Women's Empowerment - at a glance Milestones Commencement of initiative: 2001 • Micro-credit groups established: 972 • Number of members: 13,981 • Women entrepreneurs created: 9,900		Agenda for 2010   • Micro-credit groups: 2,000 • Members to be added: 60,000 • Women entrepreneurs to be    created: 10,000

The need of the hour is to diversify rural livelihoods. Towards this end, ITC has forged an empowering partnership with rural women – the most effective development workers. ITC’s intervention leverages micro-credit and skills training to generate alternate employment opportunities. Increased income in the hands of rural women means better nutrition, health care and education for their children.
 

Working with NGOs, ITC has organised village women into micro-credit groups. Group members make monthly contributions to create a savings corpus. The corpus is used to extend soft loans to group members, thereby eliminating the stranglehold of the moneylender. The system of mandatory contribution further strengthens the savings habit, leading to capital augmentation.
 
 

ITC provides training to group members to handle bank accounts and understand the nuances of government development programmes. Empowered groups function autonomously and take their own decisions, including sanction of loans to fellow-members and collection of repayments. Well-managed micro-credit groups with no default records receive further support from ITC in the form of seed money for self-employment activities. 
  

Venture funds provided by ITC have already spawned hundreds of women entrepreneurs. Their earnings, ranging from Rs 70 to Rs 150 per day, not only supplement household incomes but also significantly enhance their self-esteem.

ITC also conducts skills training to enhance employability. Pickle-making, fish-processing, vermicomposting, spice processing and agarbatti-rolling in rural areas and chikankari, garment-sewing, driving and computer-aided secretarial training in semi-urban areas are some of the examples. ITC goes a step further to help find employment for these trained women in areas related to its operations. This programme is helping women across Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.