Amazon partners with NULM to empower self-help groups

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E-commerce giant Amazon has tied-up with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission to train, support and provide market access to artisans and self-help groups (SHGs) with the aim of helping small businesses in exploring wide markets through the platform.

In the first phase, 2,500 products will be on sale from March 28, said Durga Shankar Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

In phase one, 24 states, 40 clusters and 350 self help groups have been enrolled which have the potential to generate around Rs 45 crore in the next one year.

"The agreement will help promote around four lakh women in self help groups which represent all urban local bodies across the country. E-commerce has become extremely significant and it also means that the products have to be of high quality, should be timely and should be packaged well. The SHG will be trained in all this and once that's done, the sky is the limit. In the next three years, we will aim for a Rs 500 crore turnover," Mishra said.

Earlier, the mission had signed an MoU with another e-commerce platform Flipkart in January, 2020.

With deeper internet penetration, the e-commerce sector has become a vital tool of businesses and the market is pegged to grow to 200 billion by 2026 from 4.5 billion in 2018.