KATRA, INDIA, May 26, 2007: A small economic revolution is taking shape in the confines of a room near the Vaishno Devi shrine. And it’s led by a group of 11 village women handing the prasad offerings at the shrine. 65-year-old Rattan Devi starts at 8 in the morning along with 10 others carefully turning rice and corn flour into ladoos. A cooperative initiative under the banner of Vaishnavi Mahila Mandal, they pack an average of 1,000 boxes daily. It all ends up as offerings at the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine. “We had no job in this village. There was no land, no agriculture so we decided to take up this project,” said Rattan Devi, a resident of Parthal village. “At home, we would sit idle and do nothing, but this is now helping us at least make an effort,” said another member of Vaishnavi Mahila Mandal Sushma Devi.
The group has been trained by the Dehradun-based Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization. Initially, the villagers had dubbed the project as a failure till the homemade products found a market at the shrine. And in the last 20 months, the women have managed orders worth US$88,771. “People in our village said it will not work. The ladoos would break during transportation. But these women didn’t give up. “With the blessings of the Deity we went ahead,” said Parthal Village Lambardar Prem Singh. The effort now is at plugging the cost overruns and at expanding the business. We would want them to expand in terms of numbers. There is a large demand for ladoo prasad. Also they could make molis sindoor for us,” said Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Additional CEO Punit Kumar.