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The Mayurbhanj Sari and Poverty and Success

 The Mayurbhanj Sari and Poverty and Success

The Prime Minister recently spoke about the Santhali Sari in Mayurbhanj Odisha, where women have started earning a decent wage due to the revival of this Sari, actually called the Mayurbhanj Sari.
It is actually an initiative (an Off Farm Producers Organisation Project) taken up at the senior level by two of my batchmates from NABARD, Chola Uday Bhaskar and Devashish Padhi. For Devashish (now retired, this project started when he headed the Off Farm Dept at Head Office) it was a special project close to his heart, he was born in this district where his father was the Executive Engineer way back and took up irrigation projects to settle tribal farmers into Agriculture. The first lesson was not Handlooms and Saris but nutrition. A lady who had studied abroad (Oxford) and had set up a NGO found the women so undernourished that they did not have the physical strength to run the looms (Handlooms). She is Bindu Vinodhan, Founder, Mauna Dhwani Foundation,The lady who not being from Odisha set up a base there in a very poor area and ran a free food and nourishment programme. It took two years for the ladies of this area to reach optimal levels of nutrition. This NGO was the gateway, supported by NABARD, for the project including training, skill building, capacity building, marketing linkages etc. Thereafter, once the nutrition levels stabilised, the Handloom project started. The area is deeply ridden by poverty, its depth and extent cannot even be imagined by many. But it has improved and such projects help fill a vital gap.
The Mayurbhanj Sari had motifs like the peacock and flowers, the emblems of the King of Mayurbhanj. In this particular case the GI Tag was problematic because of a lack of documentation. By the way, the art had died, it was actually revived by the committed Mrs Bindu and with backing by NABARD. Finding the right trainers was a painstaking effort, required time and incentives and coaxing.
The project took time to deliver results but has delivered alright. My one small point, most NGOs seem disinclined to state the support, not only financial but also in capacity building, of NABARD. An acknowledgement on that would motivate too ! We too need encouragement. I have felt it repeatedly. That aside, this is a success story. 
PS This around the year 2000. I was at HP assigned micro credit and off farm. We were beyond Rampur addressing a gathering of SHGs with the DPO ICDS. One SHG stayed downcast, withdrawn and under confident. The young lady leading them would not even look up. I sat with them. They were the real poor. They saved Rs 5/ per member per week per month. In HP even at that time it was stunning. We then set in motion varied capacity building projects in that area. That image has stayed with me till this day.

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