Pulwama, Oct 02 :With support from centrally sponsored scheme, NRLM( National Rural Livelihood Mission), the women folk from various villages of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district are taking new strides.
After setting up successful income generation units, formation of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) is a step towards having better bargaining power in the market.
District Programme Manager, NRLM Pulwama, Arshid Ahmad told Rising Kashmir that two FPOs have been formulated by female self-help group members in two different areas of Pulwama.
He added that All Women Dairy FPO has been formulated in Wahibugh Newa area and All Women Agriculture and Horticulture FPO from Gangoo-Mitrigam area has been recently registered.
“The All Women Diary FPO has around 300 members,” he said, adding that for setting up the FPO around 125 ladies were trained under Livelihood Enterprise Development Programme(LEDP).
Abida Ashraf, a member of the FPO said that they have registered it under companies act.
“We have applied for land before district administration,” Abida said, adding that the diary FPO will help them adding value to raw milk.
“We can process milk by way of packing or turning it to butter, cheese and other products,” she said, adding that all members are shareholders in proportion to their invested capital.
She added that individually a seller has no say in deciding rates but collectively they will have a significant leverage and can fight exploitive trade practices.
Arshid Ahmad further informed that the newly registered All Women Agriculture and Horticulture FPO has 125 members.
“ The membership drive is going on and we want to have around 300 members in it,” he said.
He said that 52 members from this group have been trained at ITI Pulwama.
The FPO will add value to agriculture produce in the form of jams, pickles and juice.
Besides FPOs women from 21 SHGs have constituted a Lavender group in Chandigam area of the district.
The group deals in extraction, packing and marketing of Lavender oil.
Officials informed that this group was provided 6600 Lavender saplings by field station of CSIR IIIM Boneera under aroma mission.
“We sell our product locally and we are also available on Flipkart, Mesho and Amazon,” Parveena , a member of the group said.
Recently, the group has received an award from government authorities at Jammu for doing great work.
Parveena, a postgraduate in rural development with a diploma in urban planning, said that they are picking up and in coming days they will do much better.
