WEST CHESTER — Help!

You are young, fighting mental illness and your parents can’t afford insurance or you are on medical assistance.

Leslie Holt, founder and director of A Child’s Light is there to help while working toward a solution.

Leslie Holt looks at a photo of her late daughter who was an inspiration for A Child’s Light. (BILL RETTEW/MEDIANEWS GROUP)

A Child’s Light funds trauma-informed, private mental health treatment for children ages 2-18 and has served 150 children to access long-term treatment.

“ACL funds kids who have been victims of sexual or physical violence, trafficking, loss of parents to fentanyl poisoning and other life-altering trauma,” Holt said Tuesday morning during an interview at the new offices of A Child’s Light at 1444 Phoenixville Pike, in a cottage located on the property adjacent to Treehouse World.

A Child’s Light has been operational since 2019 and opened the doors to the new office in June of 2023.

The 501(c)3 not-for-profit serves families from the Pottstown to Parkesburg areas and everywhere in between.

A great place for therapy at A Child’s Light. (BILL RETTEW/MEDIAENEWS GROUP)

ACL partners with therapists who understand the huge need for childhood mental health providers and the challenges families in Chester County face. With a waitlist approaching two years, Holt has developed another business model to help children who have suffered the worst types of abuse.

“Severe trauma is life-altering and our children and community deserve more,” she said. “We are investing in our kids.”

Holt knows of what she practices. She was a victim’s advocate for five years and was able to see firsthand the inefficiencies in the systems in place to help little victims.

Needy kids receive therapy at A Child’s Light. (BILL RETTEW/MEDIANEWS GROUP)

“This is not something specific to Chester County,” she said. “Across the US there is a childhood mental health crisis.”

Holt’s personal and professional life coincided with her own daughter’s sexual abuse at the hands of a trusted friend who bought her alcohol when she was 14 and encouraged her to drink to blackout. This one incident changed her daughter’s life forever.

Suffering from the attack and chronic Lyme disease pain, her daughter was poisoned by 3 methyl-fentanyl given to her without her knowledge and died. The daughter’s death was instrumental in the development of A Child’s Light and in her passion for helping little ones who suffered as she had from abuse.

“Seeing my daughter bravely struggle, I don’t want any other children to struggle as my daughter did,” Holt said.

The Phoenixville Pike facility hosts the Great Room where support groups and therapists meet with families. A huge picture window looks out onto Valley Creek and a whimsical treehouse can be seen from the backyard. The facility with much natural sunlight is located down a driveway in the back of Treehouse World. Wood floors and beams welcome clients and staff.

The Stone Room is a comfy, private space for one-on-one therapy and looks out to an abundance of beautiful mature trees.

“This is the type of environment that kids should come to for therapy!” Holt said while talking about the faculty in general. “Isn’t this space warm and inviting and not at all like a regular therapist’s office?

“What child wouldn’t want to come to therapy here?”

Plans call for adding art therapy in the fall, at a sun-filled room opening to a slate patio along with music therapy and boxing for empowerment and building self-esteem.

A Child’s Light is excited to welcome other children, while other professionals serve in the building, including Confident Parenting, 2BeSocial, and Imago OT, to its second floor.

A Child’s Light is honored to be the designated recipient of proceeds raised by this year’s Paoli Blues Fest on Sept. 30 at Wilson Farm Park. This event is open to all with food trucks and there will be activities for kids from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For more information and to support A Child’s Light, go to www.childslight.com or call 610-405-2968.

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At its regular meeting on Monday, June 26, 2023, the City Council of the City of West Hollywood unanimously approved the creation of the West Hollywood Care Team, a new behavioral health crisis response program to serve the community. The Care Team is a first-of-its-kind city-county collaboration to enhance community access to crisis support and services.

The City’s Care Team will provide crisis stabilization, safety planning, connection to community resources, and follow-up support. Services will be delivered using an approach based on harm-reduction, trauma-informed, and culturally competent practices. The Care Team will provide mobile response and will ride in unmarked passenger vehicles with no lights or sirens with the aim of providing respectful care to people in crisis. The City expects to launch the Care Team in Fall 2023 with initial operating hours from Monday through Friday, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. By year two, the goal is to expand Care Team coverage to 24/7/365 service.

“The development and implementation of our new community-based behavioral health response team in West Hollywood is a huge step forward in meeting the needs of community members when they may be experiencing a mental health crisis,” said City of West Hollywood Mayor Sepi Shyne. “The West Hollywood Care Team will bring a whole a new level of sensitivity and a trauma-informed approach that will make our City better poised to respond to needs in way that helps stabilize situations as they occur.”

The City will contract with Sycamores, a nonprofit social service organization with expertise in providing behavioral health programs and services. Sycamores is currently a mobile crisis response contractor for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health Alternative Crisis Response (ACR) system. The City will operate the West Hollywood Care Team in collaboration with the regional system to enhance community access to intensive mental health services provided by the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health when appropriate.

Community members experiencing a behavioral health crisis will be able to call 988 to get support. 988 is the national number for the Suicide and Crisis Helpline. In the Los Angeles region, the 988 call center operator is Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services. Community members utilizing this service will be able to talk to a trained counselor who will assess the mental health crisis and will provide community resources when appropriate. When the counselors on the phone determine that the crisis needs in-person support, the West Hollywood Care Team will be dispatched to respond to the caller’s location to provide services. The West Hollywood community stands to benefit from the immediate availability of crisis counseling via the 988 call center combined with the City’s added capacity to provide in-person service and care when needed.

The investment in the Care Team advances collective priorities outlined in the City’s Community Safety and Well-Being Strategy (CSWB). The CSWB Strategy helps create a safer West Hollywood community by finding ways to better connect the City’s existing social service and law enforcement programs, making it easier for individuals to access vital support and services when needed. The Care Team will also be a secondary responder to West Hollywood Sheriff’s Deputies and LA County Fire personnel. When a community member needs behavioral health services, the Care Team will be requested for on-scene support.

The Care Team program will be overseen by the City’s Human Services Division and will collaborate closely with City-funded social service agencies to support community members’ access to local and regional social services programs.

For more information about the West Hollywood Care Team, please contact Elizabeth Anderson, City of West Hollywood Strategic Initiatives Program Administrator, at (323) 848-6839 or eanderson@weho.org. For additional information, please visit www.weho.org/careteam. For people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, please call TTY (323) 848-6496.

For up-to-date information about City of West Hollywood news and events, follow @wehocity on social media, sign-up for news updates at www.weho.org/email, and visit the City’s calendar of meetings and events at www.weho.org/calendar. West Hollywood City Hall is open for walk-in services at public counters or by appointment by visiting www.weho.org/appointments. City Hall services are accessible by phone at (323) 848-6400 and via website at www.weho.org. Receive text updates from the City by texting “WeHo” to (323) 848-5000.

For reporters and members of the media seeking additional information about the City of West Hollywood, please contact the City of West Hollywood’s Public Information Officer, Sheri A. Lunn, at (323) 848-6391 or slunn@weho.org.

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Delta Air Lines and Los Angeles World Airports have finished the second-to-last major phase of the Delta Sky Way at LAX project, with Terminal 3 now offering another entry point via the west headhouse as well as a dedicated check-in area for its Delta One customers.

“We’re building on our position as LAX’s leading premium global carrier and achieving yet another infrastructure milestone ahead of schedule – enabling an ever-elevated travel journey for our Los Angeles customers,” said Scott Santoro, Vice President of Global Sales. “Now that the summer travel season has officially kicked off, Delta couldn’t be more ready to get our customers where they want to go most.”

The west headhouse, which features self-service kiosks to drop bags and/or print boarding passes, gives customers another entry point to easily check in and get to security. Later this summer, Delta expects to implement digital ID technology at bag drop and security checkpoints, allowing eligible customers to use their biometric data to more seamlessly move through the airport.

An exclusive Delta One check-in area, located on the lower arrivals level of Terminal 3, offers a private TSA screening lane and direct access to the Delta Sky Club. Delta One customers will be greeted by a team of Elite Service agents dedicated to providing white-glove service, and the space will offer refreshing towels as well as light food and beverage offerings. The Delta One check-in area will also feature one-of-a-kind artwork from two local artists in partnership with ArtLifting, a social enterprise that champions artists impacted by disabilities and housing insecurity.

“I am eager for guests to enjoy Delta’s new West Headhouse and Delta One Check-in and ticketing lobby at LAX’s Terminal 3, in addition to the entire Delta Sky Way project when it opens later this summer. These projects truly are establishing the new norm of first-rate guest experiences passengers will find across LAX,” said Justin Erbacci, Chief Executive Officer, LAWA. “My deep appreciation goes to Delta, Hensel Phelps, the team at LAWA, our shared community of supporters and the workers who are continuing to usher the Delta Sky Way project forward.” 

Additional latest terminal enhancements include the addition of 100 more seats to the Delta Sky Club, the re-opening of the original Terminal 3 passenger tunnel, complete with its signature 1960s tile mosaic and direct access to baggage claim, an enlarged T3 Help Center, and a second connection point to LAX’s automated people mover system when it opens in mid-2024.

Terminal 3 made its debut last year, with a centralized check-in lobby, expanded security checkpoint and baggage claim area, and state-of-the-art Delta Sky Club. Delta was able to accelerate project timelines and will deliver the state-of-the-art, 1.2-million-square-foot, 27-gate complex 18 months earlier than originally planned. The final milestone of the Delta Sky Way at LAX project — the airside connector to the Tom Bradley International Terminal — is expected to be complete in August 2023 and will eliminate the need to bus between terminals.

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Delta Air Lines and Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) have completed another major phase of the Delta Sky Way at LAX: the brand-new T3 facility, featuring nine new gates* and spacious seating areas, will open to customers on Oct. 5.

“A transformation of LAX is on the horizon,” said Rachel Freeman, Deputy Mayor of Business and Economic Development. “The newly completed investments at Terminal 3 are another step in upgrading the guest experience at LAX and building an airport that Angelenos deserve. We look forward to continuing the work with our partners in providing a more seamless, modern, and world-class experience for all of our guests.”

LAX serves as one of Delta’s most important coastal hubs and this summer will operate over 150 peak-day flights to 52 destinations across the globe, serving 19 of the top 20 markets for Los Angeles customers. The airline continues to add new and exciting destinations to its slate, with never-before-operated service launching to Dallas-Love Field (June 5); Auckland, New Zealand, (Oct. 28); and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Vail, Colorado (Dec. 16).

Delta and its 4,000 Los Angeles-based employees are deeply ingrained in the community, supporting more than a dozen nonprofit organizations throughout the state of California. Additionally, the airline is proud to serve as the inaugural founding partner of the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games and the official airline of Team USA. The airline also serves as the as official carrier of Crypto.com Arena and the LA Kings.

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The integrated emblem is the first in Olympic and Paralympic Movement history.

Delta has invested more than $12 billion coast-to-coast in the last ten years, doubling down on its vision for the future of travel to build airports of the future that are comfortable, easy to navigate and part of an effortlessly connected journey.

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On the eve of Memorial Day weekend, Gov. Gavin Newsom and first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom visited the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus, touring a new supportive housing site there.

The visit on Friday afternoon, May 26, was intended to tout what the governor’s press office described in a news release as “historic investments made in behavioral health and housing resources for veterans.”

California is home to 1.6 million veterans, the most in the nation, according to Newsom’s office. There were nearly 4,000 veterans who were tallied in LA County in 2022, according to that year’s point-in-time count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, and his wife, first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, right, tour the campus of the Veterans Affairs of Greater Los Angeles, Friday, May 26, 2023, in Los Angeles . (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

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  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, tours the campus of the Veterans Affairs of Greater Los Angeles on Friday, May 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

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  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center left, and his wife, first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, center right, tour a newly renovated building used to house veterans on the campus of the VA of Greater Los Angeles, Friday, May 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. At left is Robert Merchant, interim director of VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System Medical Center; second from left is Dr. Steven Braverman, interim director of VISN 22 Network; and at right is Steve Peck, president & CEO of US VETS. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

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  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, tours the campus of the Veterans Affairs of Greater Los Angeles on Friday, May 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

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  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, tours the campus of the Veterans Affairs of Greater Los Angeles on Friday, May 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

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  California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his wife, first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, center, tour the campus of the Veterans Affairs of Greater Los Angeles on Friday, May 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. At left is Steve Peck, president & CEO of US VETS. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

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  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, and his wife, first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, center right, tour a newly renovated building used to house veterans on the campus of the VA of Greater Los Angeles, Friday, May 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. At left is Dr. Steven Braverman, interim VISN 22 network director, and at right is Steve Peck, president & CEO of US VETS. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

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  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, and his wife, first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, are greeted by veteran Anthony Wimberly, left, in his apartment in a newly renovated building used to house veterans on the campus of the Veterans Affairs of Greater Los Angeles on Friday, May 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

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  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, and his wife, first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, are greeted by veteran Anthony Wimberly, left, in his apartment in a newly renovated building used to house veterans on the campus of the Veterans Affairs of Greater Los Angeles on Friday, May 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

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  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, and his wife, first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, are greeted by veteran Anthony Wimberly, left, in his apartment in a newly renovated building used to house veterans on the campus of the Veterans Affairs of Greater Los Angeles on Friday, May 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

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  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center left, and his wife, first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, tour the campus of the Veterans Affairs of Greater Los Angeles on Friday, May 26, 2023, in Los Angeles. At left is Steve Peck, president & CEO of US VETS, and center right is Brian D’Andrea, senior vice president of housing at Century. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

Recent state investments have led to CalVet expanding programs focused on veterans, particularly comprehensive behavioral and mental health services, such as those offered at the West Los Angeles VA campus.

“Our veterans put their lives on the line to serve our country, now we need to serve them in return,” the governor said in a Friday statement. “Too many veterans can’t escape the battlefront, even here on the home front – and because of that, we have lost too many of these heroes to suicide, while many more struggle with other behavioral and physical health concerns.”

Those investiments, according to the release, include:

• The California Veterans Health Initiative, which provided $50 million to improve coordination among various agencies resources to boost education and outreach efforts, while increasing capacity.
• Veterans Housing and Homelessness Prevention Program, which provided $100 million to help housing projects comply with a requirement to provide on-site services.
• Veterans Support to Self-Reliance Pilot Program, which gave a $25 million boost to provide services intended to help veterans stay in their homes as they age.
• Behavioral Health Services Program, which provided $1.27 million in ongoing funding to help counties improve mental health services for veterans.
• California Transition Assistance Program , which provides training, both in-person and virtually, to active service members, veterans and their families.
• The hiring of clinical social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists at the eight Veterans Homes of California to ensure adequate behavioral health services throughout the state.

“California is building an accessible network of resources for veterans and their families, while we tackle the deadly stigma around mental health that isolates and endangers so many of our heroes,” Newsom said. “We are home to the nation’s largest population of veterans, who all deserve to be connected, respected, and protected.”

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To many western investors, China under president Xi Jinping is a tough nut to crack. While Chinese leaders insist that they welcome foreign investment, the ruling party’s extension of control to companies, with crackdowns on domestic tech giants and more recently the “anti-spying” raids on consulting firms, including America’s blue chip Bain & Company, are puzzling to the outside world.

Chris Marquis, author and professor of Chinese management at the University of Cambridge, believes that part of the explanation lies in the ruling party’s ideology. He says one must “dig into the Maoist roots in Chinese institutions and political economy to try to understand ideas that Xi has”.

“In the west, it’s very hard for people to really understand the depth of control [of the Chinese Communist party]. The party sits above the government, sits above the economy and the military even.”

With a history and sociology background, ​Marquis, who last year published Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise, has studied entrepreneurs, listed companies and provincial and city officials in China, and found that Mao Zedong’s ideology, campaigns and institutions continue to have a deep influence on their thinking.

For decades after the former leader Deng Xiaoping’s “reform and opening” policies of the late 1970s, the west had hoped that China’s venture into open markets and private enterprise would spell the end of the state-controlled economy.

“There was this dominant theory that when you open economically, political liberalisation follows,” he says. “We in the west were blinded. Based on our own natural bias, [we think] we have this great system and China will want to be like us, but actually, not.”

While the west welcomed Deng’s reforms, it largely overlooked that his premise was his “four cardinal principles”, namely Mao Zedong Thought, Marxism-Leninism, “people’s democratic dictatorship” and Communist party leadership.

“Mao’s ideology and dictatorship of the proletariat comes first, reform and opening is second,” Marquis says. “This gives an indication that ‘reforming and opening’ is a means to an end.”

Chris Marquis says Xi Jinping is creating a culture of fear in China that will stifle innovation. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

“There is a line from Mao to Xi, and ‘reform and opening’ [was] an aberration. Xi is working in the system that Mao created – campaign governance, the party being the centre of everything, nationalism, all these resonate with Mao.”

Shortly after Xi took power, he stressed the importance of the tech sector, but also earmarked cybersecurity a national priority. Xi personally chairs the Central Commission for Cybersecurity and Informatisation, which oversees the country’s digital networks.

The authorities’ recent anti-espionage crackdown on consulting firms is one outcome of such heightened concern about national security. State media reported this month that police had raided offices across China of the Shanghai- and US-headquartered business consulting firm Capvision and accused some companies of ​​becoming “accomplices for overseas espionage, bribery, and extraction of national secrets and intelligence”. This followed an investigation into Bain & Company’s China office in April, and the detention in March of Chinese staff at the US firm Mintz Group. The firms concerned all deny the allegations.

The party has tightened its leash on the tech sector, with a number of industry leaders mysteriously stepping down. The best known among them, Alibaba’s co-founder Jack Ma, disappeared from public view for more than a year after Beijing blocked his online finance platform Ant Group’s planned £26bn stock market flotation in Hong Kong in 2020 – . The move came after Ma criticised government regulators. Earlier this year, Ant announced that Ma – who has re-emerged in China after reportedly living in self-imposed exile in Japan, would cede control.

Jack Ma in Paris in 2019. The co-founder of Alibaba vanished from public view for more than a year after Beijing blocked his Ant Group’s planned £26bn market flotation in Hong Kong. Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP

In February, Bao Fan, the founder of China Renaissance Holdings – an investment bank favoured by the tech sector – vanished before his company announced that he was “co-operating in an investigation being carried out by certain authorities”. Others who stepped down include Zhang Yiming, the chair of TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, Huang Zheng, the founder of the e-commerce company Pinduoduo and Su Hua, chief executive of the short-video apps owner Kuaishou.

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Apart from an existing requirement for companies to install party cells, the party is exerting even more influence by taking “golden shares” in some of the most influential tech firms. The authorities’ move to take stakes in the local operations of Alibaba and Tencent come with special rights over business decisions. These two companies have both pledged multibillion-pound sums to help achieve Xi’s “common prosperity” goal for the nation.

Marquis expects the party’s supervision and control in the tech sector will only step up in the coming years, noting that as of 2020, the authorities formally designated data as a “factor of production” in the Communist party’s neo-Marxist governance theory, in line with other traditional factors of production, such as land, labour, capital, and technology.

“While Chinese leaders talk about how they are open for business in public forums, their actions across sectors say they truly believe the opposite,” he says. “Overall, the trend is toward much stronger control of the economy.”

He believes that Xi’s “self-reliance” ambition to wean China off dependency on foreign supply for semiconductors is likely to fail, as design and innovation can thrive only in an open and free environment.

“It is creating a culture of fear which will stifle innovation, leading entrepreneurs to leave China … and those left behind are less likely to experiment,” he says.

China’s aggressive foreign policy in recent years has not helped. “Breaking Deng’s ‘bide your time’ dictum was hugely an error. To be a little more low-key while building up the expertise would have been a smarter strategy.

“Because now, around the world, people are fearing China. But in the new technology area, it’s not yet in a strong place. China will have a lot of challenges.”

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A new ‘scam’ has come to light in the Manik Bazar panchayat of Sonamukhir block of Bankura district in which fake loans have been taken in the name of women of the region.

As per available information, loans worth Rs 6 crore have been accounted for in the name of women self-help groups. While this scam started in 2018, it accelerated during the COVID lockdown.

Allegedly, a section of women leaders associated with the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) is said to be involved. They are the ones looking after government-controlled self-help groups.

The affected women alleged that some bank officials were also involved.

“Thousands of women from economically-poor backgrounds worry about how they would repay the money that they did not borrow in the first place,” Parul Ray, an older woman from Narayan Sundari village who makes a living by selling the leaves she collects from a nearby forest, told this writer.

Madhuri Pal, a domestic worker from Brajarajpur, shared Ray’s concern.

The affected women have organised several demonstrations. As a result, the administration acted and arrested two key accused, Bhagyabati Mal and Choitali Dey, on April 20. Both are allegedly linked with TMC.

Inspector in-charge (IC) Sonamukhi police station Surya Chitta Bhattacharya told this writer, “We have taken the case seriously, and the administration will take immediate action.”

The extent of the alleged scam is wider than Manik Bazar. Gram panchayats in other parts of the Bankura districts have also been allegedly affected,

Meeting of self help group Sonamukhi Manik Bazaar.

The self-help groups (SHGs) were established in 2006 by an amendment in the West Bengal Rule of Business (notification no. 196, Home Cons.).

Most SHGs were formed to ensure better financial security among their members, especially the uplift of economically-poor women. They typically constitute 10-20 members, including women and unemployed youth. The members are trained to make them self-reliant.

Over the last decade, the importance of SHGs has decreased. Rather than the earlier focus on training, SHGs are now only tasked with lending money to their members.

“Many group members allege they were unaware of the loans taken in their names,” Ajit Ray, former MLA from Sonamukhi, told this writer.

“There are 57,356 SHGs in the Bankura district. The Central government covered them under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM). The TMC government named them ‘Anandadhara’,” said an officer of the District Rural Development Cell (DRDC) Bankura. DRDC regulates SHGs.

The officer further said 32,979 women SHGs had been loaned Rs 874 crore in the Bankura district. These loans have been given per a specific grading.

After forming an SHG, the group has to follow five principal rules. These are, regular meetings, regular savings, internal loaning, timely repayment, and proper bookkeeping. The working stage of SHGs involves saving and lending, bank linkage, and income generation.

After forming a group, Rs 15,000 is given as a revolving fund to the group account by DRDC. The department evaluates the group on five principal rules after six months. If the evaluation is positive, the group reaches the first grade.

“After the first grading, a group can loan Rs 1,50,000 from the bank. During the second grading, the amount increases to Rs 2,50,000. By the fourth grading, the group can loan up to Rs 6,00,000,” a Punjab National Bank (Sonamukhi branch) official told this writer.

As per the rules, the group members must repay the loan at 7% interest; if the loan money is repaid within a specific period, they get a 4% interest subsidy.

After forming an SHG, sub-groups (upasangha) are constituted by two members of each group. Then sangha (apex body of SHGs) gets elected by sub-group members. The sangha is responsible for monitoring the work of SHGs in a specific gram panchayat.

On behalf of the sangha, CSPs (community service providers) look after group loans.

“The elections for sanghas were not done democratically. The people of the ruling party have taken over SHGs by force. No opposition face was allowed to contest. In such circumstances, the sanghas appointed women cadre of TMC as CSPs,” alleged Subrata Chatterjee, a labour leader.

“The seeds of corruption have been planted in Sonamukhi. The district administration knows everything but is yet to take action. The Central government gives each sangha an annual grant of Rs 18-40 lakh to set up a small business or industry to empower women. How is that money being spent? Where are these businesses? Are women even involved?” Chatterjee further told this writer.

In response to these questions, a DRDC officer said the department sends proposals to the state government for approval.

“Several sanghas of Bankura district have received the money. We do not count how many projects have started. All sanghas (10) of the Sonamukhi block have received around Rs 26-40 lakh. From the Central fund, various types of equipment were bought for mushroom cultivation; sheds were constructed, but no work was done there,” he told this writer.

It has been alleged that DRDC pressures the block administration to open more SHGs to show that women are self-reliant.

“Corruption is increasing through this system,” said Manoj Chakraborty, a resident.

The extent of corruption in Manik Bazar SHGs is said to be “unparalleled”. Several group members allege that lakhs of rupees have been loaned in their name.

“We found this month that we were scammed. In 2012, we created Jaiguru women’s SHG. We have never taken any loans. Still, a loan worth Rs 5 lakh has been shown in our name,” alleged Sharmistha Mandal, a group member.

Mandal and other group members were unaware of this loan until their PNB bank accounts were closed in March.

During a demonstration in Manik Bazar, group members told this writer that the resolution book and cheque book were with two CSP members. They alleged that these CSP members used to take them to the bank to withdraw money. They said they were also asked to sign two-three cheques. Later, they alleged, the money was withdrawn in their name by using those cheques without their knowledge.

These SHG members have accused two persons – Mal and Dey — for scamming them. They also suspect that some PNB persons are also involved in the alleged scam.

Suchorita Ray Pratihar, a member of the Krishna Anandashara group, said she loaned Rs 50,000 in September 2021. She was informed that a loan of Rs 40,000 was taken in her name in the same month, and another loan was taken in July 2022. These loans were taken by forging her signature.

The same ‘scam’ has happened to hundreds of women. Even after contacting their respective banks, they said their passbooks were not updated.

The writer covers the Bankura region for the ‘Ganashakti’ newspaper in West Bengal.

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