Considering employment generation as one of the important steps towards women’s empowerment, the government has increased the corpus of the women’s Self Help Groups to Rs 500 crore from the existing Rs 100 crore.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the government proposes to enroll at least 50 per cent of all rural women as members of SHGs over the next five years and link these SHGs to various banks. “The women’s SHG movement is bringing about a profound transformation in rural areas and today over 22 lakh such groups are linked with banks,” he said. He also said that the Integrated Child Development Scheme will be extended to all children under six by March 2012.