ANEW financial support scheme for rural women entrepreneurs by the Assam government comes with a few conditions — including a cap on the number of children they have. While women from general and OBC categories cannot have more than three children if they wish to avail of the scheme, the limit is four children for women from Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs).
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Announcing the Mukhyamantri Mahila Udyamita Abhiyaan (MMUA) on Thursday, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that gradually, all beneficiary schemes by the state government would be tied to such “population norms”. This is in line with his announcement in 2021 that the state government would have a two-child policy for availing benefits under specific state-funded schemes.
For the MMUA scheme, though, the norms have been relaxed for now. The Moran, Motok and ‘tea tribes’, which have been pushing for ST status, have also been imposed a four-child cap.
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The scheme aims to help women who are part of self-help groups in rural parts of the state develop into “rural micro entrepreneurs”, with the target being an annual income of Rs 1 lakh for each member.
Sarma said the rationale for tying this scheme to the number of children was to ensure that the women utilise the funds for setting up their businesses. “If a woman has four children, where will she get the time to spend the money, where will she get the time to do business? She will be busy with making the children study,” he said.
Sarma said that of the 39 lakh women involved in self-help groups in rural Assam, about 5 lakh were likely to be excluded from the scheme due to the limit on the number of children.
Around 145 business plans have been prepared by the government, of which they can select one to avail the grant. In the first year, the government will provide them with Rs 10,000 if they fulfil the basic eligibility criteria. Subject to whether they utilise these funds, over the next two years they will be given Rs 12,500 by the government and a Rs 12,500 loan from a bank.
Apart from a limit on the number of children, beneficiaries have to fulfil two other conditions. If they have girl children, they must be enrolled in school. In case the girl child is not of school-going age, the women have to sign an undertaking that they will be enrolled in school when the time comes. Also, the trees they had planted under the government’s tree plantation drive, Amrit Brikshya Andolan, last year should be surviving.
In 2019, the previous BJP government had decided that those with more than two children would not be eligible for government jobs from January 2021. This was a follow-up to a resolution passed by the Assembly in 2017 on the Population and Women Empowerment Policy of Assam. Sarma said the condition on MMUA is in line with the existing population policy.
