The ‘Stakeholders Meet’ for convergence, collaboration and networking with various line departments of the Meghalaya government was convened by the North Eastern Handlooms and Handicrafts Corporation Ltd (NHHDC) yesterday at Shillong Club. The programme was taken up under the initiative of Meghalaya Social Development Society (MSDS), Shillong.
NHHDC Manager (Livelihood and Entrepreneur Division) Tribeni Saikia in her presentation said that the NHHDC will try to provide market linkage to the weavers and artisans by tying up with Invest India under One District One Product (ODOP) scheme.
She also added that NHHDC has various networking and mobilising partner NGOs and agencies in which through them, they get inputs to be able to proceed further.
Saikia also said that NHHDC has a separate designing and market linkage and basically works for livelihood and enhancement of entrepreneurs. She added that NHHDC provides a support system to the weavers to the international market through online marketing like Amazon, Flipkart and Indiamart.
Besides, she also noted that only those artisans who have been empanelled with NHHDC can upload their own products in mobile apps of NHHDC.
According to Saikia, the main objective of NHHDC is marketing support through e-commerce, scaling and upscaling, and entrepreneurship development. She also informed that NHHDC has sales outlets in every station of North East.
The entire session of consultative meeting of stakeholders was participated by officers of various line departments of the Meghalaya government including Textile Department, District Commerce & Industries Centre (DCIC), Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), MBMA/MBDA, DBDU (District Basin Development Unit) East Khasi Hills, NCERT, JSS, MIMDI, MSRLS/NRLM.
The discussion underlined the need of skill upgradation training with latest designing and market linkages to the weavers which will be linked to them through credit linkage subsidy of Prime Minister Employment Guarantee Programme (PMEGP) from KVIC, DCIC and KVIB.
Prior to the stakeholders meeting, there was a women entrepreneur conclave in which women entrepreneurs of various sectors took part.