Srinagar: Mission Director, Jammu & Kashmir Rural livelihood Mission (JKRLM), Dr. Syed Sehrish Asgar, Tuesday received the prestigious SKOCH Award for outstanding contribution towards the economic development of rural women under programme SAATH.
In recognition of the achievements by the JKRLM under the programme SAATH, the SKOCH foundation has conferred the prestigious SKOCH Award upon the JKRLM.
Commenting on this recognition, Dr. Sehrish said, “This award is a recognition of the efforts of the thousands of women in Jammu and Kashmir who are transforming the rural economy by becoming agents of positive change and growth. We will continue to work hard and strive for greater excellence and better opportunities in the goal of nation building”.
Mission Director, JKRLM conceptualised and implemented the idea of SAATH by providing a platform to the Rural Women to enhance their livelihoods and add different verticals to the business possibilities for the rural SHG members.
This idea materialised into a full fledged program called ‘SAATH’ which was launched by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on 1st Sep 2021. SAATH is a rural entrepreneurship acceleration programme, helping rural women become self reliant. JKRLM had initiated a comprehensive mentoring, under “SAATH programme” for selected SHG members, who have set-up enterprises under the SAATH Programme.
Under the programme, SHG members are being exposed to various marketing processes which would enable them to transform their existing enterprises into higher order enterprises at a large scale. SHG entrepreneurs are facilitated on value additions, marketing, branding, forward linkages, sales, business management in order to upscale their production and sales.
After extensive interviewing and observations, out of 5000 SHG members, 100 SHG women entrepreneurs have been identified who are being supported in developing higher level enterprises.
The initiatives have played a pivotal role in poverty alleviation, by federating about 5 lakh rural women into over 60000 SHGs, out of which 1 lakh rural women have been federated into SHGs during the Financial year 2021-22. As of now the Mission has facilitated capitalisation of about Rs 1161 Crores with strong emphasis on transforming rural economies.
In an effort to provide market linkage platform for about 5 lakh rural SHG members to exhibit their products and to connect directly with consumers as well as buyers, the first of its kind, UMEED women’s Haat ,was set up by JKRLM. UMEED women’s Haat is a women empowerment initiative by JKRLM to bring the rural women SHG members under one platform where they can showcase their skills, sell their products and build connections with potential market players.
Furthermore JKRLM has initiated the process of providing Door To Door Banking Services in rural areas which are an important component of Financial Inclusion and ensuring sustainable development.
JKRLM has taken steps towards promoting digital transactions and providing door to door banking services among rural areas through Financial Inclusion Resource Persons. The Resource Persons enable Financial Inclusion to hitherto unserved areas and enable livelihoods for thousands of women.
Another major initiative of JKRLM is to promote door to door digital banking and financial services in remote areas of J&K under Mission ‘One Gram Panchayat-One DIGI-Pay Sakhi’.
The DIGI-Pay facility is being provided in 2000 remote villages of J&K and in the first phase, 125 women from Self Help Groups from across the Jammu and Kashmir have been selected as DIGI-Pay Sakhis, equipped with AEPs devices . Apart from depositing money, the rural population also avails the benefits of the additional banking and financial services such as Pradhan Mantri Kisan Jhaandhan Yojana, registration of Kisan Credit Cards and others through this mission.
Another major initiative of JKRLM has been the tie-ups with several major e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart and Meesho, to make SHG products available on these e-commerce portals, thus helping the rural women connecting to global e-commerce platforms and thereby increasing the scale of their business.
