IIM-Indore To Train Female Family Members Of MP Cops, Self-Help Groups On Entrepreneurship

In a progressive step, the Indian Insitute of Management, Indore (IIM-I) has collaborated with the Madhya Pradesh government to roll out a programme to train female members of the families of the police personnel on managing finances and entrepreneurship to lead an independent life.

To implement the initiative, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between IIM-Indore Director, Prof Himanshu Rai, and MP Police's Additional DG (Police Welfare) Vijay Kataria. The institution would partner for training the female members of the police personnel's families, including wives, sisters, and daughters, on financial management. The pilot project, once the partnership is in place, would start from Indore which has as many as 5,000 police personnel

"The planned partnership is at a preliminary stage and it will be fine-tuned in the days to come. But once completely in place, it holds the potential of positively changing lives of female family members of around one lakh strong police force in the state," Kataria said, as reported by The New Indian Express.

Indore Police's Additional SP (ASP-HQ) Manisha Pathak Soni said that the preliminary discussions hinted at focussing on training the female family members of the cops by the institute's faculties and associated NGO Arth Sangini. It would first work on imparting knowledge on how to prudently manage limited finances and then to make viable investments.

She further added that during the process of training, if an entrepreneurial talent was spotted by the trainers, then specialized training would be imparted to help them understand business models and viability options to turn them into entrepreneurs with the financial support of corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds of companies working with the IIM-I.

"Dream of making our country Atmanirbhar (self-dependent) will be incomplete without the economic empowerment of women. As part of IIM-I's institutional social responsibility, the Institute with partner NGO Arth Sangini will start by training female family members of MP police personnel in financial literacy through camps at police lines and police training centres. At these camps only, we'll identify those women who have inherent entrepreneurial talent. Those women will then be specifically guided and helped in starting their own ventures of variegated sizes," said IIM-I Director Prof Himanshu Rai.

IIM Indore To Train 14,000 Women Self-Help Groups

In another initiative, the institution will train around 14,000 self-help groups (SHG) of Madhya Pradesh to build and sharpen their business acumen, entrepreneurship and team management skills.

The Times of India reported that IIM-Indore has tied up with the state education department to design video-based training modules. The Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led Madhya Pradesh government, in its initiative, will have the groups stitch 1.2 crore uniforms for almost 62 lakh students.

IIM-Indore Director Prof Himanshu Rai said that developing such modules are particularly challenging since the target audience may be 'poorly skilled' or 'barely literate' and the course structure has to be tailor-made and simplified according to their understanding.

The training is aimed at not just empowering and upskilling these self-help groups but also to add value to the final products that are created by these women. Officials privy to the matter have told reporters that the experience from this project, this year, will serve as the guiding principle in formulating long-term policy for the empowerment of the SHG groups

The institute, on February 18, announced a partnership with the Military College of Telecommunication Engineering (MCTE) in Indore's Dr Ambedkar Nagar (Mhow).

"The partnership is envisaged to be mutually beneficial for both institutions. For MCTE, it will be an opportunity to leverage the expertise of the faculty and research scholars of IIM in the field of management studies. For the faculty members at IIM, it would provide an opportunity to connect to practical reality in the relevant research and developmental activities thereby enriching the domain expertise," said Prof Rai.

Lt General M.U. Nair stated that MCTE hosts almost 20-30 foreign students from 10 to 12 different foreign countries and short courses in contemporary management skills designed for these foreign students by IIM-I would help in fostering good relations between the countries.

He noted that the collaboration establishes exchange or collaboration programs beneficial to both the institutions and to promote the development of joint studies, research and training activities, and other educational exchanges of mutual interest.

Also Read: Jharkhand: Former IPS Officer's Evening Schools Providing Free Education To Over 2,000 Rural Students