North-East Chief Minister’s conclave–”Empowering Women in North East”

FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) organised North-East Chief Minister’s Conclave –”Empowering Women in North east on December 5, 2015 at the hotel Vivanta by Taj by the FLO North East Chapter ably led by Ms Joyshree Das Verma. 200 plus members of FLO travelled from Delhi and across all the 13 chapters of India to participate in the Conclave.

The National President, FLO, Ms Archana Garodia Gupta in her opening remarks shared the national initiatives and presented the following advocacy points to Shri Tarun Gogoi, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Assam and Dr. Mukul Sangma, Hon’ble Chief Minister for Meghalaya.

• Increased land ownership for women
• Space to create Mahila Haat
• Skill development fund for women
• Improve access to Finance for women

Dr Mukul Sangama, highlighted the fact that upon data mining the state of Meghalaya, one will find that the majority of the land indeed belonged to the women. The state has sustainable livelihood programmes directed towards encouraging entrepreneurship like the Meghalaya institute of Entrepreneurship. North East, he said is blessed with a skilled workforce. Mr. Sangma emphasised on the need for brand building for North East. He said the there is a need and scope of branding various upper selling proposition’s or the USP’s like the medical tourism due to classical medicinal plants like Remy. He informed the gathering that once Agar was synonym to Assam. He shared that biofuel can be produced from bamboo. And then there is the Kaziranga National Park to be branded as a destination. He mentioned that, as a responsible global citizen, he would like to have as little carbon footprint yet have a suitable and sustained livelihood programme for his people and specially women.

To the delight of the FLO members present at the conclave, he announced the following:

One, his government would initiate a preferential purchase policy for women entrepreneurs.

Two, create a crafts village for women and three, encourage separate land bank for the women.

Hon’ble Minister for Assam, Mr. Tarun Gogoi said that for him, the real meaning of empowering women is the grass root women. He said for years, he has been supporting them by initiatives like, giving cycles to girls, like giving them lenient terms of repayments of loans etc. He agreed with Dr Sangma, that NE needs destination branding.

Chairman for FICCI North East Advisory Council, Mr. Ranjit Barthakur, said that men and women both need empowerment. He said that there is a need to strike a balance between our natural capital and industrialisation. Owing to the global warming reaching an alarming level, we need to create an ecosystem where all co-exist.

The conclave emended with a vote of thanks by the vote to thanks by Ms Vinita Bimbhet, Senior Vice -president, FLO. She summarized the commitments made by the Hon’ble Chief Ministers for the cause of women empowerment and sought their support.