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Case Stories
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Capitalizing on regional linkage initiatives: The case of Annapurna Swasthakar Lito Udyog
When one of the community mobilizers of Nepalgunj municipality Ms. Saraswati Parajuli chanced upon to meet Angit Nakarmi during her visit to one of the TLO's in ward no. 13 of the municipality, little did she realize that her mobilization endeavors would encourage this man to come out of despair and a sense of helplessness and engage again in his dream project which had illuded success before..
Despite having realized the market potential for a baby food supplement, Angit somehow could not take his project above the ground facing even bankruptcy at one point of time during the process. After acquiring initial know-how on the production of baby food with predominantly local inputs from a German volunteer, Angit managed to secure a loan of NRs. 7,000 through Industrial Enterprise Development Institute (IEDI). After having started his enterprise with that amount, Angit suddenly found himself competing with established brand names in baby food industry. This however did not deter him from keeping on trying. Somewhere along the line, he was convinced that he could consolidate his presence in the market by bringing out cost effective option compared with established brand names as he could get most of inputs like Soya bean, wheat and maize from hinterland areas in reasonable cost. As business seemed to flounder, yet another infusion of cash from other sources also did not yield good results. In fact things seemed to be heading from bad to worse.
Things changed however after Angit came to be familiar with RUP-Programme's approaches after attending one of the TLO meetings in Nepalgunj. Above all, Angit could see that the presence of RUPP in 12 municipalities presented the prospects of expanding his market beyond Nepalgunj. In RUPP he also found an institution that looked beyond credit support when promoting enterprises. In the developments that followed, Partnership Development Committee of Nepalgunj decided to take Angit as one of the focal agents and endorsed a credit support of Rs. 25,000. With this support, Angit lost no time and got down to business immediately.
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