In April, amid the pandemic, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh announced the 'Jeevan Shakti Yojna' scheme for women to manufacture cotton masks as a source of income generation. EY supported this employment generation initiative by managing the entire process, which involved setting up a website and SMS facility for registrations and to communicate information on assignments.
· Over 10,000 women beneficiaries
· 10,00,000+ masks produced
· INR 1,08,00,000+ disbursed to the women entrepreneurs for producing the masks
· Order for 5 lakh masks sourced from over 25 private organizations to benefit the women working under this scheme
On the website’s launch day, over 1,000 women including self-help groups and NGOs registered themselves for this scheme. Now, more than 10,000 women are part of this program. Each woman has been given an order of 200 masks while our teams coordinate with officers and organizations in 376 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to establish a smooth flow in the selling and buying of these masks. We also ensure that payments are transferred within 24 hours to the bank accounts of women entrepreneurs.
"We are extremely proud to have contributed towards this initiative, which is a positive step to promote independent NGOs focused on empowering women. We have also been working to make these masks easily available to citizens," says Adil Zaidi, Partner, EY.
As part of this program, over 10,00,000 masks have now been produced and over 5,000 women have already received amount in their bank accounts. EY has also helped source a combined order of over 5 lakh masks from more than 25 large Indian corporates.
"This lockdown brought many financial difficulties for us and for our survival, however, the government has supported us by providing work. By making these masks, we have made savings that will be of great help to us during these uncertain times," says Poonam from Singhal Basti, in an interview with a local newspaper.
