As part of the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, under Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme, 102 Community Resource Persons – Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EPs) were certified during 29th Oct – 4thNov, 2021.
Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP), the sub-scheme under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) programme supports the Self-Help Group (SHG) members and their family members to set-up small enterprises in the non-farm sector.
SVEP develops an eco-system for enterprise development in rural areas consisting of Community Enterprise Fund (CEF) for enterprise funding, Cadre of Community Resource Persons-Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EP) for providing Business Support Services which includes preparation of business plans, trainings, accessing loans from Banks etc. and dedicated centre at block level for providing information to entrepreneurs.
CRP-EPs are selected from the community where the programme is being implemented as they understand the local context and their familiarity with the NRLM eco-system. CRP-EPs along with the Block Programme Manager (BPM) and the Mentor are the key human resources at the block level for implementing the programme. They play an important role for Orientation of CBOs on Enterprise development, business plan preparation, market linkages and handholding support to entrepreneurs.
CRP-EPs are trained before they start working with the entrepreneurs, the training is a mix of classroom and field trainings. The total duration is for 56 days. Once they undergo training in one component through class room sessions, they have components of field work where they attempt to put into practice some of the learnings.
During these certification events, CRP-EPs shared their experience of enterprise promotion in rural areas under the SVEP scheme. They also discussed about the various training, capacity building and regular hand holdingprovided to them under the scheme to understand steps to do business and making it successful and also creating strong market linkages for rural enterprises.