Agartala, January 24 (TIWN): To ensure sustainable development across rural Tripura especially covering the remote tribal hamlets, Rural Development Department (RDD) has been implementing different progressive schemes for past few years.

Asked about the successive moves, “Adding feather to its cap, the department has created a total of 39089 Self Help Groups (SHGs). Among them, altogether 20956 Women SHGs have been set up in the different parts of state till date while creation of more women SHGs are in progress to boost the women empowerment”, said a highly placed source of RDD.

“Success of the approach encouraged the department to replicate the process initiatives in their rehabilitation projects. SHGs are now believed to be the driving force in changing the economic face of the households. Major activities of SHGs are - horticulture, animal husbandry, handloom & handicrafts, pisciculture, small business and different other service sector activities”, said source.

According to the communiqué, formation of groups of women for families Below Poverty Line (BPL) was first conceived of through the programme Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) while a total of 2,15, 000 families were initially assisted under the programme, added source.

The source further said that a multistate poverty alleviation project- North East Rural Livelihood Project (NERLP) under Ministry of DoNER is being implemented in five districts- Unokoti, North Tripura, Khowai, Sepahijala and West Tripura respectively with an objective of organizing poor rural women into affinity based Self Help Groups (SHGs) for practicing micro-savings and micro-credit within the groups.

Referring the all-round development in rural areas, “Almost all the Gram Panchayats and Village Committees are connected by black top roads while 95 percent of the habitations are connected by all weather motorable roads. A total of 99 percent villages are electrified and provided with at least one source of safe drinking water”, said the source.

At last, the communiqué said, “As a state-owned project titled Tripura State Support Project on SHGs (TSSPS) was launched on December 04, 2008 with an aim to provide working capital to the eligible SHGs in the form of Startup Soft Loan (SSL) for Rs 50000 comprising of government, Bank component of Rs 25000. A total of Rs 2961.48 lakh was disbursed among 9926 SHGs while a sum of Rs. 523.26 lakh was recovered as loan money till December 2014.”