Budget 2024: Who are 'Lakhpati Didis' mentioned by Nirmala Sitharaman in her speech?

In line with with the Modi government's 'Nari Shakti' push, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced the government's decision to amplify their target of creating three crore 'Lakhpati Didis' whereas the initial aim was two crore.

"Eighty-three lakh SHGs with nine crore women are transforming rural socio-economic landscape with empowerment and self-reliance. Their success has assisted nearly one crore women to become Lakhpati Didi already. They are an inspiration to others," Sitharaman said, while presenting the Interim Budget 2024.

"Their achievements will be recognised through honouring them. Buoyed by the success, it has been decided to enhance the target for Lakhpati Didi from 2 crore to 3 crore," she added.

Who are 'Lakhpati Didis'

'Lakhpati Didis' refer to self-help group workers who have an income of at least Rs one lakh a year.

A scheme targeting the creation of 'Lakhpati Didis' was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Independence Day speech last year.

The scheme is aimed at training women in self-help groups (SHGs) so that they can earn a sustainable income of at least Rs 1 lakh per annum.

Under the scheme, the women are given skill-development training in plumbing, LED bulb making, and operating and repairing drones among other things, reports said.

"Today 10 crore women are involved in women self-help groups and if you go to a village with women self-help groups, you will find bank didis, Anganwadi didis with and didis who distribute medicines. And now my dream is to create a base of 2 crore lakhpati didis in the villages. And now we have new options for the same i.e. science and technology. I can see the potential of the women in our villages and that's why I am thinking of a new scheme. That will provide training to the sisters of the Women Self Help Group with the integration of technology in our agriculture sector thereby strengthening our agri-tech," Modi had said.

"We will give skill training to women and train them to operate as well as repair drones. The Government of India will provide drones to thousands of such Women Self Help Groups. We will initiate making drone services available for our agricultural work. To begin with, we will start building 15 thousand Women Self Help Groups which will give flight to the dream of enabling a robust drone training mission," the PM added.

(With PTI inputs)