Kudumbashree Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs) bagged the National Award constituted by National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) for the best performing NHGs. Panchami NHG from Kondoor Panchayath of Kottayam District and Ushas NHG of Azhikode Village of Thrissur District are the NHGs which bagged the National Award. Shri. Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister of Rural Development, Government of India will give away the awards at the function to be held at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi, in connection with the Women's Day Celebrations on 7 March 2020.

The Award is constituted for felicitating the NHGs who had shown outstanding performance. The activities performed during the previous financial year would be considered for giving the awards. The number of NHG meetings called, number of members attended, average attendance of each member, number of members who had attended trainings, total thrift, disbursal of corpus fund, internal lending status, community investment fund availed, corpus fund, total number of bank loans availed, number of units started using the bank loans, annual income, number of entrepreneurs included, scope of the enterprise, income, consistency, number of individual micro enterprises, regularity in keeping register, number of members who have personal bank accounts, ratio of the members who have insurance coverage, ratio of members who have latrine facility at their homes and the leadership quality were the criteria for deciding the award.

As per the guidelines, the respective district missions had submitted selected 3 NHGs from every districts. The selection committee from Kudumbashree State Mission selected the best 3 NHGs out of the 42 NHGs selected by the districts and submitted to NRLM and out of those 3 NHGs two of them bagged the award.

The 121 houses constructed at Alappuzha using CSR fund of Ramoji Film City handed over to beneficiaries. Shri. Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister, Government of Kerala handed over the keys of the houses to the beneficiaries at the programme held at Camelot Convention Centre, Alappuzha on 9 February 2020.

Alappuzha was one of the districts which was severely devastated during the unprecedented floods that happened in Kerala during 2018. Ramoji Film City, headquartered at Hyderabad came forward to support construction of new houses for those who had lost their shelter during the floods. This support came from Ramoji Film City as a sponsorship towards the project ‘I am for Alleppey’, initiated by the then sub collector Shri. Krishna Teja, IAS. Ramoji team offered a sum of Rs 7 crore to Government of Kerala, for the construction of 116 houses. The Honourable Chief Minister of Kerala recommended that the construction of these houses could be done through Kudumbashree. The decision was to entrust Kudumbashree women construction groups for building these houses. Based on this decision, the contract was signed between Executive Director, Kudumbashree and Ramoji Film City officials during April 2019.

As per the agreement, it was decided to build 116 houses using Rs 7 crores. Each house cost Rs 6 lakhs. But Kudumbashree team was able to minimize the expenses and could built another 5 houses in addition. So in total, 121 houses were constructed by Kudumbashree women construction groups at Alappuzha.It is a moment of pride that Kudumbashree team completed the construction of all the houses within 8 months, i.e., much before the predetermined date of completion. The construction of these houses were completed by 215 Kudumbashree women who had received training in construction. A total of 43 construction groups became part of the building process.

It is a moment of happiness that Kudumbashree was able to complete construction of houses for those who lost their shelters during flood. Kudumbashree teams could complete the construction of the houses before the planned schedule. Also, there was no cost escalation (and there was savings, with which additional five houses were also constructed). This would undoubtedly be the golden moment in the history of Kudumbashree women construction groups.

Kerala Budget 2020-21 allocated Rs 1550 Crores for Kudumbashree Mission to implement various programmes of Kudumbashree and  for the welfare programmes for women. Rs 250 is allotted as the Budget allocation and in addition to this, Rs 200 crore is allocated from Rebuild Kerala for livelihood enterprises. Including the financial assistance from the Local Self Government Institutions, Rs 600 crores is the total budget of Kudumbashree. In addition to this, the Centrally Sponsored programmes of Rs 950 crores in the urban areas are also implemented through Kudumbashree.  

The main Budget Mentions regarding Kudumbashree include:

• Bank loans of Rs 3000 crores would be given to the Kudumbashree members at 4% interest rate.
• A total of 1000 hunger free hotels would be opened which would serve lunch at Rs 25  per meal. 
• She Lodges would be started in every towns to ensure safety of the commuting women.
• A total of 200 Kerala Chicken Outlets would be opened.
• 1000 Haritha enterprises would be launched. 
• 50 hotels with daily turnover of Rs.30,000 would be started.
• Management of 500 toilet complexes would be given to Kudumbashree.
•  5000 new enterprises would be launched.
• 14 tribal micro projects in the Alappuzha model would also be started. 
• Organic Farming would be done in 20,000 acres of land. 
• 500 Gender Resource Centres would also be launched. 
• Home Shops would be opened in all districts in Kozhikode Homeshop model. 
• Kudumbashree Internship programme would be started and would be given to Kudumbashree. 
• Kudumbashree Chitties would be started. 
• Pakalveed would be started for 2 or 3 wards  and the 25,000 ELderly NHGs would be connected to this. 
• Rs 35 crores is allocated for BUDS Schools.
• A programme for giving employment to 1.5 lakh people per year will be started through Local Self Government Institutions in non agrarian sector through local ventures. Employment should be created at the rate of one person per thousand persons. Kudumbashree will also become part of this.

The achievements of Kudumbashree were also presented at the Budget Speech. Kudumbashree had contributed much in increasing the visibility of women in the society. The number of Kudumbashree members increased from 40 lakhs t0 45 lakhs and the Bank linkage loan was increased from Rs 5,717 crores to Rs 10,499 crores and the number of enterprises increased from 10,777 to 23,453.The number of farming groups was increased from 54,000 to 68,000. It was stated in the last budget that Kudumbashree would introduce brand based centralized marketing for 12 micro entrepreneurship items. As part of this, agreement has been executed for manufacturing products such as umbrella, coconut products and curry powders on cluster basis with common name and selling it through the outlets of Civil Supplies Corporation. Kerala Chicken has been launched in the market. Already around 1000 poultry units are working under Kudumbashree. Under the brand name „Nutrimix‟, general nutritious food items were introduced in the market. 212 handicraft products were launched online in the market. Also, 275 Building construction units run by women, 206 Multi Task teams, 76 Event Management Teams were started. Agreement has been executed for starting more than 100 “Take-A-Break” centres. 25,000 Elderly NHGs were formed and Snehitha Calling Bell Scheme was launched for the elderly people who stay isolated.