Ludhiana DC launches Udaari project to promote women entrepreneurship

Malik said that Udaari is an online platform for woman entrepreneurs and self-help groups (SHGs) of Ludhiana that has been rolled out with the Department of Rural Development and Municipal Corporation Ludhiana with an intent to promote women entrepreneurship and include the SHGs into the mainstream of business.

Woman entrepreneurs can join as a member, list their products and services, generate leads through a common social media handle, engage in e-commerce, list their events and activities, offer schemes and coupons and increase their business. All these facilities are free for the SHG with an objective to facilitate and uplift the less-privileged women who have been supported through the government schemes like NULM and NRLM to form SHGs.

The larger objective is to create an ecosystem to promote and support woman entrepreneurs for which CICU WEF has joined as an industry partner, informed Dicky Chabra, convenor, CICU WEF. Their members who are woman entrepreneurs and industrialists will provide their expertise, resources, network to members of Udaari and may outsource quality products.

Regular training programmes will be conducted in association with an institutional partner for refining the products, packaging, marketing and sales. “The initiative is really appreciable and I would be happy to mentor these young woman entrepreneurs and SHGs,” said Padma Shri Rajni Bector.

A detailed presentation was made by Maneet Dewan, director of CityNeeds, explaining the features of this e-commerce platform that includes member listing, product catalogue, e-commerce, blog, lead generation, event listing, etc.

The way forward is to first update the detailed profiles of members on the website, shortlist products for promotion with sales assurance and finally launch the product range in a carnival.

CityNeeds is a startup that aims to facilitate NGOs in helping the underprivileged.