Namita Rani Das and her husband Dipta Rajan live in Ward No.9, Dhenkanal, Odisha with their daughters Laxmipriya (23), and Subhashree (18). They run a construction material business supplying shuttering and centring tools essential for building a concrete structure.

Namita has been working on the shuttering and centring business along with her husband since 2020, employing 4 people from her locality. She attended the Recognition of Prior Learning training for assistant masons followed by the Entrepreneurship Development Program and Government Schemes where she learned how to successfully run and market her business and received an orientation on Government entitlements and schemes available for entrepreneurs.

“I signed up for project Nirmanshree because there was a need to expand the business to support our growing family. Participating in RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning) training on Assistant Mason and EDP (Entrepreneurship Development Program and Government Schemes) opened my eyes to more possibilities such as government schemes and product marketing. It helped me expand the business,” says Namita.

After completing her training, Namita worked to scale up the business, receiving seed money support of INR 25,000 from Habitat. Through this funding and their savings, she invested in increasing the carpet area of the shuttering and centring tools. This drastically increased their capacity to respond to multiple orders in the locality.