By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net,
Bhopal: The Bharatiya Janata Party, (BJP), ruled Madhya Pradesh Government’s Cottage & Village Industry Department has been honoured with the United Nations Public Award for the year 2013.
This award will be conferred on state’s Cottage & Village Industry Department for novel initiative of rural “haats” (weekly markets). The United Nations will bestow this award on Principal Secretary Cottage & Village Industry Mrs. Kanchan Jain at Bahrain’s capital Manama on June 27, 2013.
It may be pointed out here that the United Nations honours outstanding public welfare works at international level under various categories every year.
It was decided to hand over management of rural “haats” to women’s self-help groups set up for women’s empowerment with the objective of strengthening the groups and help the establish their access to resources. The decision to hand over management of rural “haats” to women’s self-help groups (SHGs) increased their economic self-reliance and participation of women in social decisions was ensured due to which continued to become stronger and continued their activities constantly during the project period.
Rural “haats” were started, which are still being run even after 11 years without any external cooperation. It is noteworthy that savings of some of these SHGs is more than Rs.90,000. Such “haats” were also started in other places of the state and are still being run.
The management of rural “haats” has proved to be very effective in women’s empowerment. Innovation in the form of rural “haats” was entered in United Nation’s award category “Initiative to make public delivery system gender responsive”. United Nations found this entry worthy of award after keen examination.