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From the four walls of her house to becoming a successful entrepreneur producing banana fibre, Sunita and her self-help group are receiving recognition not just in the district and state but also across the country and abroad.
It is a moment for them to ‘Go Bananas’ with joy as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appreciated their efforts to make the best out of waste.
“During COVID-19 times, there has been a unique initiative in Lakhimpur Kheri. Here work has started to impart training to women to make fibre from the discarded banana stems, an attempt to achieve best from waste. Banana fibre is made by cutting the stem of a banana with the help of a machine, which is like jute or flax. Handbags, mats, rugs and many other things are made from this fibre. Due to this initiative, on one hand, the use of crop waste started, while on the other hand, the sisters and daughters living in the village got another source of income, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his 'Mann Ki Baat'.
Like any other village woman, Sunita of Samaisa village in Lakhimpur too could not think beyond the four walls of her house until she became a member of the Ma Saraswati self-help group. During COVID-19 pandemic, the husbands were finding it hard to feed their kids. Now, the self-reliant women of Uttar Pradesh are scripting their own success story.
A novel initiative of the Uttar Pradesh government and Lakhimpur Kheri district administration is bringing financial freedom to rural women by training them to extract fibre from discarded banana stems. Using discarded banana stems, they are reprocessing crop residue and also providing livelihood to rural women. Banana fibre is largely used in textiles, slopes, hygiene products such as diapers, etc. The project was kicked off last December in Samaisa village of Isanagar block.
“It is a great feeling to earn Rs 400-600 a day. Now, I am able to support my entire family,” smiled Sunita. Like her, other such women in the village earn on an average Rs 400 a day through this enterprise.
Lakhimpur Kheri’s Chief Development Officer Arvind Singh says the effort to make banana fibre is a step towards ‘One Block One Product’, taking inspiration from the One District One Product scheme.
“Banana cultivation is done on a large-scale in the Isanagar development block. When the bananas are harvested, the farmers usually throw away the banana stem. The discarded stem has become a source of employment to rural women who draw fibres from them. We contacted the farmers and they gladly agreed to give the banana stem. Discussions were held with the women of the self-help groups in several phases (September-October 2020). We selected 25-30 women for the self-help groups and then they were given training,” he said.
Singh said the main challenge before them was to mobilise machinery and other facilities for production and therefore, the self-help group was given loan from CLF and after talking to various vendors the machines were ordered from Riddhi Enterprises Surat, Gujarat in November 2020.
With the arrival of the machine, the production started in December 2020, but now the challenge was to find a market. Since Banana fibre is being used mostly in the paper and textile industries. Therefore, in this sequence, contacts were made for sales in areas like Surat, Ahmedabad and Kanpur.
Their efforts yielded results as AltMat, a company in Gujarat that transforms agricultural waste into natural fibres and yarns to be used in clothing and packaging, gave a contract to procure 400 kg of banana yarn per month extracted by the SHG. The group will start delivering the product in August 2021.
Apart from this, some other companies also gave token money of Rs 21,000 against the purchase. Not only this, the organisation has been registered on India Mart to sell the product. Various companies of India Mart have demanded the yarn from the village organisation on a large-scale (about 10 tons). Banana fibre is being demanded commercially in large quantities. Therefore, the GST registration of the SHG is also being done.
Banana fiber is being sold at the rate of about Rs 150- 200 per kg and a profit of about 50 per cent is being received at this price. With the increase in demand, profits are also likely to increase.