Hyderabad: The Congress on Monday promised women empowerment if the party came back to power after the next elections.
An impressive meeting of ‘Mahila Garjana’ organised by Mahila Congress in Wanaparthy district headquarters adopted a declaration promising larger empowerment of women in a Congress-led government after next elections.
TPCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy said special measures for greater financial empowerment of women self-help groups (SHGs) in the state would be taken up.
He termed it as the ‘Wanaparthy Declaration’ and said SHGs were highly stable during the previous Congress regime which provided them interest-free loans. However, their activities came to a standstill after the TRS came to power.
He promised that each SHG member would be given a monthly pension of Rs 1,000 under Abhaya Hashtam scheme. This would be in addition to other pensions that they were getting. Services of nearly 4,200 contract staff of Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERF) would be regularised.
The salary of about 15,600 village organisation assistants would be raised to Rs 10,000 from Rs 3,000, Mr Reddy said. Also, dues of Rs 2,000 crore pending from the government towards interest subsidy on bank loans taken by women SHGs would be cleared.
He said that each SHG would be permitted to get a bank loan of '10 lakh for which the interest would be paid by the government.
About 52 lakh women were associated with nearly 4.5 lakh SHGs in rural areas and 15 lakh were members of 1.5 lakh in urban areas.
The next Congress government would take measures for economic empowerment of nearly 70 lakh members of SHGs in the state, he added.
A revolving fund of Rs 1 lakh would be given to each SHG in Telangana state to ensure greater economic activity which would also benefit the state.
He also announced that each member of a woman SHG would be given free life insurance cover of Rs 2.5 lakh for natural death and Rs 5 lakh for accidental death. He said the amount for performing last rites would be doubled to Rs 10,000.
If voted to power, the Congress government would construct new buildings for SHGs by spending Rs 15 lakh in villages and Rs 30 lakh in mandals, he said.
He criticised Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao for not giving importance to women which was evident from the absence of a woman minister in his cabinet.
All-India Mahila Congress president and MP Sushmita Dev said the TRS chief gave scant respect to women and least importance to women empowerment.
AICC secretary R.C. Khuntia, TPCC Mahila Congress president Nerella Sharada, TPCC working president Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and MLAs G. Chinna Reddy and D.K. Aruna also addressed the gathering.
