As part of the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, under Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme, 75 Community Resource Persons – Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EPs) certified after training are proposed to be inducted during 29th Oct – 4 Nov, 2021. Towards this, on 1st November, 2021, Secretary, Rural Development interacted with the CRP-EPs of six States – Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and West Bengal. Additional Secretary (RD), Joint Secretary (RL), Director (RL) and State Mission Director/Chief Executive Officers (SMD/CEO) of these six State Rural Livelihoods Mission (SRLM) also joined the interaction.
While interacting with CRP-Eps, Secretary, Rural Development emphasized the need for promoting group enterprises, linking these enterprises with the market and preparing a process/method for enterprise type-wise model price tag for entrepreneurs. The need for financial literacy and Bank linkage of the rural enterprises was also discussed. CRP-Eps were encouraged to support enterprise promotion in other blocks in their State and put more efforts to link these enterprises with Banks.
During the above interaction, CRP-Eps shared their experience of enterprise promotion in rural areas under the SVEP scheme. They also discussed about various trainings, capacity building and regular hand holding to understand steps to do business and making it successful and also creating strong market linkages for rural enterprises.
Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP), the sub-scheme under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) programme supports the Self-Help Group (SHG) members and their family members to set-up small enterprises in the non-farm sector.
SVEP develops an eco-system for enterprise development in rural areas consisting of Community Enterprise Fund (CEF) for enterprise funding, Cadre of Community Resource Persons-Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EP) for providing Business Support Services which includes preparation of business plans, trainings, accessing loans from banks etc. and dedicated centre at block level for providing information to entrepreneurs.
CRP-EPs are selected from the community where the programme is being implemented as they understand the local context and their familiarity with the NRLM eco-system. CRP-EPs along with the Block Programme Manager (BPM) and the Mentor are the key human resources at the block level for implementing the programme. They play an important role for Orientation of CBOs on Enterprise development, business plan preparation, market linkages and handholding support to entrepreneurs.
CRP-EPs are trained before they start working with the entrepreneurs, the training is a mix of classroom and field trainings. The total duration is for 56 days. Once they undergo training in one component through class room sessions, they have components of field work where they attempt to put into practice some of the learnings.
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APS/JK/IA