The Tamil Nadu Women's Development Project of the Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women — Coodu Trust was the approved NGO for Karur district, working across four blocks from 26 January 2006.
The project
Promoting economic development and social empowerment of poor and disadvantaged women through a network of Self-Help Groups, providing micro-credit for income generation and asset creation, facilitating bank linkage for livestock rearing, and building functional literacy, communication, and leadership skills — enabling women to participate fully and actively in decision-making at the household and community level.
The Tamil Nadu Women's Development Project — known as Mahalir Thittam — is run by the Tamil Nadu Corporation for Development of Women Ltd. Coodu Trust was the approved NGO for Karur district, working across four blocks — Kadavur, Thogamalai, Aravakurichi and Paramathi — from 26.01.2006. The 2011–12 report records the assignment at ₹39,60,000 over 36 months with a deployment of 180 staff-months, reporting to the Project Officer, Mahalir Thittam, at the Collectorate Campus, Karur.
Each group evolves through group formation, capital formation through revolving funds, and skill development. Financial assistance reaches the members through SGSY, IWDP, Mahalir Thittam, NABARD, TAHDCO and nationalised banks — the trust reported the cumulative total as nearly ₹5 crore in 2012–13 and nearly ₹6 crore in 2013–14. That money is bank and government money routed to the groups, not trust income; what Coodu Trust supplies is the organising, the training and the linkage. The largest single linkage on record is a ₹1.33 crore bank loan obtained by 67 self-help groups of Karur district for rearing cows.
Training turned credit into enterprise: 50 SHGs of Kadavur and Thogamalai blocks received financial inclusion training, and 201 women were trained in entrepreneurship skills during 2009–2010 — 52 in dairy development, 47 in tailoring, 27 in nursery management, 32 in vermicomposting and 43 in mushroom production. On Mahalir Thittam finance, 120 commercial sheep farms and 10 goat farms were established in Kadavur block, the goat farms with technical backing from UVTRC Karur; 4 backyard poultry units were set up at Mettupatty village, where 25 women farmers were trained in the initial phase.
Why this work matters
Poor and disadvantaged women had little access to financial resources outside the household — and little say over how income was retained, saved or used.
Groups began with savings and internal lending, then were linked to SGSY, IWDP, Mahalir Thittam, NABARD, TAHDCO and nationalised banks — including a ₹1.33 crore cow-rearing loan obtained by 67 groups. The credit is the banks' and the schemes'; the linkage is ours.
Without skills or productive assets, poor landless labourers in the four blocks struggled to move beyond daily-wage survival.
201 women trained in entrepreneurship skills in 2009–10; 120 sheep farms, 10 goat farms and 4 poultry units established in Kadavur block — funds were used for petty trades, livestock and small-scale cottage industries.
At a glance
Outcomes
The trust reported the cumulative financial assistance routed to its SHG members as nearly ₹5 crore in 2012–13 and nearly ₹6 crore in 2013–14 — bank and scheme money that landless labourers used for petty trades, livestock development and small-scale cottage industries.
67 SHGs obtained ₹1.33 crore for cow rearing, and 120 sheep farms, 10 goat farms and 4 poultry units took root in the Kadavur region — sheep farming became a significant livelihood source.
Trained SHGs ran community herbal nurseries, community nurseries, vermicomposting and mushroom production centres. The same Kadavur–Karur groups later formed the base for the trust's producer-company work in dairy.
Get involved
Help us keep building Self-Help Groups, micro-credit linkages and women-run enterprises that lift whole villages across Tamil Nadu.
