Women’s group set to take over reins of Una’s Bamboo Village

A month-long training programme for manufacturing bamboo toothbrushes began for master trainers from women self-help groups at Ghandawal village in Una district. The project is being implemented under the National Bamboo Mission and state-of-the-art machinery for manufacturing toothbrushes and other items has been installed at the ‘Bamboo Village Project’.

Deputy Commissioner Jatin Lal, who is also the chairman of the project implementation team, said the Bamboo village was being set up on 18-kanal of land along the Una-Dharamsala highway. He said a sum of Rs 2 crore had been spent on the construction of civil structure for the manufacturing facility, besides setting up machinery and electrical installations.

The DC said the project aimed to prevent environmental degradation by replacing plastic with bamboo as the raw material for daily use and sports items. He said machinery for making pellets using bamboo waste and curing machine to increase the life of bamboo has also been installed in the facility.

The DC said the expertise of Bamboo India, a Pune-based firm, had been solicited for providing technical expertise, while Swan Women Federation, an Una-based women’s organisation having more than 1,000 self-help groups in the district, had been given the responsibility of implementing the project at the grassroots level.

The chairperson of the Swan Women Federation, Subhadra Rani, said the organisation has a membership of around 14,000 rural women in 108 panchayats of the district and has been working for women empowerment for one decade. She said a number of employment generation, lifestyle improvement, awareness and economic activities are being undertaken for the women members.

The federation also runs a cooperative society for micro-finance activities for its members and the working capital of the society today stands at over Rs 16 crore, said Raj Kumari, president of the Women’s Cooperative Society, adding that it is the largest women cooperative in the northern region of the country.

She said the Federation also has a spices unit to utilise the agriculture produce of its members and processes these under the brand name ‘Himalayan Swan Spices’. She added that spices over Rs 3.2 crore have been sold so far, providing a market for the local farmers linked with the federation.

Ten master trainers of the federation began their month-long training, being imparted by Bamboo India. Federation secretary Raman Kumari said gradually, more women will be involved in the project.

She said bamboo is abundantly grown in the district and farmers can benefit by selling their raw material to the Bamboo village for processing. She added that besides toothbrushes, razors, vanity kits, combs, soap dishes, frames, furniture and tree guards will be made in the facility, adding that they also have plans to fabricate cycle frames from bamboo and later upgrade these to e-cycles.