The Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) has conceptualized a flagship initiative called ‘Faral Sakhi’, aimed at empowering women entrepreneurs in the city of Mira Bhayandar, Maharashtra. The program will provide comprehensive training and support to help women entrepreneurs engaged in traditional snack production to scale their ventures sustainably and effectively. MBMC collaborated with Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) of NITI Aayog and formally launched ‘Faral Sakhi’ under Award to Reward initiative of WEP.
WEP, incubated in NITI Aayog in 2018 as an aggregator platform, transitioned into a public-private partnership in 2022. WEP aims at empowering women entrepreneurs by overcoming information asymmetry and providing continuum of support across different pillars- Access to Finance; Market Linkages; Training and Skilling; Mentoring & Networking; Compliance & Legal Assistance and Business Development Services.
The ‘Faral Sakhi’ initiative aims at creating permanent employment opportunities for women by engaging them in the production and sale of traditional festive snacks (‘Faral’). A central kitchen, set up by MBMC, enables women from self-help groups (SHGs) to prepare these snacks professionally. MBMC further supports these women by providing sales spaces and promoting their products through municipal advertisements.
