NILESHWARAM : Why is Nileshwaram waiting for Dolly Parton? Because only she can change a rooster to a hen with one shot. Bad jokes apart, the residents of the town are feeling cheated after the chicken given to them 50 days ago under a government’s scheme to boost egg production started crowing. “Now we are not asking one another if their chicken have started laying eggs. We are asking if they have started crowing,” says Beena T V of Pallikkara.
Out of the five chicken given to her, three turned out to be roosters. “At least they should not have said the scheme was to boost egg production,” she said. Under the ‘Nagarapriya’ scheme, Kerala State Poultry Development Corporation (Kepco) is distributing five chicken, 5 kg of feed, medicine worth Rs 50 and a coop to women in towns and cities in an effort to make Kerala self-sufficient in egg production.
Apart from Nagarapriya, Kepco is giving away chicken to boost egg production across the state under several other schemes.
Unscientific coops
In Nileshwaram, 1,000 women signed up for the scheme by paying Rs 850 each. Beena’s neighbour Sunila P said two of the chicken she got were roosters. “I applied for the chicken because they said they are giving a scientific coop. But what we got are unsafe and unusable coops,” she said.The coops are made of welded wire mesh. “The mesh is widely spaced and posed a threat to the chicken from mongooses and dogs,” said Madhavi T K, who has wrapped the coop with her old saree.
“In the night, I keep it inside the house,” she said. Madhavi said her neighbour Prema Bindu lost all her five chicken to mongoose. A V Narayani keeps the coop inside her house always. “The design is plain stupid. It has no roof or base,” she said. “I am too old to work now. I am waiting for these chicken to lay egg. But even I got two roosters,” she said. Beena said her fowls have fattened up and the coop was not able to accommodate them now.
‘No segregation’
Kepco chairperson J Chinchu Rani said the corporation was investing Rs 1,850 in the scheme. “We are charging only Rs 850 from the beneficiaries,” she said.Rani, however, said Kepco was not segregating male and female chicken at its hatchery. “We have already distributed 1,000 chicken each in Chalakudy, Nileshwaram and Kanhangad municipalities,” she said. But Kepco has not yet got any complaints yet, she said.To be sure, even Dolly Parton cannot help Nileshwaram. She was taking on her sexist boss in the 1980s ‘Nine to Five’.
Apart from ‘Nagarapriya,’
Kepco is giving away chicken to boost egg production across the state under several other schemes.