Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda) start 44 pilot projects worth Rs 83.120 million by the end of July 2007 under AHAN (Aik Hunar Aik Nagar) out of which AHAN will contribute Rs 5.576 while the rest of the funding will come from the partner organisations/communities.
The official sources told Business Recorder here on Tuesday, four pilot projects have been completed while 25 pilot projects had recently been initiated after receipt of Rs 20 million. Besides, another 15 are expected to be initiated by July, 2007.
Out of 6832 direct beneficiaries of these pilot projects, the percentage of female participation is expected to be at 58. Pilot projects are spread over all the four provinces of Pakistan. The province-wise detail revealed that 14 projects had been planned in Sindh, 11 in Punjab, 10 in NWFP and 9 in Balochistan.
The duration of pilot projects ranges from one month to 14 months, depending upon the nature of intervention, capacity of relevant cluster, stage of product development and level of marketing support mechanism. These pilot projects cover a large variety of product range including embroidery of different regions / areas, silver jewellery / silverware, knais, carpets, killim, blue pottery, ceramics, lacquer work, bead jewellery, mosaic, stone cutting and polishing, leather embroidery and mazri etc.
The Project Director explained that on the basis of the lessons learnt from the first four pilot projects, the partner organisations were being involved not only for cost sharing but also for execution and sustainability of the project activity in the local area, sources added.
The Federal Minister for Industries, Production and Special Initiatives Jahangir Khan Tareen while presiding over the first meeting of the AHAN projects' steering committee held recently, observed that the project had not taken off as per the expected speed probably due to the procedures that the government departments follow.
However, the President of Khushali Bank was of the view that AHAN should move out of pilot phase to achieve something concrete and assured that Khushali Bank was ready to consider extending micro credit to AHAN clusters if they met the requirements of the Bank. The meeting also decided to meet again in Karachi on July 2, 2007 which would be chaired by Federal Minister for Industries, Production and Special Initiatives Jahangir Khan Tareen to review the pace of work on different projects.