The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has launched 'SonChiraiya', a single brand to promote products made by urban Self-Help Groups (SHG), an official statement stated.
Ministry Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra said that it was one of the government's priorities to help women become "financially empowered and live a dignified life", according to the statement.
"Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM), under the ministry, has focussed on equipping the urban poor women with adequate skills and opportunities," he said.
It mobilises women from urban poor households into SHGs and their federations to create a support system for these women, the ministry said in statement.
"Over 5.7 lakh SHGs have been formed across various states/UTs with almost 60 lakh members. Many of these SHGs are engaged in livelihood activities, producing goods such as handicrafts, textiles, toys, eatables and so on.
"These were being sold primarily in local neighbourhood markets and often faced barriers in achieving visibility and wide market access," it stated.
To overcome these challenges, the ministry entered into MoUs with e-Commerce portals as Amazon and Flipkart, with an underlying narrative of women empowerment, it also said.
Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this partnership has successfully onboarded on e-Commerce portals over 2,000 products of nearly 5,000 SHG members across 25 states and UTs, according to the ministry.
"Innovative methods of online trainings for SHGs have been ensured to enable them to smoothly operate on e-portals. Live demonstrations for account registration, pricing, packaging, re-branding and so on were also organised in collaboration with the e-portals and State Urban Livelihoods Missions," it added.
The ministry expects to link many more such SHG members with variety of professionally packaged, handcrafted ethnic products, reaching the doorsteps of customers globally.
