NE BUSINESS BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, DEC 7
Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) conducted its Swavalamban Mela in the city during December 1-5 at Ahmedabad Haat, Vastrapur with an objective to help micro-entrepreneurs, artisans and self help groups (SHGs) in expanding customer base. Five selected micro-entrepreneurs, artisans were awarded by Sudatta Mandal, Deputy Manager of SIDBI at the valedictory function on Tuesday.
The five-day marketing event also connected them with the microfinance institutions, fintech partners for lending support.
“We are encouraging micro-enterprises, especially women-led units from Gujarat to use this platform to showcase and sell their products. In fact, we are giving them stalls free of cost, and also providing meals three times. Besides, they are also being given inputs on financial literacy, government schemes, bank loan schemes, design, and e-commerce by way of sessions, seminars, and one-to-one interaction. We do not provide any logistics to them to take part in the melas,” Sudatta Mandal, Deputy Manager of SIDBI said.
Answering a query on online trading facility for theses artisan, Mandal said, “All that they have to do is to onboard the government-backed Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC) and choose Flipkart, Amazon etc to sell their products. Till now we have facilitated and educated over 1,000 of them to board this portal. We hope more and more will join this and get good income. This will turn them into job givers than job seekers.”
- All that the artisans have to do is to onboard the government-backed Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC) and choose Flipkart, Amazon etc to sell their products: Sudatta Mandal, Deputy Manager of SIDBI
“In the mela, 146 artisans or microentrepreneurs, including 92 women entrepreneurs showcased and sold their products worth Rs 64 lakh from about 90 stalls till the penultimate day of the mela. Only 5 artisans from Bihar, Odisha, Haryana, Kashmir have participated in this mela and the rest are from Gujarat.” said Sanjay Gupta, Chief General Manager of SIDBI.
Continuing its promotional & developmental initiatives, SIDBI has been organizing ‘Swavalamban Melas’ across the country for the benefit of micro and small artisans. The basic objective of organizing such Melas is to give a platform to these small artisans for display and sale of their products thereby giving a fillip to ‘Vocal for Local’ and making these small artisans ‘Atmanirbhar’. It is in this context, SIDBI Regional Office, Ahmedabad has been organizing ‘Swavalamban Melas’ since 2021.
