Metro India News | AMARAVATI

State Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Rural Poverty Alleviation and Empowerment of NRIs Kondapalli Srinivas instructed the officials on Friday to make the members of self-help groups entrepreneurs and ensure that they get the required bank loans on time. The minister held a review meeting with senior officials at the SERP headquarters in Vijayawada. 

Speaking on the occasion, Minister Srinivas discussed the formation of Integrated Farming Clusters with the officials. The Minister also discussed with the officials on ways to transform 1 lakh SHG members into women entrepreneurs and also about creating new enterprises in the financial year 2025-26. Announcing that so far in this financial year, 39,371 women SHG members have set up businesses and industries at a cost of Rs 578.08 crore, the minister directed the officials to achieve the remaining targets by March 2026. 

So far in this financial year, Rs 16,846 crore has been disbursed by banks and officials were instructed to ensure that loans worth Rs 32,322 crore were made available to SHGs by March. Minister Kondapalli Srinivas said that the Government of India has identified IIM Visakhapatnam as an Incubation Centre for making SHG women entrepreneurs, and necessary steps should be taken at the departmental level to groom 150 women entrepreneurs. 

Informing that 520 FPOs (Farmer Producer Organisations) have been formed through SERP, the minister called for strengthening Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) with the help of Hyfer International, Vasan, Kalgudi and Breads to provide seeds and fertilizers to the farmers, procure the crops grown by the farmers through FPOs, process the crops and sell them in the open market. The Minister said that in this financial year, 175 crore Social Investment Fund loans have been sanctioned to improve the livelihood of the SHG members.