Shakti Mahila Sangh was started as a three year action research project of Ministry of Rural Develop- ment (MORD) which organised women SHG members in the form of a federation to collectively carry on retail business. However, despite the novel objectives of the project, it could not be continued primar- ily due to fund crisis and typical low margins in retail business. The project officially ended in 2007, with the federation having no legal standing and in deep financial crisis.
However, the Social Capital created during the project could not have been left in vain so the federation of women was registered as a "Shakti Mahila Sangh Bahu-Uddeshiya Sahkari Samiti Maryadit" or Shakti Mahila Sangh (SMS) under the Madhya Pradesh Swayatta Sahkarita Adhiniyam, 1999 (Old Act) on April 2nd, 2007 and is currently recognized under the amended act Madhya Pradesh Sahkari Society Adhiniyam, 2012. The main purpose for creating this co-operative was to use the power of the collective for financial inclusion along with livelihood support services to its members. This was done with our belief that along with the financial services, we also need to provide livelihood support service to bring positive change in the lives of its members.
Total outreaches to the poor with our loan product increased from 14,201 members to 24,645. Similarly this increment can clearly be seen in portfolio & No. of SHGs which increased from Rs. 39,182,210 to Rs.300,132,009.00 and from 1423 to 2395 respectively with 100% recovery.
This year, we have also started working as Business Correspondence for IDBI Bank. We disbursed around Rs. 10 core to 3210 members as income generating loan.
Like credit, a significant change can be seen in Savings program. All members availed the facility of Savings as per their savings capacity and their needs. Total 24,645 members saved through the Compulsory Deposit (CD) and Recurring Deposit (RD) products Rs. 11,528,000.00 & 10,589,000.00 respectively. Apart from this Rs. 22,157,000.00 has been deposited as Fixed Deposit (FD) by members.
2015-16 was also favorable year for our livelihood support training programs. Under our regular training programs, we had trained approximately 50 members in stitching, 40 members in computer literacy and 370 members in accounting through SHG training programs.
Another initiative of financial literacy training was taken and 400 women entrepreneurs were trained on importance of financial planning, savings & budgeting. They were also trained on how to calculate and understand the rate of interest of loan etc. This was done with the support of FWWB, who not only funded the program but also provided technical training for the same.
In closing we would like to conclude that FY 2015 -16 was a successful year for SMS. We have not only rolled out our operation in new areas but also successfully served our members. It has also given the confidence to expand our operations in more areas so that we could serve more people from unprivileged section and achieve our mission and vision.
Hence, SMS is pro-posed to convert into multipurpose multi state society under the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002 and in next three years we want to achieve new heights so that we could double the outreach in terms of membership and providing different services. Thanks for reading,
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