In line with the Government policy, the Department had successfully linked approximately 80 percent of the 4165 beneficiaries’ bank account for Direct Beneficiary Transfer through the Nagaland State Cooperative Bank Lt,.

*Financial Assistance to Destitute Women is subject to fund availability of the Department which are notified in local media from time to time.

The IDRC at Purana Bazaar, Dimapur is presently being manned by three women entrepreneurs with whom the Department has entered into partnership through an MOU during 2016-17. These three enterprises namely, Preciousmelove, Quirky Qrafts and Rollong’s Creations are provided funds by the Department for implementation of their activities.

Apart from their own activities in production and marketing of their own products, they provides free training to young women/girls and other needy women in the traits of Soft Doll Making, Paper Crafting and Cutting & Tailoring. Employment opportunities are also provided to the trainees by the entrepreneurs themselves.

The three enterprises have been playing important roles in promoting Department’s MYKI products during expos, symposiums, MYKI- Fests and also during the Annual Hornbill Festivals.

Since, normal training programs were affected due to COVID-19 pandemic, fund was provided to these entrepreneurs to develop twenty (20) short videos (series) on paper crafting and fashion designing to provide online training classes to intending candidates. Preciousmelove (Nungshiba Handicraft), however, continued with outdoor training programmes on soft-doll making and other handicrafts covering 70 women trainees.

During 2018-19, training was provided to  40 trainees at Kohima Centre.

The Training cum Production Centre (TCPC) Dimapur, was inaugurated by the Director of Women Resource Development on  23th May 2018 and the programme kick started with  25 trainees.

Grant-in-aid is provided to NGOs who are genuinely working in the field of social- economic uplift of women and also to Department Partner NGOs at the district and sub-divisional levels for implementing, monitoring and supervising departmental activities.

*It is subjected to fund availability of the Department.

Major activities under this project include:

1. Resource Development Programme for Women (RDPW)

With a view to cater to the wide socio-economic needs of women,  a common Fund pool has been established under the TLI Project. This programme has been conceived with the basic idea to provide funds or material resources to women to take up any sustainable livelihood activities. It primarily targets women farmers, artisans ( skilled  women handicrafts workers ), artistes, etc. especially from the rural and urban poor sector. Activity plans are drawn in direct consultation with target beneficiaries and are being executed according to their needs.

As part of Resource Development Programme for Women under Transformative Livelihood Intervention Project, the following are the ongoing activities.

        i. Cultivation of Kholar at Kiphire:  The Project Started in the year 2015-16, till date 400 women farmers have received assistance under this project. During 2020-21, 100 new women farmers were covered under the project.

       ii. Cultivation of Groundnut at Wokha: The project started in the year 2017-18. During 2020-21, 100 women farmers were covered under this project.

      iii. Cultivation of Millet & Job’s tears: The project started in the year 2019-20. During the year 2020-21, 51 women farmers were assisted under this project .

       iv. Local Potato farming: With an aim to promote community based Local Potato Farming, necessary assistance including seed money was provided to 100 women farmers from Viswema Village,  during 2020-21.

The  produce of the beneficiaries  are being procured  by the Department for processing, packaging and marketing in the Mini Fruit & Vegetable Processing Centre.

2.  Turmeric Processing Programme (TPP)

Initiated during 2016-17 in Jalukie Area (Peren District) this programme aims at large-scale  turmeric (Lakadong variety) cultivation for processing of turmeric fingers. It has passed several stages of development.

During the year the Department procured approximately 100 MT of raw turmeric both as raw material for processing/value addition activities and for seeds for expanding the coverage of plantation to other areas.

Presently,  thirty women are actively engaged in production of dried turmeric at the processing plan, which are being packaged at Mini Fruit & Vegetable Processing Centre and marketed under the Myki brand.

3. Mini Fruit & Vegetable Processing Centre

The Department has a Mini Fruit & Vegetable Processing Centre at Meriema where Pre- and Post-processing of various items are implemented.  The processing centre was reorganized by deploying more manpower, recruiting Food Specialist /Technologists. New packaging materials bearing nutritional facts against each product are also being introduced along with FSSAI registration  number.

Fourteen food products, namely Gooseberry, Wild apple, Turmeric, Popped rice, Ginger, Sumac, Millet, Groundnut, Kholar, Anishi, Roselle, Soya bean Pickle, Dried Bamboo Shoot and Naga King chilli are being processed and marketed under the Myki brand. All the above mentioned products are being supplied by more than 100 farmers from different districts of Nagaland.

Myki products are being showcased  and sold in variety of platforms  and it is rapidly gaining recognition both within and outside the State.

4. Apparels & Accessories Production Programme

The Apparels & Accessories Production Programme was conceived to popularize Naga themed fabrics with modern motifs and designs. The programme aims at manufacturing various  indigenously designed attires and accessories, including paper carry bags, wrapping papers, face masks etc. so designed to avoid use of plastic materials, at very affordable prices.

During 2020-21, with a view to supplement the need for protective wear during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Department embarked on production of reusable and affordable customized three layered masks. A majority of face mask were donated to health workers and frontline workers across the State, while the remaining was made available to the general public at very reasonable rates.

Through this initiative, the Department was also able to outsource tailoring works to skilled unemployed women on pay-per-production basis in and around Kohima, thereby enabling a source of livelihood for them during this time of pandemic.