Urbanisation has pushed an age-old routine like using stone hand-mill to grind grains to flour a thing of past. One thought it had got confined to India’s villages. And none rated it as a viable practice to promote industrialisation. In short, chakki atta — as it is called in villages upcountry — has turned out be a rare sight at homes.
But, wait. A joint venture by a local self-help group (SHG) cooperative and a private company can change the dynamics. In fact, chakki atta can soon appear for sale not just in the domestic market, but even abroad as well — in fancy-looking impressive packets.
Branded Gramin, the joint venture will also launch hand-made or hand-processed food products like chakki dalia, dal, achar, badi, papad, amla candy and honey. All these, as products of the Gramin endeavour. Its brains are also planning to shortly launch and market a range of hand-made ready-to-eat food products like sabji paratha, rajma chawal, aaloo paratha and even kadi pakoda.
The country’s leading cosmetic company, RDM Care India Pvt Ltd (which markets Ayur brand) will market and brand these products across India. The JV will give direct benefit to as many as 12,000 women members in tribal-dominated districts of Mandla, Dindori, Balaghat, Seoni and Chhindwara of Madhya Pradesh. The state had witnessed a similar endeavour in the recent past when the government launched a similar initiative and began selling its own brand in the name of Vindhya Valley. It did not click much in the market, mainly because the project did not engage a private partner in marketing. (Hindustal Lever [now Unilever] was roped in, but that was only to do the branding.)
In the case of Gramin, RDM Care India has already roped in a few retail-chain companies (such as Lulu in the Gulf and other countries) by tagging the products as “Only hand-made”.
RDM president Dilvinder Singh Narang said the company would initially launch hand-made chakki dalia besides multi-grain atta, pickle, coarse grains, honey and organic jaggery. “We are expecting to export half of our hand-made products. I hope the turnover to touch Rs 10-12 crore during the first year,” he told Business Standard. More importantly, Narang said RDM would promote only homegrown products like sharbati wheat or jaggery made of Kareli sugarcane in the state’s Narsihingpur district. “We will not use machines in any of the products. As regards ready-to-eat food, we like food made by women members of our family. We will market them too with this distinction.”
RDM, which has a turnover base of Rs 250 crore, will procure products from various SHGs and pay them against each quantity so bought. The SHG cooperative, Grameen Grihni Mahila Utthan Swayatta Sahkarita Maryadit, has entered into a deal for product supply in this city.
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, on Wednesday, launched a few Gramin products. The initiative would benefit a large number of rural women and support them in livelihood, according to Jabalpur Commissiioner Ravindra Pastor. “We are going to take up similar initiatives in the future so as to support women entrepreneurs at home,” he added. RDM already has a presence in Mandla district, where it has an assembly line for various cosmetic products. It will soon launch beauty products as well. The company has runs here the country’s first biogas power plant — of 2 Mw capacity.
