ONGOLE: The District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) authorities are working to establish 35,000 self employment industrial units in the district. As part of their action plan, the authorities established around 10,000 units of livestock related businesses including backyard poultry, dairy and cattle farms. The authorities are focusing on establishing ‘Jagananna Cheyutha Mahila Marts’ by self-help groups with women members across the district.
As part of the plan, the DRDA made elaborate arrangements to kick start about 6,000 high-end enterprises under the employment generation programme in relation to the farming and non-farming sector units, including various seasonal vegetables and fruit processing units, local familiar artifact industries, eateries, food processing units at various places of the the district. The DRDA made plans to set-up agriculture produce collection points.
On the other hand, the DRDA authorities are also working on encouraging Self Help Group (SHG) women members to establish ‘Mahila Marts’ in various mandal headquarters of the district, which will ensure employment to the young women and boost local SHGs.Even as the state government has already inked MoUs with various online marketing platforms, including Amazon, Flipkart, Ajio, Relience and ITC, these ‘Mahila Marts’ will run based on D-mart model.
“For this phase, we have planned 10 Mahila Marts at 10 mandal headquarters of the district. In the next phase, we will establish the same Mahila Marts in the remaining mandals. We are currently in search of the suitable government buildings,” B Babu Rao, Project Director (PD) of DRDA, told TNIE on Thursday.