Damoh, Dec 2 (IANS): Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of the Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PM FME) scheme is playing a pivotal role in shaping up the youth as new-age entrepreneurs while also helping them make fortunes from small businesses.
The residents of Damoh (Madhya Pradesh) have emerged as a shining example of the PM FME success. A couple of locals started their enterprises with government assistance sometime ago and today they are making good money out of it.
Karan Kurmi, a resident of Mirzapur village in Patharia block of Damoh took a loan of Rs 6 lakh from the bank through the FME scheme and set up a milk processing unit in his Mirzapur village. Today, he is running a successful enterprise and providing employment to 8 people.
Sharing his success story with IANS, he said that he bought different types of machines to preserve milk and went from village to village on a motorcycle to collect it from cattle farmers.
“There were many difficulties in the initial days, but now the number of people helping in the work has increased. I myself am giving employment to about 7 to 8 people. With the changing times, the work has become easier, now I am not in one or two villages. Rather, he is buying milk from farmers of about 7 to 8 villages,” he said.
He further said that he was making a net income of about 35,000 to 40,000 from the milk business.
Interestingly, the Centre provides a subsidy of up to 35 per cent to the beneficiary, under the PM FME scheme.
PL Ahirwar, an officer in Damoh Horticulture Department informed that the Centre-run scheme is giving wings to dreams of the country's youth.
Giving a lowdown on the scheme's penetration in Damoh district, he said that more than 122 beneficiaries have taken benefit of the scheme in the past 3 years.
“35 per cent of the total cost of the project is borne by the government. Many farmers who turned to this scheme are today running pulses units, rice units, milk dairy and dairy products (ghee, cheese, butter) stores,” he elaborated.
Besides these beneficiaries, a highly successful story of Devendra Parmar is encouraging more villagers to take this route to prosperity.
It is said about him, “One who started his dairy with 5 cows, today has 150 cows from which he is producing 500 litres of milk and is also providing employment to about 500 people.