IRMA hosts nat’l business plan event

Vadodara/ Anand: The Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) organised a one-of-its-kind inter B-school event – Aadhyam – on Saturday and Sunday.
The two-day national business plan competition for farmer producer organisation (FPO) opened with a panel discussion on the topic – ‘Access to credit: Opportunities and challenges for FPO’.
The panel discussion focused on ecosystem support services required for government’s plan to form 10,000 FPOs in the coming five years and the real factors of success of FPOs in the country.
The inaugural ceremony was graced by T Venkatakrishna, MD and CEO of NABKISAN Finance, R Ramaseshan, ex MD and CEO of NCDEX, Emmanuel Murray, senior advisor at Caspian Impact Investments, L Prabhakar from ITC agribusiness and Luv Bhardwaj, public policy expert at NITI Aayog.
Bhardwaj said that government is focused on enhancing the FPOs by providing better capacity building and bringing in efficient management information system for the same.
The panel also discussed on the need for policy changes related to CSR to sponsor management professionals in helping FPOs to prosper and having a holistic delivery of services like warehousing, processing among others.