STED Project

Manthan has been involved in coordinating STED project, supported by NSTEDB, Government of India, in the districts of Kutch, Bharuch, Narmada and Surendranagar. The main objective of the project is:

• To identify possible resource based projects in the region covering both rural and urban areas.
• To identify S&T intervention (like technology selection, modification, alteration and dissemination) for exploiting the opportunities by prospective entrepreneurs.
• To improve working of existing enterprises through S&T intervention to upgrade the technology and modernisation of units.
• To organise regular enterprise awareness programmes and skill development programmes for creating suitable entrepreneurial environment in the district.
• To launch at least 200 micro-enterprises in the district during the four years of duration in which at least 50 technology-driven micro-enterprises are to be in technology specific areas as identified by the implementing agency earlier.

The experience working in these districts has been great, and not only the community is benefited but Manthan also learnt several things from the grassroot level. The experiences learnt at the local level were implemented in several other trainings. Several micro enterprises were established in different regions related to different crafts, skills, services, etc. were established.

Qualitative change is a slow process, so Manthan mainly works on such projects for a longer duration and trains the people in all the aspects right from tradition, ideation, designing, production, packaging, marketing, communication, accounting and management for a sustainable development. Manthan focuses on a qualitative development rather than quantitative development.