Civic body to give boost to SHG group products

Tirupati: The Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT) embarked on a massive exercise aimed to promote online marketing of SHG group products for providing more revenue to the women groups.

Accordingly, the corporation setup a team exclusively to boost up the marketing of SHG group products, through Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) portal. The ONDC portal was introduced by Government of India, creating a wider marketing facility for the sellers, including SHG, electrician, beautician, agriculture products, auto spares etc. The corporation decided to use the ONDC portal for marketing SHG group products.

Corporation Commissioner Narapureddy Mourya said the team will take up the responsibility of providing online marketing facility for SHG products, which will post the images of various products in an appealing manner, products’ details etc on ‘Mystore’ App for online marketing.

"Most of the women members of SHG group, though producing quality products, are unable to project them properly and attractively due to lack of technical knowledge. The team will take care of providing product’s details and images clearly. This will help to boost sales of the products through online,” Mourya explained.

She said buyers after purchasing SHG products will remit the amount directly into the account of SHG women member through online, which will help them to get prompt payment and avoiding middlemen.

SHG groups in the city are engaged in the production of a wide range of consumer products including food items, decorative and artistic items, dress materials and other products.

MEPMA (Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas) Project Director Radhamma said efforts are on to motivate all the women groups engaged in the production of various consumer products to utilise the online marketing facility provided by the Centre and State governments. She said the AP government appointed the APTPC (Andhra Pradesh Trade Promotion Corporation) Managing director as State-level nodal officer to increase online marketing of SHG group products.

She further said plans are afoot for a separate online facility for SHG groups and added that it will come into use in a month or two. This facility, named as ‘MEPMA WOW’, will give impetus to the online marketing of SHG group products to generate more revenue by getting a wider market, she added.

It may be noted that there are 12,848 SHG groups, with about 1,11,883 women members in Tirupati district. So far, 417 products on boarded and the remaining will be incorporated soon, she informed.