SWAPNA Sinha, a 27-year-old woman of Manipuri origin living in remote Devicherra village in Tripura’s Dhalai district, weaves traditional women’s wear while running a photocopy shop at the same time. Her husband drives an auto-rickshaw and the family earns around Rs 35,000 a month. Till a few years ago, the situation was different as they eked out a living by doing odd jobs. Their life changed after she became a member of a self-help group (SHG) which provides loans to women micro-entrepreneurs. She received three back to back loans from that SHG to buy the weaving machine, the auto-rickshaw and the photocopy machine. “When I set up the Komar tat (weaving machine) in a room in my house, I enjoyed the feeling that it is my own. I cannot explain the joy it gave me. Within a few months, I started earning money,” Sinha told a group of visiting journalists.

 

She weaves ‘inaphi’ (a cloth to wrap around the upper body) and ‘phanek’ (wraparound skirt) with the help of a machine she bought in 2017 with a loan from Dhanalakshmi Self Help Group of Tripura Rural Livelihood Mission. A second loan helped her unemployed husband buy an auto-rickshaw and more money flowed into the family kitty. While working with the SHG and selling her garments in her Manipuri inhabited village and neighbouring areas, she noticed that students from those villages travel a long distance to photocopy study materials. So, a third loan of Rs 50,000 to buy a photocopy machine followed. She now earns Rs 10,000 a month from the photocopy shop. “I have repaid all loans and now we earn about Rs 35,000 per month,” she said.

 

Sinha’s success story as an SHG member has become the talk of the North-eastern state and she had the opportunity to share her experience with Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu and Union Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister Giriraj Singh recently. Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb has also praised her. “She is motivated to earn success and become self-reliant,” he said. The number of SHGs in Tripura in 2018 was 4061 with the involvement of 40,135 women. Now, the state The figure has 23,705 SHGs with 2,20,885 women as members, an official said.