Employment Generation in Insurgency Prone Area through Arecanut Leaf Plate Manufacturing Units

The major challenges that we have been facing throughout and will face in future also are as follows:
1.Lack of adequate funds
2.Problem of insurgency in most of the areas we are working in.
3.Poor infrastructure
4.Increasing the volumes of production
5.Entrepreneurial attitude of the communities

As the activity deals with new skills and technologies, modern markets and a resource which even though being local is not perceived as a resource, people have always taken it as risky. Thus it has been always difficult raise adequate funds at the right time for the project. The strategy for funds have been first through own investment, then friends and family, then small institutional funds and lastly followed by large institutional funding. During the last 5 years which was mostly grants for Dhriiti, apart from the bank loans for setting up the units, the process was same. Even now we have taken the same route for TPMC. Started with equity, then loans from friends and family and will follow with the institutional formats after we create a solid foundation.

Community being in the core of our process, we have been able to avoid the insurgency till now and have been able to work in very interior areas. Thus as long as we are able to generate value for the community we would be able to overcome this problem even if scale increases.

Appropriate technology is the key to overcoming infrastructure barriers and so far we have been very good at it and hope to continue with it.

The last two have been herculean tasks so far but one has to be patient as these cannot be done overnight. The hardwork of the past few years have created a strong base, which has resulted in the first set of successful entrepreneurs. Thus we no longer have to prove theoretically that the activity is viable but there are live examples, which has generated the required momentum now.

Partnerships have been at the core of our implementation strategy. It has been led by the very unique partnership of rural producers, Dhriiti and TPMC. Each have played a critical role in making this project a success. Apart from that we have had strong partnerships with the following:

1.Funding agencies like Sir Dorabjee Tata Trust (SDTT), NABARD, Friends for Women’s World Banking (FWWB), Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Govt. Of India (MoPR) who have not only helped Dhriiti with funds but also invested in strengthening our organisation.
2.Collaboration with multiple commercial banks (SBI, Union Bank, UCO Bank etc.) and Khadi Village Industries Commission (KVIC) have enabled to us to source loans for the units promoted so far.
3.Partnerships with various other local NGOs (ANT, RGVN, MRDS, CML etc.) and government agencies like District Industries and Commerce Centre (DICC), District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Bodoland Territorial Council etc. have helped us promote the project across the region.
4.There has been strong collaboration with Sandhya Engineering Concern, not only for developing new machines but also in supplying machines to the producers.
5.There has been close and continuous relationships with our customers, who have been regularly buying our products and giving us critical market feedback.

Apart from this there have been various well wishers (individuals, groups, friends, family) who have helped and supported us right from the inception of the project. Though they are invisible to the external world yet they form a very formidable support group for us whom we can fall back on whenever required.

Financial support to Dhriiti and TPMC has been from Friends & Family, Foundations, Banks and Governments. But at the implementation level many NGO partners, government departments and other local institutions have supported us to ground and spread this project across the region. Our customers and suppliers have also invested in us in non-monetary ways to improve our product quality and service. But our biggest support group has been our own team (others) of young people of this region. The team on many occasions have stuck together and have performed tasks much beyond their reach. Thus we are very confident of achieving our goals despite many obstacles.

We have interpreted this question in terms of overall support and not only financial support. We do not believe that finance is the most important aspect for any entrepreneurial venture. If it had been true then niether Dhriiti nor TPMC would have been in existence today as we never had good amounts of finance of our own and neither we had access to finance before we engaged in these activities. It has been our team work which has made us stick together, survive and grow for all these years.