Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Funds refused as TNSCB fails to reach target

By Feroze Ahmed

CHENNAI April 21. About 3,000 women selected from Chennai for the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board's component of the Entrepreneurial Development Programme (EDP) have been left stranded owing to a Rs.20-lakh shortage. They were to be trained in business aspects such as registering and obtaining licences and loans, procuring raw materials, marketing finished products and expanding their activities.

The TNSCB was one of eight government departments designated to train five lakh women in five years, with the Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women (TNCDW) as the nodal agency. The EDP is regarded a logical follow up to the State's successful women self-help group (SHG) model.

The TNSCB had been allotted Rs. 50 lakhs for training 10,000 women during 2001-02. But by March-end — the deadline for the programme — the final allotments were refused and the TNSCB fell short of its target.

For 2001-02, the scheme was started only in December 2001 with just four months to train one lakh women, instead of the normal 12 months.

``It was another target-oriented scheme; not a people-oriented one,'' a field officer said. ``There were too many groups to be trained one after the other. The quality suffered as there was no time for observation or monitoring.''

Because of the rush, only entrepreneur training was imparted for most groups and the vocational training and credit linkage phases deferred.

TNCDW officials however said the overall performance was ``reasonably satisfactory''. About 1.04 lakh women were trained by March (4,000 above target). About 8,000 of them, mostly from the districts, had already applied for skills training out of a targeted 20,000, they said. Given a full period in the following years, the EDP would be more comprehensive and integrate skill training.

Reports are not encouraging in Chennai, largely owing to lack of SHGs. Field officers here were especially concerned about the laidback attitude of banks, which play a major role in EDP from selection of candidates to credit linkage.

In Chennai, bank officials kept away even from screenings, sources said. Selection of beneficiaries is vital to the programme to weed out hangers on. Reportedly, banks were reluctant to sanction loans without the guarantee of credibility.

Bank officials said they were ready to provide loans to EDP beneficiaries if they belonged to SHGs, as recovery rates from these groups were ``excellent at about 95 per cent''.

Despite the initial hiccups, most officials, field workers and NGOs agreed that the EDP was a worthy mate to the SHG programme if taken to its logical end of creating and upgrading women entrepreneurs.

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