Empowering rural women through tailoring: Errabelli Dayakar Rao

Thorrur (Mahabubabad): Telangana government was giving paramount importance to comprehensive growth of the women, Minister for Panchayat Raj and rural Development Errabelli Dayakar Rao said. Inaugurating tailoring training classes at Thorrur on Sunday, he said that the tailoring scheme is the first of its kind taken up in Palakurthi constituency. Under the scheme, as many as 3,000 women will be trained in tailoring for three months. The programme is jointly funded (Rs 5 crore) by the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) and Stree Nidhi, he added. So far, training classes were started in Palakurthi and Kodakandla, and the one at Thorrur is the third, the minister said.

He said that the target is to train the women under the age of 35 years as they can command jobs in the upcoming – Kakatiya Mega Textile Park in Sangem mandal in Warangal district, and Mini Textile Park at Kodakandla in Jangaon district. This apart, all the orders relating to the government will be given to these trained women, he said. The women above the age of 35 years will also be trained in the next batch; however, they have to find jobs on their own.

"Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao believes that normally the women will have a good control over their finances. The government was giving Rs 18,000 crore loans per annum to the self-help groups (SHGs). Before the formation of Telangana, the SHGs used to get just Rs 4,000 crore loans," Errabelli said.

The government was giving a loan of Rs 3 lakh to women under the Stree Nidhi programme. KCR told to waive off the loans in case of death of a woman, who availed loan. The amount the loan beneficiary paid was also to be returned, he said. Errabelli said that the government has plans to encourage people to go for solar power. People need to understand the importance of utilising solar power, he said. Mahabubabad district collector K Shashanka was present with the minister.