Starting five years ago, Udyogini tied up with various women's groups at that district levels in three states of Bihar, Orissa and Rajasthan and trained a core enterprise team of rural micro women entrepreneurs. The training was prepared in such a way that even illiterate and semi-literate women could keep accounts, production schedules and stock positions using pictorial symbols. ``The result was that the profits increased considerably and the increased women's earnings added to the household income,'' says Gurineder Kaur, chief executive of Udyogini.

This increased income had direct effects on thenutrition levels in the household and the education of children. ``The women began having a say in the household, deciding what food should be cooked and bought and the children's attendance rates at schools also improved,'' she says.

Since the project successfully proved the hypothesis that economic development and empowerment of women brought direct changes in the social lives of villagers, a federation of women's groups is now being set up. ``The federation will be an apex body that will co-ordinate with the various women's groups and NGOs working in the rural areas with the micro women entrepreneurs,'' says Dayal Jaiswal, programme officer of Udyogini. The federation hopes to continue imparting management techniques to these rural entrepreneurs and coordinating with other women's groups so that experience can be shared.

The case study of women coconut oil producers in a tiny hamlet in Balasore district of Orissa explains the Udyogini concept well. The Harparvati Mahila Sangh is a small group of 15women entrepreneurs in Kasaphal village of Balasore. These women, belong to a schedule caste and have a low soci-economic profile. None of them possessed any land and their livelihood depended on their husbands who were either fishermen or agricultural labourers.

These women were skilled in the art of extracting coconut oil and since coconuts were available in plenty in their island-village, they decided to take up this job. But things did not workout as smoothly as expected. These women found no takers in the rural area for their pure coconut oil as the villagers were able to buy cheaper, adulterated versions from oil dealers.Udyogini's micro-enterprise development intervention helped the group plan and execute systematically a survival project for their produce.

Over a period of two years, each woman saved Rs 10 per month and the savings were used in getting equipment like iron heaters, vessels and knives for peeling coir. For two years none of the women took any profits or wages.

The group was taughthow to package and produce quality coconut oil, the costing and pricing done, and the products sold through two shops in the village during the haats in the nearby villages.

Today, these women who started this enterprise with two coconuts, have now scaled up the processing to batches of 120-150 coconuts every month and increased profitable sale of the oil.

``Many of these women also borrow money from the Sangh for their individual enterprise like paddy processing and repay their loan without having to go to moneylenders,'' says Jaiswal.

The NGO also recently set up a shop called Jeevika in Sarojini Nagar, New Delhi. The shop sells products made by such women's groups. ``At the moment, most of their products are sold in the rural markets itself. But with this shop, we are trying to get them a foothold into the urban market,'' says Jaiswal. Before setting up the shop, Udyogini tried getting these rural women contracts with big stores like Cottage Emporium that sell ethnic products. ``But these women couldnot wait for the payments as the credit period with these stores is big,'' he says. Udyogini's store, Jeevika, does not have any credit period as the money is paid to the women as soft loans and as and when the products are sold the money is adjusted against the loans.

The products are sent to the shop by parcel instead of trucks or personal visits which are more expensive. ``We have sales of about Rs 40,000 a month now and are working on increased product range and better products soon,'' he says.

Udyogini has proven that women's access to paid work is crucial to achieving self-reliance and the well-being of dependent family members. And adding management techniques to simple rural enterprise can really up the profits.