ON January 26 while the countrymen all around celebrated R-Day with zeal and fervour, Sakina Bi (48) of Palma, Rajouri celebrated her empowerment. For the first time, Bi did not have to ask her husband to lend her some money to get clothes for children back home. Her joy knew no bounds when she, along with other local women of the area, opened their purse strings to purchase some clothes and eatables for their children. The money these rural women earned for preparing ladoos – a famous Indian sweet considered auspicious by many – had helped them get this feeling of self-sufficiency, something they had been dreaming about for all these years.

This narrates the story of a silent revolution in the post harvest technology that is about to invade the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri. Men in olive along with Vaishno Devi Shrine Board are together going to script the socio-economic changes by preaching lessons of self reliance and help people tap local resources and encourage activities that open up new avenues for their well being. HESCO, an environment body headed by Dr Joshi along with the Army, has taught women of Rajouri and Poonch to make ladoos and agarbattis (incense sticks).

Technology has taught the local women here, the art of preparing ladoos out of maize crop and manufacturing of agarbattis (incense sticks) from herbal plants. The good news does not end here. For sale of these hand-made items, locals will not have to run from pillar to post. Pilgrims coming to pay obeisance at the Vaishno Devi Shrine will serve as a ready-made market for them or the Army units will purchase them during festivals and other celebrations.

And the man behind this dream project is Dr Anil Joshi of the Himalayan Environmental

Studies and Conservation Organisation (HESCO) - who had been visiting these areas to repeat the success story of Uttaranchal. The concept has already succeeded in Badrinath and Kedarnath temples, where the bajra ladoos called kandi prepared by the local women are distributed as prasad thus having a long-lasting positive impact on socio-economic status of the region.

Dr Joshi along with his team of women trainers has held a series of training workshops in the border districts of Jammu and Kashmir. During these workshops they taught local women how to prepare ladoos out of maize crop. The women got the first taste of income on January 26. The Army made women prepare ladoos for the celebrations and then paid them for this product. After this successful venture now the women have started getting orders from other Army units.

Besides this a team from HESCO along with several locals have already scanned many places in Poonch and Rajouri to identify medicinal and herbal plants in the Pir Panjal forest.  The same will be grown in nurseries and utilized in making dyes and incense sticks.

To help them find customers the Romeo Force has already chalked out a strategy with the Vaishno Devi Shrine Board. "Governor Lt Gen S.K Sinha, who is also chairman of the Shrine Board, has liked the idea and they have agreed to purchase ladoos and incense sticks prepared by these local women," says General Officer Commanding (GOC), Romeo Force, Major General G.D Bakshi.

The concept seems to have clicked with the villagers of these border districts. During workshops hundreds of women along with their husbands have trudged several kilometres to attend the training sessions, which were held at women empowerment centres at Mandi, Palma and other areas in Rajouri and Poonch.

Sources said that the mathematics behind writing this script is that more than 54 lakh pilgrims pay obeisance at the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine annually. Even if each pilgrim carries two ladoos as prasad, more than one crore ladoos will be purchased from the local entrepreneurs, which means great business potential.

The brain behind the idea, Dr Joshi, feels that to make the villagers prosper, one will have to go to the villages and give them technology and better marketing skills so that they can tap the local market.

"Presently the agarbattis for the Vaishno Devi Shrine are coming from Tamil Nadu and other South Indian states. When we have the potential, why not make people from these areas prepare the agarbattis and provide the same to the Vaishno Devi Shrine Board. This will also cut their costs,’’ says Gen Bakshi, hoping that the concept would mean a good life for the people in the border districts.

Under Charkha-Sanjoy Ghose Fellowship for Peace & Development, 2004-05.

Charkha Features