Vijayawada: S Suresh Kumar, Prinicipal secretary, the department of municipal administration and urban development, said on Tuesday the digitisation of the data of 2,74,873 Self Help Groups comprising 28,39,046 (99.41 percent) members have been completed. He addressed the Training of Trainers (TOT) session held at the MEPMA Head Office in Tadepalli on Tuesday. Addressing on the occasion, Suresh Kumar said Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas (MEPMA) has supervised the digitization of the data of SHGs. He said the data linkage with banks will assist in thorough verification during loan sanctions to Self Help Groups. He said for this purpose, the MEPMA Loan Charge Creation (MLCC) module was developed. Through this data integration, details of SHG members and verification of other loans linked to their Aadhaar numbers become easier, he added. He further said the MEPMA has completed SHG profiling and introduced digital initiatives such as the MLCC module to digitize SHG transactions.
MEPMA Mission Director N Tej Bharat, explained how to download the MLCC module app and how to use it to grant loans under the microcredit plan.
He informed that from June 1 onwards loans to SHG members in urban areas should be sanctioned exclusively through this SHG Profiling App. Physical loan processing will be discontinued, he added. He informed that login credentials were provided to 2066 branches out of 2631 from 24 banks across the state. The aim is to distribute SHG loans through this system. This app helps avoid misuse of funds and prevents issues such as loan defaults. He also emphasized that 30,000 urban women should be developed into entrepreneurs across the state. Among them, 10,000 existing women entrepreneurs will receive advanced training to enhance their businesses, while 20,000 new women entrepreneurs will be developed. He requested bank representatives to cooperate in this mission.
He stated that some bank branches are not permitting SHGs to withdraw their savings for internal lending and requested the bank to allow them to withdraw their money. He said internal lending is one of the basic principles (one of the five key rules) of SHG operations. Hence, a humble request is made to all banks to allow SHG groups to withdraw funds for internal lending purposes.
APTIDCO MD B Sunil Kumar Reddy, representatives of the state Level bankers Committee and senior MEPMA officials and representatives of the SGHs.
