New Delhi: The Union Government on Friday launched ‘Son Chiriya’, an initiative for marketing of Urban Self Help Group (SHG) products.
Launching the brand and logo, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs Durga Shankar Mishra said that the priority areas of the government include helping women to be financially empowered and lead a dignified life.
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Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Antyodaya Yojana (DAY-NULM), which comes under the purview of MoHUA, is focusing on equipping urban poor women with adequate skills and opportunities to enable them to promote sustainable micro enterprises.
This program helps women from urban poor families to join self-help groups and their associations to create a support system for them.
“More than 5.7 lakh SHGs have been formed in various States/UTs with around 60 lakh members. Many of these SHGs are engaged in livelihood activities, such as production of handicrafts, textiles, toys, eatables etc. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs gave this information in a statement.
It further disclosed that the manufactured products were mainly being sold in local neighborhood markets as there were barriers to achieving visibility and wider market reach.
To address these challenges, MoHUA has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart, aimed at women empowerment.
“Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this partnership has successfully incorporated over 2,000 products on the e-commerce portal from around 5,000 SHG members across 25 states/UTs,” the ministry said.
“Innovative methods of online training for SHGs have been ensured to conduct smoothly on e-portals. Live demonstrations for account registration, pricing, packaging, re-branding etc. in association with e-portals and state Urban Livelihood Missions were also organized,” it added.
This initiative is a step towards ensuring increased visibility and global reach for products made by women. The ministry has revealed that it hopes to add many more such SHG members, “with a variety of professionally packaged, hand-crafted ethnic products, reaching the doorsteps of customers globally”.
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