The Maldugi Tale
   Date :08-Jul-2019

 
Staff Reporter:
 
Women in remote village of Gadchiroli district are toiling to build a sweet success story of entrepreneurship 
 
Sweet is the nectar of life, it is said. The women from remote village Maldugi in Gadchiroli district are proving this right by becoming entrepreneurs and packaging honey. Their hard work is aided by Chief Minister’s Rural Development Fund (CMRDF), which is a part of Maharashtra Village Social Transformation Foundation (MVSTF). Maldugi is a village populated by 924 persons. Though Gadchiroli district has been in the headlines for years because of Left Wing Extremism and under-development, it has been steadily making progress in the past some time.
 
Under CMRDF, the Government has taken up a mission to develop 1,000 villages in Maharashtra on various developmental parameters. MVSTF has enabled large-scale public-private partnership models to converge developmental efforts between the State Government and corporate world. Under the initiative, partners provide financial resources to MVSTF, along with domain knowledge and expertise to bring about lasting change in key development areas.
 
As far as Maldugi is concerned, it is heavily dependent on paddy cultivation with very little job opportunities to earn a respectable livelihood. Deficient rainfall adds to the challenges faced by the villagers in earning supplementary income if paddy yield is not good. A year ago, the change began with three women Aarti Radheshyam Uike, Hemakanta Raut, and Ratnmala Madavi, who had no idea about entrepreneurship or marketing, started treading the path of transformation with help of MVSTF. Shyam Wawre, deputed to the village for the last year, proved to be an agent of change for these tribal woman. After spending over six months for baseline survey and understanding geographical diversity and mindset of villagers, Wawre found that some women from the village were collecting honey and selling directly to local traders in an amateurish way.
 
He then initiated a programme with twin purpose -- creating livelihood for tribal women and empowering them. First, he attended the meetings of women’s self-help groups (SHGs) in November 2018, and encouraged women to come up with new livelihood initiatives from the resources available in the region. During discussion, it came out that there was a large amount of untapped raw honey available in forests that could be collected and processed to get better value for the product. After achieving consensus of villagers, and with the help of MVSTF and Maharashtra State Rural Livelihood Mission (MSRLM), a honey processing unit was set up. Gradually, a brand name ‘Natural Honey’ was created to sell organic honey in market. Soon, Udan Mahila Gram Sangh started marketing ‘Natural Honey’ through Ecovan, self-reliant women farmer producer company. MVSTF provided a funding of Rs two lakh for purchase of relevant equipment.
 
Village organisation, an institution of MSRLM, provided space to set up the unit. The members of self-help group were mobilised to collect raw honey from forests of Kurkheda tehsil. MSRLM also provided for capacity building of these members on processing, packaging, and labelling of raw honey. A 20-member team comprising Aarti Radheshyam Uike, Hemakanta Raut, Ratnmala Madavi, Reshmabai Ghodam, Surekha Madavi, Usha Ghodam, Vandana Ghodam, Vanmla Madavi, Vimla Sahare, Yashodhara Nandeshwar, Darshana Raut, Bharti Sidam, Bhavika Uike, Durga Raut, Babita Naitam, Kavita Tulavi, Usha Mungmode, Mira Dhurve, Akankha Naitam, Meena Mungmode, began working on processing, packaging and labelling of raw honey in May this year. They invested Rs 19,000 in the venture. Each member got Rs 150 per day as wages.
 
Thus, on an average, each member earned Rs 4,000 per month. As per the official information, so far, around 1,000 kg of raw honey has been processed and packaged, resulting in potential profit of Rs 1,15,000 from sales. The profit will be distributed among participating members. Yashwant Chourikar, Sarpanch, Maldugi, felt that the project had not only created livelihood opportunity for women in the village but also had given them a sense of confidence that they too could contribute to their family. “Such initiatives will effectively help arrest the problem of migration.
 
This project shows that employment and livelihood can be generated in a remote village too,” he was quoted as saying in an official release. Aaarti Uike, President, Udaan Self-Help Group, Maldugi, pointed out that villagers used to avail of money from MSRLM in the form of loans as they had no idea how to utilise funds for other purpose. She thanked Wawre for pursuing the case till its logical end and making entrepreneurship possible for village women. Of course, their tale is inspiring enough for others to start building a tale -- of sweet success.