Kudumbashree - Success Story of Sreeragam Permanent Market

Earning income by setting up a shop: Success Story of Sreeragam Permanent Market

Laila was a housewife and mother of two children. She resides at Chatthannoor of the Kollam district of Kerala. The association with Kudumbashree Mission and Laila dates back to years and the former has been a major contributor in the empowerment and development in various sectors of the social life of her. Laila is a member of Amrutha NHG in the panchayat. Now, she is a busy entrepreneur in her own business, the Sreeragam Permanent market. Before setting up the present business schemes she was engaged with other fellow members in different activities though did not explicitly enter in to any enterprises. The catalyst for the present growth and achievement has been returning of husband from abroad and intention to settle at home town.

History

 The entrepreneur has been a member of the Kudumbashree NHG since 2012, before she moved to the current place. The Micro Enterprise was started when the husband became a returned migrant and thought about starting business initiatives in the native itself. In the first stage, their business was collecting tea powder and bags from Munnar in bulk and selling it in small quantities to different shops and households. Later a vehicle was purchased for meeting that purpose. A license was obtained for the purpose and the business was home based where packing and other related tasks took place in own house without depending on other places of rent or any in kind. Though the tea selling business was performing better, the family thought that they should not limit themselves to the then current entrepreneurship, the notion of expanding business occurred and was fixed on making food materials in best quality and without poisonous particles. They started making curry powders and pickles later. The new scheme was also started at home and the home made products were distributed to the nearby shops and other avenues.

In the next stage, the present room, which they use now was rented and the shop was set up as the business started to make growth. The products such as chilly, coriander and turmeric are purchased from the local market, cleaned and crushed at home, then packed for the distribution. Later acquaintances handed over a flour crushing unit, seeing that the clients in need and at present this facility is used for the business purposes. Pickles and other subsidiary products are also prepared under and the products have been named SM PRODUCTS. The products are also sold at the shop SREERAGAM along with other items such as branded curry powders etc. Products of other Micro Enterprise units are also available in the shop. There are a wide variety of products such as health mix, protein powders, coconut oil etc are also available from other groups. Human resource is purchased for taking care of the shop when the client is busy with the preparation of curry powers and virgin coconut oil. The hired people are also members of Kudumbashree NHG. The products prepared them are distributed at different shops, supermarkets, hotels and nowadays most of the hotels are not purchasing the branded curry powders, instead they rely on the home made powders to increase the quality of food.

The major hurdle they faced while setting up their own enterprise was the shortage of finance for purchasing a room for the shop. At that time Kudumbashree Mission assisted her with revolving fund. This timely help made them able to rent a room that became the base of the success. Officials from the Kudumbashree Kollam District Mission did the timely monitoring and assessment of the Micro Enterprise which helps her to identify the gaps in business and resolve the problems.

The present status of their ‘business’ has been achieved through hard efforts by the family from the initial periods, when they expanded the initiative from tea powder distribution to present shop in a rented room. Establishment of the networks for the distribution of the products had been the primary challenge in the beginning stage where customers were identified and their trust was gained in the process of establishing and expanding the Micro Enterprise to the next stages. When the potential for the expansion of the Micro Enterprise was identified by her, appropriate space and other supporting resources had to be procured for the next stage. Procurement of the spices and the machinery for converting it into the packed sellable item were the challenges in the second stage. Those were overcome by the induction of the floor crushing unit to the Micro Enterprise and the processes of the conversion of spices to powder were taken care of and additional human resource had to be purchased to look after the shop as the floor crushing unit demanded fulltime presence. The network expansion and trust gaining by the customers which were challenges in the primary stages acted as strength in the latter stage and the challenges in that sector were reduced.

A few hotels and shops started to purchase the chilli powder and turmeric powder of SM products. They were happy with the quality and started to give monthly orders and they informed other shop owners and they all started to purchase from Sreeragam. 

Laila has a plan to develop the business and enlarge the customers from the present state. She also wants to add more products and increase the production of curry powders as it has high demand. They are also getting bulk orders for their products. So increasing the infrastructure facilities is also their priority. They wanted to hire a person to take care of the shop as the demand for home made products are increasing. The flour crushing unit is also demanding presence because people visit there to get their floors crushed.

With their slow yet steady growth, the success that Sreeragam Permanent Market had attained is mind blowing. Sreeragam Permanent Market could be considered as an epitome of unaltered will power and confidence. With a gradual yet steady growth, they had proved that belief in their selves could take anyone to greater success.