Original article by By Sravani Sarkar published in
Principal secretary of the DWCD Ashok Shah told THE WEEK that a portal is being developed wherein the products of the women SHG members will be displayed and become available for sale through a market link including with Amazon.
“Our aim is to empower women by providing them livelihood options. The online marketing platform will help the women sell their products from their homes. We have also brought in an international marketing agency for training the women on the latest marketing aspects. Also this agency will find suitable offline market linkages for the women, so that they could immediately start supplying their products to these markets,” Shah said.
The Tejaswini Rural Women Empowerment Programme is being implemented in six districts of Madhya Pradesh including Dindori by the MP Women’s Finance Development Corporation of the DWCD. About 32,000 women are getting benefited from the programme being implemented through 2,470 SHGs controlled by nine Tejaswini federations. Some innovative livelihood initiatives were taken recently in different villages of Dindori.
A de-hulling (de-husking) and de-stoning unit for cleaning and processing of minor millets (Kodo-Kutki) was set up in Mehadwani in Shahpura of Dindori.
Kodo and Kutki were earlier grown only sparsely in the district due to lack of agriculture facilities and only used for domestic consumption by the local residents. But under the Tejaswini programme, traditional agriculture techniques for Kodo-Kutki farming was promoted among women farmers during the past decade, leading to considerable increase in productivity.
“The de-hulling and de-stoning machine along with the grain grade-separator and packaging machine has speeded up the work of cleaning, de-husking and packaging of the minor millets—normally a very cumbersome mechanical work. Now, trained women of our federation are operating the machines. Apart from local domestic consumption, lot of the minor millets are used for making snacks like burfees (sweetmeats) for the local anganwadis (government child care centres) and the remaining grains are sold commercially. The new machines are proving to be very useful in this context,” Rekha Pendram, the secretary of Nari Chetana Mahila Sangh—the federation that runs the unit—told THE WEEK.
