Rural Immersion Project

01

The Farmers

The farmers in the village belong to two groups- some own land on which they cultivate paddy and other crops; the rest are hired labourers on the fields during different cultivation seasons. The seasonal labourers, usually, have a different primary activity, with farming only as a part-time job in some seasons.

 

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02

The Weavers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weavers work in cooperatives based out of Nabadwip and Kalna. They are given the raw cotton threads and have to give back the finished cotton cloth after it has been handwoven. They earn about Rs 10, 000 for each finished bale of cloth for their labour.

 

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03

The Fishermen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are plenty of lakes and ponds in the village. These mostly belong to absentee landlords and community centres. In order to run a fishing business, a group of people have to jointly lease a pond to rear fish. They have to pay amounts up to Rs 6 lakhs for three years to be able to breed fish and sell the produce. 

 

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04

Artisans

There are a few groups of artisans who work with the handwoven muslin. They embroider the textiles with lace-like flowers. They even use some organic colours to produce tie and dye effects on the cloth. Some artisans work with clay and wood and are engaged in creating beautiful pottery and porcelain idols. These activities are restricted to the young and housewives as a secondary source of income for their families. They rely only on family members for credit and have not availed of  Artisan Credit Cards so far. In our discussion, it was evident that they had interesting business concepts and if mobilised these could be a fair testing ground for SME - related advances.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

05

Small business owners

Some people have their own tea stalls, grocery shops, a place to sell their daily produce at the local market, telecom shops, sweets shops or beauty parlours for ladies and saloons for gents. 

Some even have their own vehicles which they tend to rent out as taxis or lease out to transport companies. When we spoke with them, they were interested in knowing about KCC, BSBDA, and other avenues of availing credit.

One gentleman, Shri Jafar Ali Sheikh, even has his own cotton thread dyeing business. It is a family business and they sell their products to 7-8 khadi cooperatives where he earns his wages for the labour. A little help along better marketing lines would definitely enable them to scale up his businesses more quickly and sell his goods at retail value. 

 

06

SHGs

There are two groups of SHGs at Akalpoush. One comprising only of ladies who are cooks for the mid-day meals at the Akalpoush High School. The other group makes rakhis, bindis, and recycled paper packets. They do all their transactions through two business outlets, viz. Sri and Raksha from Kalna, that provide the raw material, like glitter and beads, and buy the finished product for a part of the MRP. This is again seasonal work and involves mostly women, but even school going boys appeared to be interested in contributing to this work as it would translate to more money for the family.