Hashi Begums business smiles with IBBL RDS investment

Business Desk :
The curse of poverty could not weaken Jamalpur’s Hashi Begum.
Conquering poverty, she now leads a cluster of some 300 women artisans, who produce garments, clothing appliances for home and daily uses for her showroom located at Amlapara in Jamalpur town. She sells the products, fetches income and disburses dividends to the female artisans. She runs her family as well from the shop’s income.
Once she faced daily deficiency of essentials like rice, vegetables, edible oil, salt, green chilli and spices to cook meals for her four-member family due to unemployment of her husband and no income of herself.
The beginning of her fight against poverty was blessed by a small sum of Taka 5 thousand as loan from Rural Development Scheme (RDS) of Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) in late 1995.
Initially, she engaged her close neighbours in tailoring fashion wear such as Urna (Scarf), Frock (Gown) and night-dresses, embroidery on unstitched three-pieces, and producing pillow cover, bed sheet, cap and hijabs. Hashi collects the products and approaches shop owners at different markets in Jamalpur town for sale. She got a positive response from shop owners and fetched hefty income from selling the products.
Hashi’s clean transactions with both female artisans and the IBBL’s RDS helped her a lot to build reputation and grow business. At one stage, the bank enhanced her credit ceiling and assisted her in owning a shop. Now she is a proud owner of a well-decorated showroom at a busy marketplace in the growing town of Jamalpur district. Her showroom is full of various products like purses, school bags, handbags, tiffin pouches, quilted-wrapping bags, textured rugs and souvenir crafts in addition to various female dresses and clothing appliances.
Artisans of her team produce splendored goods that attract many buyers from nearby Upazilas and Districts. Wholesalers from Sherpur, Mymensingh, Netrokona. Kishoreganj and Tangail districts place orders at Hashi’s shop. Her enterprise turns out to be an exceptional one in terms of providing income opportunities for a significant number of rural women who work and earn from home and support their respective family.
The problem she faces at present is that all her accessories purchase and wages for the contacted artisans are subject to cash imbursement. On the other hand, a significant proportion of payment from whole-sellers against sold goods stands due over months. At this point, she demands enhancement of the RDS ceiling of investment to comfortably cope with the market reality.