Navsari, March 7 (IANS) With Prime Minister Narendra Modi set to address the Lakhpati Didi programme in Gujarat’s Navsari on International Women’s Day on Saturday, many success stories of women entrepreneurs and achievers from the region are coming to the fore.
More than 34,000 women of Navsari have taken to self-employment with help from various government schemes and today, they have become financially independent and self-reliant. They started their home-run ventures by taking bank loans, and today, they have become role models in their village by becoming ‘lakhpati’ and ‘millionaire’ didis.
Sangeeta Solanki of Shahu village took a loan with the help of Sakhi Mandal and started her own enterprise. She wanted to help her family and earn a living by doing some work.
Initially, she earned money by doing sewing work but since the income was low, she moved to far-off locations for more work.
“I joined a group of 10 women from the village and started a home business by taking a small loan. But even that was not enough,” she said.
She took training as Bank Mitra under CSC, set up a Bank Mitra unit at home, got equipment including a computer and printer installed under Mudra Loan and started working. She earned poorly in the first month but did not lose hope.
She enthusiastically started banking work as well as services like PAN card, Aadhaar card, e-Shramik card, and gas and electricity bills. Today, she is earning an income of Rs 10,000 per month.
She says that she is thankful to the Modi government for the transformational change in her lives, under the ‘Lakhpati didi’ yojana.
Jignasaben Mistry, another resident of Moldhara village in Navsari taluka has a similar story to share.
After graduating in commerce, she pursued a course in fine arts and started selling artificial jewellery, under the Sakhi Mandali yojana.
With the aim to financially help the family, she started making and selling innovative artificial jewellery.
She got assistance from government agencies for procuring raw materials for making artificial jewellery. Today, she has become self-reliant by selling her artificial jewellery at various government and private exhibitions and joined the list of millionaires by earning more than one lakh rupees per year.
–IANS
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