Bhubaneswar: Under the Start up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) scheme, a sub-scheme of National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), Ministry of Rural Development, as many as 3,944 entrepreneurs have been created in eight blocks of Odisha in last five years.
Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII) has taken the initiative to create a platform for the rural aspirants that they might empower themselves as entrepreneurs. EDII director Sunil Shukla said, “The institute has created as many as 3,944 entrepreneurs of whom 1,909 are females and 2,035 are males under the scheme. In Odisha, EDII has implemented SVEP in Morada, Ranpur, Angul Sadar, Dangadi, Mahakalpada, Puri Sadar, Kuarmunda, and Umerkote blocks.”
Shukla also said that refresher trainings for mentors and Community Resource Persons for Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EPs) are being planned to prepare them to handhold such enterprises to navigate through the challenges of this new phase.
“Micro-enterprises constitute a significant proportion of the existing unregistered enterprises in the country. The purpose of SVEP is to bring majority of these micro-enterprises in the mainstream and assist them in funding their business model, which is scalable and can generate rural employment,” he said. Shukla also mentioned that cross learning and innovations at all levels have been priorities which have led to the success of the program.
According to the officials, the Institute has implemented SVEP across 42 blocks in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh. It has established around 26,400 enterprises and created 27,400 entrepreneurs in the aforementioned states and UT so far.
SVEP is dedicated to create sustainable self-employment opportunities for a large number of youths residing in villages. It also works towards bringing banks and financial institutions closer to the village entrepreneurs.