An experience-sharing workshop on women’s entrepreneurship — as part of a project on promoting eco-friendly entrepreneurship development for women in West Bengal under the Indo-US 21st century Knowledge Initiative Programme — was held in the seminar room of the Centre for Urban Economic Studies, University of Calcutta recently.
There were about 25 participants, mostly from the University's Women’s Studies Research Centre. Robin Davis and Benjamin Yumol of Clafflin University, USA were the distinguished guests who made presentations and representatives from several NGOs were also present. Professor Ishita Mukhopadhyay was the principal investigator while the co-principal investigators were professors Mahalaya Chatterjee, Sanjukta Dasgupta and Paula Banerjee.
Dasgupta introduced the theme, which was largely through the efforts of the University departments of English, economics and business management.
Started in 2015, a lot of the documentation has been completed and activity reports submitted to the University Grants Commission. Davis and Yumol have made several field visits before. The Knowledge Initiative Programme is a joint project between Clafflin University, USA and the University of Calcutta.
Subal Panja, additional director of the West Bengal micro, small and medium industries department, spoke at length about the handicraft industry of West Bengal. Every year 17,000 goods are exported and there are 5.85 lakh artisans in the state.
The artisans in the state have photo identity cards and there are a large number of women entrepreneurs, especially in the districts of Burdwan, North 24 Parganas, Nadia and Santiniketan in Birbhum.
Ecofriendly measures include the avoidance of using synthetic threads and jute is a very important product. Jute handicrafts are made by about 800 women in Murshidabad while there is a cluster in Behala, Kolkata where 200 units manufacture jute products.
Similarly, bamboo handicrafts include baskets, which may also be used for the poultry business. There is also a lot of demand for terracotta goods such as utensils and mugs, and these are mostly marketed at fairs and exhibitions. However, marketing on a large scale for export is quite problematic in the state.
Dasgupta praised Panja's illuminating talk and mentioned that it is necessary to showcase products so that they can be exported across the world. Mukhopadhyay commented that some women artisans do not wish to go to fairs as they lose seven or eight days of work. Panja replied that rural women artisans need to be provided transport and communications.
The second phase of the workshop consisted of presentations by Yumol and Davis. Yumol focused on the need to provide assistance in the development of quality training programmes for women in West Bengal — the need to improve knowledge, skills and entrepreneurship and promote understanding. Davis elaborated on training modules for entrepreneurship.
Module one is an introduction to entrepreneurship and innovation while module two indicates how to continue to develop and expand local businesses, including technical enterprises. Module three is concerned with accessing financial resources while module four considers understanding specific supply chain processes locally. Module five assists with branding and marketing the business locally. Banerjee shared her experience of problems she faced while implementing the Sukanya Project — women entrepreneurs cannot think big and face supply problems.
In the post-lunch session, Rina Chakraborty and D Banerjee of MSME assessed the problems faced by workers as handicrafts are part of the unorganised sector.
They are trying to sort that out by implementing measures like simplifying registration procedures and marketing, providing financial concessions and credit as well as technical guidance to show them how to set up a unit. Six-week programmes are to be initiated for development and training.