Thiruvananthapuram: The Kudumbashree has launched an e-commerce portal, www.kudumbashreebazaar.com through which orders can be placed for its products, including bags, umbrellas, jewellery and dosa mix.
It has also signed an MoU with the department of post to create a delivery mechanism similar to other online shopping sites.
Instead of creating payment gateways for all entrepreneurs, the MoU allows Kudumbashree to operate with a single payment gateway.
This is intended to help small-scale Kudumbashree units, which have been struggling to market their products. “We hope that the site will improve the business-to-business communication of small-scale units. Kudumbashree units, which have been unable to compete with large-scale makers, especially as the cost is higher, can make the best of it,” said Kudumbashree chief operating officer (marketing) Ajith Chacko.
“Till now they had to find buyers on their own. There was no retail mechanism, except for government programmes, to help market Kudumbashree products. The website will address this limitation to a certain extent,” he said.
The portal, developed by Street Bell private limited, has added 250 units in the first stage. Kudumbashree executive director S. Harikishore said that all units will be added soon. Kudumba-shree will explore the possibility of adding itself as a shop in larger e-commerce portals like Amazon, he said.
LSGD minister K.T. Jaleel launched the portal at a function held at Kanakakkunnu here on Wednesday.
Mr K. Muraleedharan MLA presided. They both stressed the importance of offering quality products. “Please do make sure that the quality is not diluted even by one per cent. For, it affects the credibility of Kudumb-ashree,” said Mr Jaleel.
Kudumbashree also signed an MoU with Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited for technical support for its community radio project.
Mr Jaleel handed over visas to three youth –C.T. Prathin, K. Appu and P. Vishnu — who were trained through Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram-een Kausalya Yojna and placed in Abu Dhabi.
