IIM-A lends mgmt expertise to rural Gujarat

Now, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is all set to bring its management expertise to rural Gujarat.

The premier institute is designing Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA)'s technical roadmap and developing its management system to bring professionalism among its rural member producers. The 9 lakh members-strong association intends to train the rural producers in several areas of management.

"SEWA has a bouquet of services including retail outlets, banking facilities, among others which need technological advancement and a proper management system to enhance these services. We would design a technical roadmap and guide SEWA's members on applications to consolidate their businesses," said Rajanish Dass, faculty member at IIM-A.

The institute will be conducting residential programme spanning two-weeks for SEWA's members.

With the help of IIM-A, SEWA will train rural producers to maintain records, marketing, usage of computers, etc through its self promoted IT cell.

"The idea is to bring a level of professionalism among our rural producer members in terms of proper production system, marketing system and IT system," said Uma Swaminathan, managing director of SEWA Gram Mahila Haat.

The two year project took a kick-start in the first week of August. "The project is in the initial stage and aims to cover members from more than 14 districts of Gujarat, as the membership is growing by the day," said Mona Dave, CEO of SEWA Trade Facilitation Centre.