Women Self-Help Group Revolving Fund and Loan Support (Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu)

What is the Women SHG Revolving Fund and Loan Support in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu?

Women Self-Help Group Revolving Fund and Loan Support in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is the union territory's delivery of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana; National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), the Ministry of Rural Development's poverty alleviation programme. The District Panchayat of Dadra and Nagar Haveli publishes the scheme on its own site and describes NRLM as a project that organises the rural poor into self-help groups (SHGs) so they can access credit, skills and markets for self-employment.

The District Panchayat's page sets out the basic shape of a group: an SHG consists of 10 to 20 women, with a minimum of 5 persons in special circumstances. Membership is voluntary, savings are regular, and the group lends internally out of its own pooled savings before it ever touches outside money. The page also lists the four steps the mission follows: opening a bank account, internal lending among members, group assessment, and sanction of a credit facility, which is the exact sequence a new group in Silvassa, Khanvel, Dadra or the Daman rural belt will experience.

Financial support arrives in layers rather than as a single grant:

• Revolving Fund (RF). After a group has met and saved regularly and passed grading, DAY-NRLM releases a corpus of Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 per SHG. The fund belongs to the group, is lent out to members, recovered, and lent again, which is why it is called revolving. It is not divided up and paid out to individuals.
• Community Investment Fund (CIF). Routed through the village organisation of which the SHG is a member, the CIF supports the group's micro credit plan, with support of up to Rs 2.5 lakh per SHG under the mission's norms.
• Bank linkage with interest subvention. DAY-NRLM women's SHGs get bank credit at an effective 7% a year on loans up to Rs 3 lakh, with the difference between the bank's lending rate and 7% met by the mission. An additional incentive is available for prompt repayment in the districts notified for it.

One caution belongs here. Private scheme-aggregator websites describe a union territory scheme giving every SHG a flat Rs 15,000 seed fund plus a zero-interest loan of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 3 lakh. No such order is published on ddd.gov.in or on the District Panchayat site, and this guide does not state it as fact. What is documented is the DAY-NRLM structure above, delivered locally by the District Panchayat and the Block Development Office.

Who is eligible to form an SHG and receive the fund?

Your group can qualify if:

• It has 10 to 20 women members, or a minimum of 5 in the special circumstances the District Panchayat recognises.
• Members are rural residents of the union territory and, in principle, from poor and vulnerable households identified through the mission's participatory identification process.
• Members are adults, each with an acceptable identity document — the District Panchayat lists passport, driving licence, Aadhaar, voter identity card or MGNREGA job card, and notes that Aadhaar e-KYC alone satisfies the account-opening requirement.
• The group meets regularly, collects savings from every member at each meeting, keeps a minutes book and a savings register, and has begun internal lending out of its own corpus.
• The group has a bank account in the group's name operated jointly by its office bearers.
• The group has passed grading by the mission staff, which scores regularity of meetings, savings, internal lending and book-keeping.
• Only one member per household is in the group, the standard NRLM discipline that prevents one family capturing multiple entitlements.

Your group is not eligible, or cannot apply yet, if:

• It has fewer than the minimum members or has been formed only on paper to claim the fund.
• It has not completed the required period of regular savings and internal lending. A brand-new group cannot receive the revolving fund on the day it is formed.
• It fails grading because meetings are irregular, records are missing or savings are not being collected.
• Members are not resident in the union territory.
• The group has defaulted on an earlier SHG loan, or has members who are wilful defaulters to a bank.
• It has two or more members from the same household, which is corrected before the group is graded.
• It is a group formed for a purpose other than livelihood. The mission funds livelihood and thrift groups, not associations formed for a one-time purchase.

What documents are required?

How to apply for SHG formation and the revolving fund

1. Contact the community mobiliser or the Block Development Office. Ask the NRLM community resource person working in your village, or the Block Development Office of the U.T. Administration, to help form the group. The District Panchayat Office at 66 KVA Road, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, on 0260-2632303, is the district-level point of contact.
2. Form the group and pass a resolution. Bring together 10 to 20 women from different households, elect a president, secretary and treasurer, and record the group's rules on meeting frequency, savings amount and internal lending in a written resolution.
3. Open the SHG bank account. Take the resolution, the member list and each member's Aadhaar to the nearest bank branch. The account is opened in the group's name and operated jointly by the office bearers.
4. Save and lend internally for the qualifying period. Meet weekly or monthly without fail, collect the agreed savings from every member, record every rupee in the register, and start lending small amounts to members from the pooled corpus.
5. Ask for grading. Once the group has a track record, request the mission staff to grade it. Grading scores attendance, savings regularity, internal lending, repayment and record-keeping.
6. Receive the Revolving Fund. On passing grading, the Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 corpus is credited to the group's account, to be lent to members and recovered under the group's own rules.
7. Prepare a micro credit plan and seek CIF and bank linkage. Set out member-wise credit needs and purposes, get it approved by the village organisation, and apply to the bank for a cash credit limit or term loan at the subvented rate.

Application details for the national mission are published at aajeevika.gov.in, which the District Panchayat itself links as the reference portal.

How do I check the status of an SHG application?

1. Ask the community mobiliser for the group's grading result and the date the revolving fund proposal was forwarded.
2. Call the District Panchayat Office on 0260-2632303 or write to dpo-dnh@nic.in, quoting the group's name and village.
3. Check the group's bank passbook. Both the revolving fund credit and any CIF release appear as credits in the SHG account.
4. Follow up at the bank branch for a pending credit linkage, and ask for the reason in writing if a loan proposal is declined.

Why do SHG proposals fail, and how do you fix them?

• Irregular meetings and gaps in the savings register. This is the single largest reason groups fail grading. Fix it by restarting a fixed meeting day and recording every meeting.
• No internal lending. A group that only saves and never lends is not demonstrating the discipline the fund is meant to strengthen.
• Two members from one household. Replace one member before grading.
• Bank account not opened or dormant, so the fund has nowhere to go. Complete e-KYC for all members and reactivate the account.
• Books maintained by an outsider rather than the group, which weakens the group's own capacity and is picked up in grading.
• Earlier loan overdue. Regularise repayment before applying for fresh credit.
• Micro credit plan too vague. Rewrite it member by member, with amounts, activity and repayment period.

Key dates and continuing obligations

Group formation, grading and fund release run all year round; there is no fixed application window. What is time-bound is the group's own discipline: meetings on schedule, savings collected each time, and loan instalments repaid, since interest subvention depends on the account staying regular.

Where do I get help or complain?

• District Panchayat Office, Dadra and Nagar Haveli to 0260-2632303, dpo-dnh@nic.in, 66 KVA Road.
• Block Development Office and the Rural Development Department of the U.T. Administration, both listed on ddd.gov.in.
• Women Helpline 181, listed on the U.T. Administration's official helpline page.
• CPGRAMS at pgportal.gov.in for a written grievance against delay.

Nothing in this process costs money. A group that is asked for a payment to be graded, to open its account or to release its revolving fund should report it to the District Panchayat Office in writing.