Magari Women and sirka production in Rajasthan: a success story

Magri is a village in Pratapgarh district, known the abundance of jamun trees. Unfortunately, most of the fruit are wasted; only about 10% of the jamun is eaten by children or sold at the local haat in Pratapgarh by 5-10 families, usually for as little as Rs 5/kg. Then in 2010-11, Ganga Bai from the village Womens’ Group, produced 20 litres of sirka (jamun syrup) and sold it to Samarthak Samiti at Rs 30/litre. Since then Ganga Bai, who had been trained by Samarthak Samiti, an NGO working in the Udaipur region, comes regularly with her produce to the Samiti.

In 2014-15, during a joint project by the Wells for India and Centre for Environmental Education, the Samiti initiated a discussion with community members about sirka-production from the jamun in the region. In 2014 itself Ganga Bai made 180 litres of it with support from the Samiti which helped with food-grade plastic cans and a water-tank. Ganga Bai and her daughter worked between 5 and 10 days and earned Rs 11,000/-. Community members from other villages were motivated to follow Ganga Bai’s example and 5 more women’s groups, from Junaboriya, Kumari and Chunpa villages together produced 1040 litres of sirka. This was sold to SPCL at Rs 55/litre. In 2014, along with the sale of punwad, Ganga Bai earned a total of Rs 57,200/- which she used to complete the construction of her house under the Indira Awas Yojana for which she had received Rs 60,000/-. Under the leadership of Ganga Bai the Magari Womens’ Group is thinking of enterprises with smaller groups.