The habit of efficient management and saving of the house by Indian women is laudable, which is evident even during demonetisation. Women had hidden more savings than men. Realizing his habit, the Prime Minister, while praising it from an open platform, had also guaranteed a discount on savings accounts. The exploitation of women in such a country is also a bitter truth. The resident of Bilaspur has been churning on this problem for years Hemlata Sahu Found that money is the root cause of this exploitation.
Women can gain self-esteem through self-reliance. With such thinking, she always wanted to do something. She started it by opening a self-study centre to provide vocational training. First added the urban women, then formed the Charitable Trust and Bakery Unit. The opening of the tailoring shop by women in the middle of the market caused a lot of opposition in a male-dominated society but gradually the society accepted it.
Meanwhile, Hemlata read in the newspaper the news of displaced women from Jammu and Kashmir coming to Chhattisgarh as her husband was killed. The tribal women were already harassed in Chhattisgarh. With the help of some Marwari women who were associated with Hemlata, they formed two groups to organize the displaced and tribal women. There were 20 women in one group and 40 women in the other group. To connect this organization with religion and faith, every woman had a handful of rice collected by each woman and started a unique bank. However, within two to four months, difficulties started in its management because the rice brought by everyone was of different types. But from this beginning, she agreed to an organization.
Now they started adding money, going to government departments, they won the first step of the fight that displaced women got employment. This gave new strength and identity to Hemlata and her women’s organization. Now they have formed 500 groups in 23 villages and linked them to the government system so that they can get loans. The government helped them in this campaign and got a loan of Rs 25,000 per member, in which a rebate of Rs 10,000 was given and Rs 15,000 was to be returned to the government. But when faced with corruption in the government system, first fought this battle in which women won. After this he decided that now money will also belong to her, her savings will also be her, and the bank will also belong to her.
Hemlata founded Sakhi Credit Government Committee in 2003 with 10,000 women. In this, all the women deposit their money and take loans from here. Prior to this bank, Mahajan used to mortgage 3 acres of land for 2000 rupees for women, whose interest would have been spent for years, while the original remains the same, so the first task was to redeem 88 acres of land by Sakhi Bank, Women became self-sufficient and got the title of the land. This was the biggest achievement of Sakhi Bank. In this unique bank, women can take loans up to 5 times of their savings.
In a special conversation, Hemlata said that “loans are given for farming, education and social work.” The interest of the loan is to be paid at a decreasing rate of 15% per annum while the savings accrued is 7%, the percentage of dividend is received by the women saving. In order to keep the functioning of this bank registered under the Cooperative Act, priority is given to single women workers from the women’s organization itself.
Along with social change, this unique bank is a big step towards social reform as it is home to 10,000 women who are its members.
When she is a victim of exploitation and violence by a husband or family members in the house, she turns to her maternal house and returns home with her husband only after being decided from here. This is the victory of women power and her honour, who changed the ideology of the society by the organization of their hard work and work power.
