Rhapsody in MSRLM with Sheetal More's melody

Rhapsody in MSRLM with Sheetal More's melody

It was about nine in the morning when I entered Kari Village in Dharur block of Beed district. The day was bright and fresh with the morning glow, as if in sync with the mood of the women form the village organisation, Adarsh Gram Sangh. Bright and cheerful they greeted me with great warmth.
Their enthusiasm was palpable because they were taking me to see the custard apple processing unit which they had set up. This project is the first of it's kind in their locality and I could guage their sense of pride.
Shital More , their leader was not only a member of their group but also the Deputy Village Head, Upa Sarpanch. Her journey from being a housewife , to being a member of the SHG and the Upa Sarpanch and now an entrepreneur along with several others women was like music to my ears.
Custard Apples are jungle fruit, plucked by the locals and barely fetch a market price beyond a eight or ten rupees per kilo. Their shelf life is less as they are easily perishable on ripening. However their life can be increased by months by making it's pulp and preserving it. This pulp is in great demand for ice creams and dessert. Two years ago during my interaction with Mr. Ved Arya of Srijan, we realised that SHGs in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were processing the custard apple into pulp, freezing it and making great profits. Based on their learnings we decided to pilot the project in Maharashtra and tap the districts which had abundance of the fruit. 
The SHGs of Kari village were oriented for the same by the district administration and Sheetal More became its motivating force.
The village has 27 self help groups out of which 10 SHGs showed interest to get involved in the activity.
Together began their journey in setting up the custard apple processing unit. They identified a location and took it on rent and equipped it with all the things needed like crates to collect the custard apples, weighing machine, vessels for sorting out the fruits and grading them, spoons to scoop out the pulp, gloves and plates to segregate the pulp, pouches and a funnel for filling the pouches with pulp, a sealer to seal the bags, a deep freezer to store the pulp which was later shifted to a cold storage with minus 40 degrees centigrade to preserve the fruit.
The technical.support is provided by the team members of Srijan and I was pleasantly surprised to meet , Mr.Lakshman who had been staying in the village for about a month to provide every little handholding support.
About two hundred women were involved in the process . This included thirty five of them who were directly involved with day to day work on payment of wages of Rs.100 to Rs.150. Women young and old happily responded to my query about their joyful experience in the project. They all were happy to be earning almost Rs.150 everyday.
When they began the previous year they could barely make twenty kilos of pulp chipping in their own contribution. However this year due to the support of district administration which released their community investment fund they could purchase 2000 kilograms of custard apples and produce over seven hundred kilograms of pulp. They would be processing another seven hundred kilograms of pulp this season.
The pulp had market in Nashik, Pune, Nanded, Hyderabad and would fetch them Rs. 160 to Rs. 225 per kilogram for the pulp.
The group expected to make a profit of Rs. One lakh in one month.
The progress was better than the previous year but was not very big on scale because they could get only one month for planning. They could neither talk to the forest department for support in collection of the fruit nor give any advances to purchase custard apples. The ladies had also not gone any exposure visit . However next year they hope to grow and process over five hundred quintals which would establish them in the market.
As the women offered me freshly scooped up pulp my mouth filled with sweetness. The enthusiastic jabbering of the ladies, the Sarpanch, Smt. Aruna Fartade , the president of the VO, Aadrsh Gram Sangh, Smt. Aasha Panchal filled my ears with joy. Sheetal More's voice and smile created a melody mixing it with the sweetness of the fruit. For me this wasn't the first rhapsody with the SHGs of MSRLM. I knew there are many more to come.