Bhubaneswar: At a time when the MSME sector has received a body blow from the coronavirus pandemic, around 500 rural entrepreneurs under Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP), a sub-scheme of National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), are manufacturing masks for frontline warriors of COVID-19.
Fifty-one entrepreneurs who were trained under SVEP are making around 260 face-masks per day in Morada, Ranpur, Angul Sadar and Puri Sadar blocks of Odisha. These entrepreneurs have made and sold around 27,200 masks till date.
SVEP is being implemented by Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), Ahmedabad. The objective of SEVP, under the Ministry of Rural Development is to create sustainable self-employment and finding opportunities for youths along with promoting entrepreneur networking.
The programme covers 61 blocks in 14 states across the country. The four-year programme, which commenced in 2016, has imparted training to 37,688 people and 36,370 micro-enterprises. But, under the current pandemic situation, some businesses started facing grave difficulties which reflected in their poor sales and earnings.
However, some of these trained entrepreneurs when heard about the shortage of masks in the market, pitched in to use their skills in preparing face-masks. Some had received training in tailoring and diverted their energies towards production of masks whereas a few others imbibed skills and stood up to face the situation. Today, around 500 SVEP trained entrepreneurs are making and selling around 2,500 face-masks per day in several blocks of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Haryana. These entrepreneurs have so far collectively sold 3.5 lakh masks to frontline warriors like doctors, police, media, sanitation workers and volunteers.
Rajesh Gupta, project head, SVEP-EDII said, “These are entrepreneurs who lack the cushion of resources and savings and hence are worst affected in these times. But I am glad to see that they consulted their local EDII mentors, used their training and decided not to kneel before the situation. With support from the respective State Rural Livelihoods Missions and local administration, they are producing face-masks on a large scale and are thus contributing their bit to battle this crisis. They are earning and learning in the process.”
