After working for 10 years with the women in remote villages for their socio- cultural empowerment through Jnanavikasa women’s programme, the president of the programme Smt. Hemavathi V. Heggade contemplated towards Economic Empowerment of these women. This economic empowerment programme is mainly focused on the Micro Enterprises for rural women. The plummeting Beedi rolling industry in D.K district has motivated SKDRDP to shore up Micro-Enterprises among the rural women.
Shri Dharmasthala Siri Gramodyoga Samsthe-SIRI ( A Section 25 Company) was started in the year 2001 to promote group based livelihood activities in the “non-farm sector” to assist the opportunity less women. This company is facilitated by Shri Kshethra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project.
- The major objectives of the project are as follows
- To Provide Alternative or Supplementary employment for the women
- Identifying and training the stakeholders to take up the income Generation Activity
- Supply of Quality Raw Materials to the production units
- Ensure the flow of Qualitative and branded products in to the market
- Explore the market avenues for the rural products produced by Community Institutions
- To provide forward and backward linkages to group enterprises
To achieve the above objectives, firstly the unemployed/ under employed women in Rural areas were identified, and the concept of manufacturing, marketing and consumption were explained to them through village level meetings.
The interested were given in skill training through some of the well known institutes in India. Some of the institutes which helped in this process were Small Industries Service Institute (SISI) – Bangalore, Central Food Technology Research Institute (CFTRI) – Mysore, Dairy Science College – Bangalore, Indian Institute of Fashion Technology – Bangalore, Rural Development and Self Employment Training Institute (RUDSETI) The infrastructure for producing the products are facilitated by contacting the various input providers to the stakeholders. Initial finance was provided by SKDRDP and later the stakeholders themselves raised the share capital of Rs. 1000/= per group and paid the same to provide the much needed capital. Assistance also came from the Government of India and Karnataka in the form SGSY special project.
The Small Industries Development Bank of India provided the much needed marketing executive supports.