<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Rural Development Minister, Narendra Singh Tomar today said women have proved their leadership abilities in contributing to the development of rural areas. Conferring national awards on best performing Self Help Groups, SHGs, under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in New Delhi, the minister said, the SHGs have not just supported the women economically but also socially and creatively. </span></div>''<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"></div>''<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">While giving awards to 34 SHGs from across country, Mr Tomar said, India is fighting with inequality and to reduce this wealth gap, women in the village needs proper teaching, resources and encouragement to elevate herself from the social limitations. Currently, under fourty one lakh SHGs, five crore women are associated and the government wants to increase it to ten crore. He said, there is a general perception that poor people cannot payback their loans and mostly it falls as Non Performing Asset, NPAs, but SHGs NPA has come down to 2-3 percent in the last four years from 23 percent.</div>''<div class="yj6qo" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"></div>