Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union Minister for Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare and Rural Development, chairs a meeting with key stakeholders to discuss strategies for enhancing access to finance for women-led rural enterprises in India.
The Ministry of Rural Development, through the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), aims to improve rural livelihoods by establishing community-based institutions and linking them with sustainable livelihoods. Over the past one and a half decades, more than 10 crore rural women have been mobilized into over 93 lakh Self Help Groups (SHGs) and their federations.
The banking sector has played a significant role in this endeavor, disbursing over Rs. 13.67 lakh crore to SHGs with high repayment rates. As a result, 3.46 crore women have emerged as Lakhpati Didis (millionaire women).
With many of these enterprises entering a growth phase and new ventures emerging, the Mission aims to nurture women-led enterprises, strengthen their access to finance, and support their transition into sustainable rural businesses.
A High-Level Meeting on SHG-Bank Linkages and Individual Enterprise Financing is being held on 3 September 2026 in Mumbai. The meeting will be attended by senior representatives from the Reserve Bank of India, the Department of Financial Services, Public Sector Banks, Private Sector Banks, Regional Rural Banks, Cooperative Banks, NABARD, PFRDA, Central Ministries, State Rural Livelihoods Missions, and other key stakeholder institutions.
The discussions during the meeting will focus on doubling the individual enterprise credit portfolio, enhancing the average quantum of disbursement to SHGs, reducing turnaround time in loan sanction and disbursement, strategies for saturating credit linkage of the remaining SHGs including in difficult regions, and strengthening the role of the cooperative credit structure at the District Central Cooperative Bank (DCCB) and Primary Agricultural Credit Society (PACS) level.
Source:
Press Information Bureau
