Micro enterprises creating employment, helping reduce poverty according to TYIP

Unlike other youths from his village, Dhal Bahadur Karki of Namdu, Dolakha returned from Dubai two years ago, to start his own business.

He used to work in a furniture factory in Banepa before landing in Dubai for a job that paid him no more than what he used to earn back home. He is happy working in his own furniture factory — Bikasit Laghu Uddham Kendra — since last one year.

He started the furniture factory with a group of five, who all are employed in the same factory and earn Rs 50per hour making it to a total of atleast around Rs 8,000a month.

“We are getting orders not only from Dolakha but also from Kathmandu as we make cheap and quality furnitures,” Karki said, adding that the demand is higher than the supply.

Similarly, Shreekrishna Magarati, a class 11student of Chandeshwori College in Banepa, works in a shoe factory run by Byangdhunga Samuhik Chhala Jutta Laghu Uddham Samuha in the day time and goes to the college in the morning.

The shoe factory that employs 11people, pays them from Rs 8,000to Rs 12,000depending on how many shoes they make in a month.

“We get orders from Bhaktapur, Kathmandu and even Pokhara,” said marketing manager of the factory Madan Magarati.

“We have started with three people some three years ago,” he said, adding that the Samuha that has 24 members invested Rs 5,000each as their share and Micro-Enterprise Development Programme (Medep) initially helped them with Rs 77,225. “Currently, we produce around 35to 40types of shoes under Common brand,“ Magarati said, “We earned around Rs 450,000profit in the last three years.“

These micro entreprises have been creating employment and helping reduce poverty apart from providing an alternative to migration in search for better jobs abroad and are supported by institutions like Medep — a multi-lateral poverty reduction initiative supported by Ministry of Industry and UNDP — that is working in Nepal since 1998supporting poverty reduction efforts.

“The multi partnership initiative between state institutions and the private sector has been promoting micro-enterprises amongst the poor for economic empowerment that has helped them realise their dreams with trainings and support, technical and monetary,” according to communication expert of the programme Ram Sharan Shedhai.

“The Programme has been identifying the poorest of the poor and has been working with especially women, indigenous nationalities, dalit, muslim, other Madhesi groups and involving them in micro-enterprises with an aim to translate the broader vision of Three Year Interim Plan (TYIP) to address poverty through the development of micro-enterprises and generating employments among low income families,” he added.

Published on: 5 January 2012 | The Himalayan Times