Mar 17, 2023 . Read 5 min
Vedanta Subhalaxmi Cooperative: Transforming Communities
Team Vedanta
Rupsi Mehr, a housewife from Kelendamal in Jharsuguda, Odisha scripted her own success story and how! When she was first introduced to Subhalaxmi co-operative, her family barely managed to make ends meet, but Ms. Mehr’s biggest worry then was not being able to send her two kids to school. Looking for avenues to augment her family’s income, she enrolled herself in a self-help group called Maa Laxmi, which operated under the broad umbrella of Subhalaxmi. What started as a reluctant induction, kick-started Rupsi Mehr’s empowering journey towards becoming an entrepreneurial success story in the region. Today, she is leading a group of other such empowered women to realise their dreams of being self-reliant, through a unique avenue- mushroom cultivation!
Her venture today has touched new heights. With more than 400 mushroom beds, her unit produces over 15000 kgs of mushroom in a single month. The stellar numbers are a result of her hard work and Subhalaxmi’s interventions in the community. Subhalaxmi’s mushroom cultivation training provided Rupsi Mehr with the right resources and knowledge to begin her venture. Today, she is earning more than INR 90,000 per month. Recently, she also bought a sewing machine and was the first Subhalaxmi Cooperative member to start a tailoring unit in her village. Apart from changing her own destiny, she has successfully provided employment to other people in her village.
Speaking on her entrepreneurial journey, Mrs. Rupsi Mehr adds, “A few years back, I would have not even imagined that I would be providing employment to others, I just wanted to provide for my family and send my kids to school. Today, I am not only financially independent, but I am also leading a group of women under Maa Laxmi SHG. I am grateful for the immense support that I have received from Vedanta. I hope to inspire other women in my village to start their own entrepreneurial journeys.”
Rupsi Mehr’s story is one of the many success stories that have emerged from Subhalaxmi Co-operative- Vedanta’s marquee project in sustainable livelihood and women empowerment at Jharsuguda. It promotes sustainable livelihood opportunities among rural women, creating avenues for entrepreneurship through skill development and microfinance support. At the core of it, Subhalaxmi Cooperative’s services delivery model has four basic components: Capacity Building & Livelihood Promotion, Financial services (saving & credit & insurance), Social development and collaboration and partnership.
Subhalaxmi Cooperative has emerged as one of the model community-based organizations in the Jharsuguda, designed to create a landmark for the underprivileged women of the locality in uplifting their socio-economic conditions and ensuring the livelihood security of their families. What started with a corpus of INR 1,000 is now one of the largest women-cooperative of the country. It is worth noting that 83% of the loans have been availed for microenterprises and hence more than 1,300 women micro-entrepreneurs have emerged from the co-operative, who are engaged in various farm & non-farm activities.
To scale up this community institution further and increase the membership base to 10,000, Vedanta Ltd. Jharsuguda has introduced Subhalaxmi Udyogini. In this next phase of growth, the company has partnered with Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII) for entrepreneurship development with skill set enhancement.
This inspiring women-led movement has won its fair share of accolades, with various national and international awards over the last few years. In 2021, it won the prestigious BRICS solution for SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) award for Gender Equality- its first international award.
Their stories are the same yet so different as more than 4100 women from rural communities across Odisha have transformed their lives for the better through Vedanta’s Subhalaxmi Cooperative Society. What started as a small spark in 2008 under the aegis of Vedanta Integrated Jana Jeevika Yojana (a livelihood initiative taken up by Vedanta Limited) has come a long way and established itself as one of India’s largest women co-operatives, inspiring women to pave their own path towards self-reliance and become change agents of tomorrow.
