Hyderabad, July 13: State government’s pet scheme – pavala vaddi – has helped improve the recovery rate of micro loans issued for self help groups (SHGs) during 2010-11 by a whopping 97 per cent, according to chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy. Buoyed by prompt recoveries, the government has increased its annual lending to over `9,000 crore from last year’s `7,000 crore given to about one crore SHG members.
“In 2004, SHGs borrowed over `500 crore but we could recover only 5-10 per cent. It was then that we initiated the pavala vaddi scheme and since then we never looked back. The recoveries are as high as 97 per cent,” he said. He was delivering the inaugural address at the foundation laying ceremony of Schulich School of Business – GMR campus at Shamshabad. Citing the pavala vaddi example to recover micro loans, he explained that devising a solution to tackle any given problem is the key to damage control.
Stating that Andhra Pradesh is fast emerging as the education hub of the country, Reddy said, “We have premier business schools such as the ISB. We also have other renowned educational institutions like BITS and the IIT.” According to him, the state spends over `3,500 crore every year towards scholarships covering 27 lakh students. Meanwhile, union minister for human resources Kapil Sibal, in his written message, said that the government was working on a legislation to prohibit malpractice in technical and medical education. “It should deter fly-by-night operators in higher education from indulging in illegal profiteering and exploitation,” he said.
–Agencies