Six ladies from rural communities in Bihar’s Vaishali district did something uncommon in March of this year. They established a Farmer Producer Organisation, or FPO, which turns leftover banana stems into yarn. Then, products like bags, sanitary pads, paper, and decorative objects are made using this banana yarn.

Asha Devi, Renu Devi, Kumari Krishna Sinha, Susheel Kumari, Sonam Kumari, and Lalita Kumari together run Kera Jeevika Mahila Kela Resha Kisan Utpad Company, which is the first banana waste processing unit that has been opened in the state with the support of Jeevika.

Jeevika is a project of the Government of Bihar whose aim is social and economic empowerment of the rural women. Jeevika is empowering women, called Jeevika Didis, to earn a livelihood through processing of banana crop wastes and turning them into banana fibres.

Asha Devi, one of the the six co-founders of the FPO, has been a part of Jeevika since 2017. “My job then was to get other women to join Jeevika and spread awareness about the benefits of doing so. Now I am one of the founding members of our company,” Asha Devi, who is in her 40s, told Gaon Connection.

“At present, we are only making about Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000 a month from the company, but we are confident that soon our earnings will go up a lot more,” said Asha Devi.

The company gets the raw material, the banana stems, free from banana farmers who would otherwise have just thrown them away.

While hundreds and thousands of women across the state have been involved in making products from banana fibres, they were buying the raw material from private enterprises
Other than the six Jeevika Didis who run the enterprise, there are another 15 to 20 women, members of Jeevika, who work at the processing unit as labour. The unit also has a few male workers who take the vehicles loaned to the FPO by the government, and bring the banana stems back from the farms.

The women labour force extract the fibres with the help of the special machinery at the unit. “So far we have manufactured about 1,200 kilograms of banana fibre and as the demand for it rises, we will increase production,” said Savita Devi, a Jeevika community coordinator. The women said that they work for about seven to eight hours in a day, and are paid Rs 250 a day.

The banana fibres manufactured at Kera Jeevika Mahila Kela Resha Kisan Utpad Company are priced at anything between Rs 150 and Rs 200 per kg. Other private companies sell them at Rs 180 a kg. A kilogram of banana fibres can be extracted from four to five banana stems, the members of the FPO informed. These fibres are used to make various eco-friendly products.

FPO has changed lives

According to the scientists of the National Research Centre for Banana at Goraul village in Vaishali district, about 32,000 hectares of land are under banana cultivation in Bihar. This has led to an upsurge in manufacture of banana fibres drawn out of the banana stems that are usually discarded, and thousands of women in the state are gainfully employed in its production. Most of the banana in the state is grown in Vaishali and Muzaffarpur districts.

“The Bihar Industrial Area Development Authority gave 5,090 square feet of space in Hajipur in the industrial area for the processing unit to be put up,” Savita Kumari, community coordinator, Jeevika, told Gaon Connection.

Hemlata Pandey, a Jeevika member from Madhubani district, told Gaon Connection that since 2020, training capsules are being held in several places teaching women how to extract fibres from the banana plant, and turn that into something useful.

The six women received interest-free loans of Rs. 10 lakh each through the Chief Minister Entrepreneur Scheme (Mukhya Mantri Udyamik Yojana) to invest in and run the business. They were picked based on the effort they had put up throughout their prior associations with Jeevika. For many years, all six had worked for Jeevika.

We have already collected nearly $45,000 each out of the total of Rs 10 lakh. Numerous benefits are being provided by the government. Renu Devi, an FPO member who has been with Jeevika since 2018, stated, “I can’t believe that even six years ago, my world was contained to the four walls of my home, and today it is all so different.

The 35-year-old from Khilwat village, lived a difficult life till the Kera Jeevika Mahila Kela Resha Kisan Utpad Company happened.

“I was looking after the kitchen and hearth in my home. Now I am an entrepreneur,” said Renu Devi, with so much pride. “Had there been no company, my husband would have had to migrate elsewhere in order to look for a livelihood. Now a loan from Jeevika, has enabled us to own livestock and do agriculture,” she added.
Training women to make products from banana fibre
While hundreds and thousands of women across the state have been involved in making products from banana fibres, they were buying the raw material from private enterprises. However, now they can now easily buy it from Kera Jeevika Mahila Kela Resha Kisan Utpad Company, which is a Jeevika set up, and at a fixed price.

The banana fibre is already being supplied to many places in the state where they are being used for craft, said the processing unit’s communication manager, Manish Kumar.

According to him, “many women in the villages, with the assistance of Jeevika, buy the fibres and use them to make cloth, paper, sanitary pads, and decorative items because of the state’s enormous banana production.”

“We also have plans to increase the scope of our activities at the unit. There are intentions to make cloth from the fibres, even though we are currently merely harvesting the fibres and making yarn. That will greatly benefit us,” he continued.

About 32,000 hectares of land are cultivated for bananas in Bihar, according to researchers at the National Research Centre for Bananas in the Vaishali district’s Goraul village.

(This story has not been edited by Bharat Express staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)