The State government on Wednesday signed two memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with the objective of strengthening the economic activities of women self-help groups (SHGs) and facilitating organic farmers to sell their produce directly to consumers.
One was with IIM-B, business management institution, and the other was with Subhiksha, one of the country’s first vertically integrated multi-State cooperative society which promotes organic farming.
On behalf of the government, Sanjeevini–KSRLPS (Karnataka State Rural Livelihood Promotion Society), the nodal agency for implementing national flagship programmes such the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) and the National Rural Economic Transformation Programme, exchanged MoUs with the institutions, in the presence of Minister for Higher Education C.N. Ashwath Narayan. He said that IIM-B’s incubator for women SHGs will be a platform that would help women entrepreneurs get access to resources.
The aim of the initiative was to scale up at least 100-150 existing women-owned/women-led enterprises in the State. Further, it was expected that the MoU would facilitate creating business models for generating local employment, improving the creditworthiness of enterprises, enabling access for credit from formal financial institutions, and capacitivating women entrepreneurs to run businesses themselves.
About MoU with Subhikha, the Minister said it would create a direct linkage with the consumers through the online marketing platform Subhiksha Farmers to Consumers app. He further said it would fetch 73% of the maximum retail price (MRP) directly to the farmers’ accounts.
