The Uttar Pradesh State Rural Livelihood Mission (UPSRLM), a registered society established by the state government and charged with implementing the National Rural Livelihoods Mission, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Frontier Markets, a Rajasthan-based social commerce company, to help rural women with livelihood and income generation.
In the presence of Minister of Rural Development, Uttar Pradesh, Rajendra Pratap Singh, Panchayati Raj Minister, Bhupinder Singh, Government of UP, Alok Sinha, Agriculture Production Commissioner, and Additional Chief Secretary IAS Manoj Kumar Singh, the MoU was signed by Mehdi Rizvi, Chief Operating Officer of Frontier Markets, and Bhanu Goswami, Managing Director (MD) UPSRLM.
The UPSRLM's partnership with Frontier Markets will enable rural women entrepreneurs to earn more money as sahelis. The partnership will focus on institution and capacity building, as well as technical and implementation support, to encourage women to start businesses, accelerate financial independence through large-scale job creation, and facilitate the delivery of rural-friendly products and services to their doorstep. In addition, the partnership seeks to enroll 2000 rural women as Frontier Markets Sahelis with Self Help Groups (SHGs) and train them to use technology through the Frontier Markets e-commerce platform "Meri Saheli" to produce an annual income of Rs 50,000-Rs 60,000. The organic part of the SHGs trained in performing financial transactions will be trained to create sales leads and data collecting using Banking Correspondent Sakhi (BCs). These female entrepreneurs would also help the government implement its policies and programmes in the catchment areas.
Commenting on the partnership, Ajaita Shah Founder and CEO of Frontier Markets stated, “We are on a mission to onboard 1 million sahelis. Rural women are trusted influencers of the community driving change and development and through this expansion, we are focusing on enhancing livelihood with our gender-centric approach.
