Shimla: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has sanctioned Rs 35 lakhs to Indian Institute of Technology(IIT), Mandi and Enabling Women of Kamand (EWOK) Society to promote and set up three farmer producer organisations in three years. The announcement was made on Monday.
IIT Mandi and EWOK Society will collaborate on setting up farmer producer organisations (FPOs) in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh.
Under this project, the Institute and the Society will be involved in the following activities:
- To identify clusters for setting up the FPOs
- To create awareness among farmers
- To establish and register the FPOs
- To train the chief executive officer and Board of directors of the FPOs
- To prepare the business development plan
- To organise capacity building programme
- To assist FPOs in raising credit/ bank loans
Also, IIT Mandi will provide its expertise in tourism, rural marts run by self-help groups, engineering solutions for farm-friendly equipment, research on the impact of climate change on agriculture incomes, among others.
EWOK Society Secretary Sandhya Menon said the EWOK has been working with the women and families in Kamand area in both farm and non-farm sectors to encourage women entrepreneurs at the grassroots, reports edexlive.com.
“The support from NABARD has come at the right time in order to scale up these programmes to ensure a sustainable model in income generation for farmers in the long run in this area. In the coming years, EWOK will play its role to form FPOs and guide in building out the FPO business activity and market linkages. Additionally, EWOK will continue to focus on skills development and increasing incomes of the women & families in the surrounding rural areas, especially through entrepreneurship,” Menon said.
Enabling Women of Kamand (EWOK) is an initiative of IIT Mandi Women’s Center to help rural women set up small enterprises in 5 panchayats of Kamand, Kataula, Katindhi, Batheri and Navlaya in Mandi district by providing them guidance, training and information.