Woman now runs grocery shop after leaving liquor trade
JAMSHEDPUR: Sangita Das was sustaining her family by selling home-made liquor till October this year until National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) stepped in to help her in getting a respectable source of income in the form of running a grocery shop.
The NRLM has also linked Sangita’s husband to the grocery shop set up at Tumagyngri village under Uttari Moubhandar panchayat in East Singhbhum district of Jharkhand.
“I had no other option but to sell hadiya and mohua (types of local liquor) to sustain my family of two children, mother-in-law and father-in-law and unemployed husband. In 2017, I joined a women’s self-help group (SHG), where I came to know about the social evils of drinking alcohol and how many families have been ruined due to drunkard men. Many women narrated how their husbands would beat them up in inebriated condition and how it adversely affected the children. Therefore, I vowed to leave the liquor business,” Sangita said on Monday.
She started the grocery shop in October last year, after closing down her liquor business by taking an interest-free loan of ₹10,000 from Maa Durga SHG under NRLM’s Phulo Jhano Ashirvad Yojna.
“Now, I earn ₹200-330 every day from the grocery shop, while I have also arranged a source of income for my husband by the same capital. He sells vegetables, which also takes care of our daily requirement of food items and other items of daily use. My current monthly earning is ₹7000-10,000 per month, which is much more than what I used to earn by selling liquor,” Sangita said..
Sangita, however, is not the lone woman from the rural hinterland of the district to have left the business of country-made liquor.
She is among 150 such women who shunned the business and shifted to other vocations such as dairy farming, horticulture and vegetable vending etc, and are earning a sustainable livelihood away from evils of liquor business.
“Under Philo Jhano Ashivad Scheme, women are counselled and motivated to leave liquor business and start alternate businesses or vocations for livelihood under NRLM. The scheme came into effect from September last year and 150 women have already shifted to alternate sources of income after closing down their illegal liquor business. Soft interest-free loans are given to such women from Didi SHGs through Johar Yojna, revolving fund and community investment fund for starting new business provided they shun the business of liquor under the scheme,” Xavier Ekka, district programme manager of Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society (JSLPS), said.
As per Xavier, they identified 581 women selling home-made liquor across the district, of which 150 have shifted to other businesses, while they were counselling and working with 221 women at present. “We will take up another 210 such women in the next phase of the scheme for self-empowerment,” added Xavier.