OREANDA-NEWS. January 19, 2012. Maithon Power (MPL), a joint venture of Tata Power and Damodar Valley Corporation, has initiated new, community-led processes to promote micro-enterprises under its ‘Livelihoods Interventions’projectin 12 villages of Nirsa block. This initiative focuses on promoting and developing the community by helping them to create their own ‘sustainable enterprise’, ensuring dual benefits of employment opportunities as well as shareholding in each enterprise.

Special self-help groups (SHGs) have been formed with an aim to build up the capacities of the rural communities to undertake sustainable and manageable income generating activities in the long run for self-directed development. Ten such SHGs, with an average of 10-15 members in each SHG, have been formed with the help of AC Nielsen ORG.

Unique mobilisation processes have been put in place to facilitate the SHG formation, training and capacity building, and exploring linkages with financial and technical institutions, which will help in giving these SHG’s the appropriate hand-holding support to start their own enterprise. Moreover, these processes are empowering all members of the SHGs to be cohesive, and are putting in all efforts to transform them into confident entrepreneurs by providing micro-enterprise based livelihood options.

An interactive session with all the women leaders of the SHGs was held by Praveer Sinha, executive vice president and project director, eastern region projects, Tata Power, along with other senior officials of MPL. Mr Sinha applauded the efforts put in to organise these SHGs, and said: “We are very pleased to implement such an initiative under the ‘Livelihoods Interventions’ project. We at MPL will constantly support such initiatives in an attempt to create a better tomorrow Apart from improving income, SHGs will strive towards enhancing self esteem, solidarity and gender equality among the members and also within the community.”

Based on the market survey, members’ interest, and scalability, the following enterprise models were proposed for the SHGs:

Organic nutrients-vermi-compost to promote organic farming and reduce dependency on chemical fertilisers.

Floor mats, table mats and other bamboo-related products.

Vegetable sorting, cleaning and their packaging based on their grade.

The implementation of these SHGs has received a very encouraging response from the people of Nirsa block. This initiative is in line with Tata Power’s philosophy of improving the quality of life of the communities operating around its area of operations. These SHGs will help their members become more self-reliant by providing them with good self-employment ventures.