(Featured image by Varsha Singh)
In Uttarakhand’s Dhakrani village, 32-year-old Farzana says she has witnessed a gradual, but inspiring transformation of rural women in dire financial conditions, who have now turned self-reliant.
Farzana, an Internal Community Resource Person (ICRP) for the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) since 2014, is in charge of a cluster of 20-odd Self Help Groups (SHGs), comprising 10 women each, in Vikasnagar block of Dehradun.
Among the various skill development programmes these women have been exposed to, she says, one stands out for its novel take of introducing them to a traditionally male-centric domain.
Close to 50 women from her own village have not only crafted their own LED bulbs and string lights, but also made collective sales as high as Rs 70,000 during Diwali last year, she notes.
“Right before the first COVID-19 lockdown, a training session on electronics had caught my eye. We had women undergo training for a month, but it wasn’t easy for them to pick up the lessons. They had hardly ever stepped out of their homes, let alone learned the intricacies of electrical work. But after two years, they stand tall and are capable of leading training sessions themselves,” says Farzana.
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While she was part of the training session herself, she says her interest lies in marketing the women’s finished products. “It was only after the lockdown eased that we could make our first sales at an exhibition in Dehradun, pricing each LED bulb at Rs 80. We started setting up stalls at block-level markets, but soon realised that the demand is much higher during the festive season. Last year, we made our biggest profits by selling almost a thousand LED bulbs, and it’s all thanks to Kamalpreet didi,” she smiles.
Farzana is referring to Dehradun-based Kamalpreet Kaur (42), who has enabled hundreds of women from rural and semi-urban areas of Doiwala, Vikasnagar, Sahaspu, Kalsi and Raipur blocks to become electrical entrepreneurs.
The BCom and MBA graduate, who became a mother at 22, always harboured a dream of becoming an industrialist. But it wasn’t until 2016, when she secured a loan of Rs 20 lakh under the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), that she fulfilled her aspirations with Ora Infini.
The MSME venture, focused on promoting the usage of renewable energies, has designed and developed several LED and solar-powered lighting equipment, as well as a hybrid electric bicycle. Most of their LED lights, however, are manufactured by women in the district — a majority of whom are homemakers.
Kamalpreet, along with her husband Rajeev Singh (49) and the six-member technical team at her eco-friendly startup, provides these women with free training sessions that are conducted on a needs-based basis for anywhere between 10 days and three months.
“It was officials at the Dehradun Industrial Department who recommended I apply for the PMEGP subsidy scheme. Initially, the (bank) committee wasn’t convinced I could pull off an LED business without a technical background, but I, too, was stubborn. I was already familiar with the basics because my husband is an electrical engineer, and I’d taught myself everything else I needed to know from the internet. But I told them the primary qualification I had was being a woman. We can manage everything, and if they gave me a shot I could bring several others into the business. Now, I can proudly say that more than 3,000 women from Dehradun have accompanied me in my journey,” Kamalpreet tells The Better India.
“There was a time when Dehradun used to be a hub of lights. Our manufacturers supplied everything, from torches to miniature bulbs and string lights, all over India. But their business essentially disappeared when cheaper, foreign-made LED lights took over the market,” she notes.
“At the same time, I couldn’t ignore the prevalence of unemployment and wanted to create a platform that could empower women, especially those from rural communities. Most of them don’t have strong educational backgrounds, but even if they do, their circumstances require them to stay at home. LED lights were an attractive way to lure them into business, but my main motive was to have them develop basic technical knowledge and skills that they could carry forward while dealing with other electronics,” she says.
Her venture, though, began at home with the daughters of a few domestic workers in her neighbourhood.
It was sometime in 2017 that Kamalpreet first collaborated with SHGs from Teliwala village in Doiwala block. But she was met with a fair share of resistance from the women who didn’t feel confident in their abilities to pursue electrical work.
“We used to go door-to-door to encourage women to join our training sessions, but they had never heard of anything like it before. Then, my husband suggested asking them to bring their mixer grinders, induction cookers and irons to us for repair. Once they came to us, we handed them a screwdriver and asked them to get to work themselves,” she recalls.
