Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Walmart-owned Flipkart on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Rural Development for its Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) program, to bring local businesses and self-help groups (SHGs), particularly those led by women into the e-commerce fold. Flipkart said the tie-up is aligned with the DAY-NRLM’s goal of strengthening the capabilities of rural communities for self-employment and entrepreneurship.
The MoU is a part of Flipkart’s Samarth programme that seeks to help skilled yet under-served communities of craftsmen, weavers and artisans sell online through Flipkart marketplace along with providing e-commerce knowledge and training around onboarding, cataloging, marketing, account management, business insights, and warehousing. The DAY-NRLM program with its outreach in 6,768 blocks of 706 districts across all 28 States and 6 union territories has 7.84 crore women mobilized into more than 71 lakh SHGs, the company said.
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In the programme, poor women from SHGs and their federations are provided with financial, economic, and social development services for enhancing their income and quality of life. “SHGs are the backbone of the rural economy and we are targeting to enhance their annual income to at least 1 lakh. We are identifying and collaborating with all possible partners who can contribute to this cause and a partnership between DAY NRLM and Flipkart will help in the process,” Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Giri Raj Singh said in a statement.
Launched in 2019, Flipkart said the Samarth programme is currently supporting the livelihoods of over 9,50,000 artisans, weavers, and craftsmen across India, and is continuously working towards bringing even more sellers onto the platform. “The crafts of India’s local artisans, weavers, and self-help groups deserve to reach a far wider audience, including and beyond their respective regions. The Flipkart Samarth initiative provides them with access to potentially more than 350 million consumers on our platform spread across the country,” said Rajneesh Kumar, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Flipkart Group.