Diagnostic SWOT appraisal of the wicker handicraft entrepreneurship development in Kashmir, India

Critical analyses of the perceptions on SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) have become a fundamental element of multi-criteria decision making for developing wicker handicraft entrepreneurship. The study examined the effectiveness and prioritization of entrepreneur's perceptions towards SWOT categories and factors and provided insights for developing wicker handicraft entrepreneurship in Pulwama district of Kashmir. Data were collected through structured interviews and focus group discussions of 100 wicker handicraft entrepreneurs of 20 villages selected by multi-stage random sampling. Simple descriptive statistics were used for the data analysis. Results showed that the factors like income generation (19.30%) and employment generation (19.00%) were viewed as most important strengths while labour intensive and less remunerative livelihood (18.80%) and seasonal subsistence (18.70%) were identified as main weaknesses. Further, poverty alleviation (20.70%), preservation of traditional art craft (19.00%) and improvement in public-private relations (17.50%) were adjudged as strong opportunities whereas limited marketing facilities (20.70%), lack of co-operative societies (18.90%) and harassment by officials in withies collection (16.50%) were seen as chief threats. The challenges (weaknesses and threats) (50.40%) for wicker handicraft entrepreneurship outweighed the prospects (strengths and opportunities) (49.60%) while the internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) (54.80%) prevailed over the external factors (opportunities and threats) (54.20%). F statistics (p<0.05) indicated significant differences between the internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats). The results projected the basis to the policymakers to prioritize and address the prominent challenges and reinforce the prospects for conceptualizing, formulating and implementing the strategies for strengthening the wicker handicraft entrepreneurship

Assessment of Training Needs on Entrepreneurship Development for NTFR Stakeholders in Gurez Valley of Kashmir

International audienceEntrepreneurship on non-timber forest resources (NTFR) is an important source of sustainable livelihoods and income diversification in the Gurez valley of Kashmir. In order to increase the efficiency of NTFR stakeholders, training is indispensable. This study attempts to assess the training needs, suitable training programme and socioeconomic profile of the NTFR stakeholders. Multistage random sampling procedure was used to select 337 households from 18 sample villages for field survey. Data were collected through personal interviews administering structured interview schedule and analysed using simple descriptive statistics. Results indicated that majority of the NTFR stakeholders were belonged to low socioeconomic status class as reflected by their household characteristics. Among the ten selected major thematic areas the ‘commercialization of NTFR’ (WMS, 3.00; priority percentage, 12.87%) was ranked 1st while ‘conservation of NTFR through JFM’ (WMS= 1.68; priority percentage, 7.21%) was ranked 10th. The short duration trainings (1-7 days) (WMS, 3.00) was ranked 1st among the delivery methods followed by the medium duration trainings (8-14 days) (WMS, 2.84; rank 2nd) and the long duration trainings (3-4 weeks) (WMS, 2.79; rank 3rd). The findings suggested that the trainings on NTFR entrepreneurship of stakeholders is the crucial intervention for livelihood diversification, socioeconomic development and forest conservation; hence, need-based trainings must be planned and imparted to the individuals for improving the entrepreneurial productivity, performance and efficiency. To achieve the desired change in the NTFR entrepreneurship, the training needs identified in this study must be given due consideration during designing the training curriculum