna backed it up with 35 per cent asking the selfhelp group concerned to pump in the remaining five per cent The new scheme has none of these provisionsMany of these women are now up in arms against the government decision A community development officer from BMC who has been involved in development and training of these selfhelp groups said ldquoAll the important components of SJSRY are missing from the NULM scheme All the hard work done by these women for the past decade will come to naught and they will slip back to povertyrdquoA life pausedLata Mane who was once a sexworker now works to improve the lot of HIVAIDS patients in the city She left her earlier profession seven years ago when a community development officer CDO talked her into starting life afreshldquoI got married when I was 14 and was sold by my husband at Grant Road in 1995 from where I came to GhatkoparRatnaprabha Lavangare makes bags and pureses at her home in GhatkoparFor 12 years I lived in that area before the CDO asked us to start saving R50 a month and form a group of women who wanted to get out and do respectable work I faced many hurdles Banks refused loans police officers abused us but we formed a group and because we had our savings and the government schemersquos support we managed Where will we go now if the scheme is stopped We have contracts with the BMC to clean roads and we also work with HIV and AIDS patients to help them What will happen to us nowrdquo asks a scared ManeBack to darknessVidya Khustale stared at a dark future till 10 years ago as a povertystricken housewife Today she makes perfume and decorative candles from her home and trains others in her selfhelp group Her steady income has also shut up her husband who would earlier stop her from working ldquoI used to feel dejected as my husband didnrsquot allow me to work even though her barely earned enough to feed us as a tailor After getting trained under the yojna I can now make candles perfumes and scented aggarbattis The selfhelp group gave me respect Today my son is an engineer I could educate him thanks to this scheme I had promised so many other women in my area that they too will come out of poverty through this yojna What nowrdquo she asksNowhere to runJayashree Kamble didnrsquot know what to feed her hungry children before the yojna rescued her Kamble currently runs an anganwadi centre through her her selfhelp group where kindergarten children study doesnrsquot know what the future holds ldquoMy husband was an alcoholic I had three children to take care of I took training in making food products learnt management skills and look how well we are doing today Now with the scheme ending we have nowhere to go The government wants us to go back below the poverty line againrdquo she allegesAre our ministers listening