BHUBANESWAR: The Department of Mission Shakti is all set to start functioning from the next financial year. A year after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced formation of the department for development and empowerment of women, the State government has begun the process to make it operational from April 1.
The new department will strengthen the SHG initiatives already undertaken by different departments and bring all under one platform providing greater focus, synergy and resource mobilisation.
Now apart from the Directorate of Mission Shakti under the Women and Child Development department, the SHGs are being promoted by Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM) under Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water department and National Urban Livelihood Mission under Housing and Urban Development department.
The Mission Shakti Directorate, OLM and State Urban Development Agency will be brought under the new department as they work primarily for women SHGs and there will not be dual federating units. The SHGs will be federated into cluster, GP, block and district level federations as one of the 5T strategies is to
have a State level federation (SLF) of SHGs, said an official.
The department will have a Minister and Commissioner cum Secretary like any other department and it has been proposed to additionally sanction 55 new posts, including two each additional secretaries and deputy secretaries at the State level. Initially, no additional contractual manpower has been projected as it is proposed to utilise the sanctioned contractual manpower of the three agencies.
At the district level, Collector will head the District Mission Shakti unit as District Mission Shakti Director-cum-Collector, PD of DRDA will be Additional Director and responsible for executing the activities related to SHGs. The District Social Welfare Officer (DSWO) will assist the PD and the ICDS supervisor will act as Mission Shakti supervisor.
Though Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have unified structure to support SHGs, Odisha will be the second State after West Bengal to have a separate department for women SHGs to promote self employment opportunities.
The Mission Shakti was launched in the State in 2001 with the objective of organising women into SHGs for holistic empowerment and targeted livelihood activities. Odisha has around six lakh SHGs having 70 lakh members with Rs 5,000 crore savings and Rs 2,000 crore annual bank exposure.
The SHGs have already been involved in collection of water and energy bills besides PDS supply and paddy procurement. The Government has already transferred several functions of 10 departments to be implemented by the SHGs.
After coming to power for the fifth consecutive time in 2019, the Naveen Patnaik Government had approved a proposal to tie up SHGs with different departments for provisioning of government services and procurement in a structured manner amounting to Rs 5,000 crore over five years to improve the fiscal status of the members of the groups.