Page 110 - economic review

AGRICULTURE AND ALLIED SECTORS82

the affected; designing special programmes for the ST Population, especially Micro –Level Planning
(MLP) in all the tribal hamlets and promoting total inclusion of the ST into kudumbashree network;
empowering children through Balasabha and Balapanchayats; and providing care and support to the
mentally challenged through Buds school and Buds Rehabilitation Centres (BRCs), thus providing a
convergent platform for the economic and social needs of the society. Some of the Poverty reduction
programmes of Kudumbashree Mission are given below:-

• Linkage Banking
National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD) SHG-Bank linkage grading

procedures are applied while selecting eligible NHGs for availing loans. Banks will provide
loans to those NHGs who acquire 80 per cent marks in grading. The details of Linkage Bank-
ing are given in Appendix 2.91.
• Thrift and credit facilitate easy and timely credit to the unreached.
• Matching Grant, an incentive provided to NHGs and linked to amount of thrift mobilized, per-
formance of NHG in the Grading and loan availed from Banks. An amount of 10% of the thrift
of the NHG subject to a maximum of Rs.5000/- is provided as Matching Grant to each NHG.
• Interest subsidy scheme is a new initiative by the Government of Kerala to enhance the af-
fordability of formal credit. One highlight of the scheme is the inclusion of Joint Liability Groups
for farming in the ambit of the scheme.
• Insurance scheme - provision of insurance for the poor covering a variety of risks could well
be a key milestone in the fight against poverty and started the ‘Kudumbashree Sthree Surak-
shs Bima Yojana’ and ‘Credit Linked Insurance Schemes’ for the NHG members in the year
2014-15.
• Micro Enterprises and Marketing
Micro enterprise development is one of the livelihood programme where women of Kudum-
bashree Neighbourhood groups are encouraged to start enterprises based on their skill and
aptitude. It also provides necessary handholding support for the women for the identification
of viable livelihood opportunity available in the locality, necessary training, financial assistance
and marketing support.
• Yuvashree as part of promoting self employment among unemployed youth, helped unem-
ployed youth to start enterprises.
• IT Consortia - Information Technology (IT) sector as one of the potential area for self-em-
ployment to women entrepreneurs and started UNNATHI IT units in LSGIs. These IT units are
engaged in data processing, data entry, DTP and other IT related activities.

Major initiatives

• Ashraya - rehabilitates destitute families and integrates them with mainstream of the civil
society. The specific objectives include provision of food for starving, shelter to the home-
less, infrastructure to support for the destitute through medical and care service, educational
and pension support and income generation activities. Kudumbashree has been successful
in implementing 60 tribal Ashraya projects, earmarking an amount of ` 51.51 crore benefitting
4410 tribal families as on 31st October 2014.

• Buds - set up model special schools for physically and mentally challenged children under the
leadership of Local Self Government which caters the developmental, social, and emotional
needs of the children whose needs were formerly were often ignored or neglected. So far 57
such schools have come up in the state. Buds Rehibilitation Centers (BRCs) are the new ini-
tiatives to provide day care and impart livelihood training to the mentally challenged under the
leadership of Local Self Governments. 110 Local Self Government Institutions initiated BRCs
in their jurisdiction. And Kudumbashree released ` 2 lakh to each local body as grant.

Kerala State Planning Board