cre sco dit re DHARMAPURI l tuesday l march 04, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l city EDITION Women borrowers grow 22% over the last five years: report The report, released by NITI Aayog CEO B V R Subrahmanyam on Monday, showed bulk of the loans was for meeting consumption demand self-monitoring credit habit sees spike women make up 35% of business loans The report, published by TransUnion CIBIL, Women Entrepreneurship Platform of NITI Aayog and MicroSave Consulting said as of December 2024, 2.7 crore women were monitoring their credit, a 42% spike from the previous year. Women’s share of the total self-monitoring base increased to 19.43% in December 2024, up from 17.89% in 2023, it said ■ ■ The report released on Monday said that among the women borrowers, 60% were from semi-urban and rural areas Since 2019, women’s share in business loan has increased by 14% and their share in gold loans has grown by 6%, with women accounting for 35% of business borrowers by December 2024, the report said 15 crore jobs will be created if women entrepreneurship is promoted CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI SC lifts job bar on visually-impaired in lower judiciary Bear children soon, so TN wouldn’t lose seats: Stalin tions — including a representation from a visually-impaired candidate’s mother from MadIN a landmark verdict, the Su- hya Pradesh — for denying preme Court on Monday ruled quota to these candidates in juthat visually-impaired persons dicial services of certain cannot be denied the opportu- states. nity of employment The candidate’s in judicial services mother had last year and struck down written to the then provisions of the CJI challenging a Madhya Pradesh Jurule in the Madhya dicial Service Rules Pradesh Judicial that excluded them. Services (RecruitThe court said, “It ment and Service Separate is high time that we Conditions) Rules cut-off for view the right that prevented visucandidates against disabilityally impaired candibased discriminadates from being apNew Delhi: The tion, as recognised pointed in the state Supreme Court held in the RPwD Act judicial services. that a separate cut(Rights of Persons The court converted off is to with Disabilities the letter into a suo be maintained and Act) 2016, in the motu petition. selection made same stature as a In the 122-page accordingly for fundamental right, judgment, Justice visually-impaired thereby ensuring Mahadevan held candidates as that no candidate is that visually imindicated in line with denied considerapaired candidates the judgment in tion solely on accannot be said to be Indra Sawhney case count of their ‘not suitable’ for judisability .” dicial service and A two-judge bench, headed they are eligible to participate by justices J B Pardiwala and R in selection for posts in judicial Mahadevan, pronounced the service. (Full report at www. judgment on a batch of peti- newindianexpress.com) E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Nagapattinam S u c h i t r a K a lya n M o h a n t y @ New Delhi CM’s call to couples comes ahead of all-party meet on delimitation Chief Minister M K Stalin on Monday encouraged newly-married couples to bear children as early as possible, citing the proposed delimitation of parliamentary constituencies that is expected to be done on the basis of population. His comment comes ahead of the March 5 all-party meet he has called for to discuss the issue. Solemnising a wedding organised by DMK’s Nagapattinam district secretary N Gowthaman’s family, Stalin said it is no longer necessary to advise newly-married couples to postpone childbearing. “A scenario has currently developed where parliamentary constituencies are delimited on the basis of population and the number of MPs would be higher when the population is high. Hence, I would not ask the couples to postpone their childbearing like in earlier times and, rather, would encourage them to bear children as early as possible,” the CM said. The DMK and other parties in Chief Minister south India have raised concerns M K Stalin about a proportional loss of representation when delimitation is done, according to the 84th amendment, on the basis of the first census completed after 2026 (the 2021 census has not yet been conducted). With the number of Parliamentary and Assembly seats set to be allocated in proportion to a state’s population, political parties in the south fear that their states, which have slowed population growth, may end up with a smaller share of representation.  P5 Rework formula on population skew: TDP P r e e t h a N a i r @ New Delhi With the d elimitation row intensifying, the NDA government’s key ally Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Monday said the current delimitation formula needs rework to address the concerns of the South. He expressed confidence that the Centre has taken cognizance of the issue, adding Union home minister Amit Shah’s recent ‘pro rata’ statement was a signal in the right direction. TDP parliamentary party leader Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu said the reconfiguration of parliamentary seats based on the current census data could drastically cut their representation in the Lok Lavu Sri Krishna Sabha. Devarayalu “If the number of seats is increased on the existing formula of population census, Southern states will lose a considerable number of seats. That will invariably reduce our bargaining power in the foreseeable future in Parliament. We are seeing it after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. Our bargaining power has been reduced compared to a big state with big numbers,” he said. Home minister Amit Shah had recently assured that after delimitation, on pro rata basis, not a single seat will be reduced in any southern state. Man shoots wife in Kovai, dies by suicide in Palakkad E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Coimbatore A 45-year-old man allegedly shot his wife using a country-made gun near Sulur, then travelled to his farmhouse in Palakkad in Kerala where he died by suicide on Monday. The couple has two daughters, sources said. According to Sulur police, Krishnakumar and his wife Sangeeta (42) lived in Pattanampudur. Krishnakumar had quit his job in Malaysia, while Sangeeta worked as a teacher in a private school. The couple had been in conflict for the past two years, due to Krishnakumar suspecting Sangeeta of h av i n g a n a f f a i r, p o l i c e s a i d . S i x m o n t h s ago, both of them began living separately, with Sangeeta in Pattanampudur and Krishnakumar at his farmhouse in Vadakancheri, in Kerala.  P5