SIDBI and IIM Sambalpur join forces to help weavers and artisans with entrepreneurial capacity building

Sambalpur, Oct 19 (KNN) Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has signed a MoU with IIM Sambalpur in Odisha for Entrepreneurial Capacity Building for master weavers and artisans.

The agreement was signed by Prof. Mahadeo Jaiswal, Director, IIM Sambalpur and Dr. Subhransu Acharya, CGM SIDBI.

The premier institute has also signed a MoU with e-commerce giant Flipkart under its recently launched On-board process for Master weavers and Artisans in Digital Marketing platform.

The program was attended by 28 Master weavers & Artisans from Bargarh and Sambalpur districts and people from media and local communities.

Jaiswal spoke about IIM Sambalpur’s focus on promotion of building entrepreneurial capacity for the country and to access the global market.

“There will be three stages-1st stage aims at digital logistics and access to the market. The second stage aims at building competitive capacity and bringing the handloom of different states, analyzing and expanding the project nationwide followed by the third stage aims at tying up with the global market and commercialise the handloom worldwide,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Akash Mishra, Director, Government Affairs, East Region Flipkart Group said, “This MoU will help artisans and weavers to onboard their products in the online market and congratulated all the artisans and weavers for their onboarding in the online market.”

Expressing his views SIDBI CGM Acharya said, “Artisans and weavers are not getting the opportunity to grow in the national market and this MoU will help them in placing them on a nationwide scale.”

The event was concluded by reflecting on many objectives such as strengthening of small businesses/ micro-enterprise ecosystem of various craft clusters across the state and country in general and Bargarh/ Sambalpur/ Sonepur districts handloom cluster in specific by undertaking strategic initiatives in the medium to long term.  (KNN Bureau)