Prime Minister Narendra Modi will distribute certificates to around 1.1 million new ‘Lakhpati Didis’ who are part of the women-led self-help groups (SHGs), with the highest number being from Bihar, followed by Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.
The certificates will be distributed at a large function to be held in the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra on August 25, which will be attended by almost 100,000 women from SHGs spread across the country.
Addressing a press conference today, Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that apart from the certificates, Modi will also release a revolving fund of around Rs 2,500 crore for the benefit of 4.8 million members of 430,000 SHGs and a bank loan of Rs 5,000 crore, which will benefit around 2.6 million members of 235,400 SHGs across the country.
Chouhan said that several Didis will have their certificates delivered to their place of residence.
The Lakhpati Didi programme is an ambitious scheme of the central government to provide training to women in SHGs, enabling them to generate a sustainable annual income of at least Rs 1 lakh.
The rural development minister also informed that women from SHGs will join the programme virtually from as many as 30,000 locations across India, making it one of the largest such programmes in the country.
Farm Min holds national seminar to improve production stats
The agriculture ministry organised a national conference today with states to discuss steps to improve crop production statistics. The main focus of the conference was on the integration of technology to enhance agricultural production estimates and strengthen data accuracy.
The Digital Crop Survey announced in this year’s Budget speech paves the way for the accuracy of crop acreage estimation. It will also provide farm-level data with geotagged acreage of crops, which will act as a single source of truth. The Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES) has been launched to calculate yield based on scientifically designed crop-cutting experiments for all major crops across the country.
The conference emphasised the need to integrate cutting-edge technologies like remote sensing, geospatial analysis, and artificial intelligence to enhance the accuracy and reliability of crop production data.
First Published: Aug 22 2024 | 8:32 PM IST
