POSITIVE JHARKHAND
For years, cocooned in their forested nothingness and fed with a false narrative of ‘red revolution’, tribal women of Jharkhand didn’t know the treasure they had in their grasp: the Tasar silk. Over to their silk route – the Maoist hotbeds of Saranda, Khuntpani of West Singhbhum and adjoining forest-covered areas of East Singhbhum and Khunti. The Tasar silk is an exquisite thread obtained from a yellowish-brown wide-winged moth. The scientific name of the moth is Antheraea Paphia.
Their wings are embellished by circular markings that look like a mirror. Tasar silk is produced by the larvae of several species of silkworms. The insects of these species are found mostly in wild forests, They eat the leaves of trees they live on. Last year, nearly 6,500 farmers earned up to Rs 7.54 crore through the production and sale of around three crores Tasar silk cocoons. Each woman has to work nearly two months a year to earn at least Rs 40,000 per annum.
All that they did was to revive the traditional Tasar cultivation through scientific methods. Help was at hand through the Women Farmer Empowerment Project (WFEP) under the National Rural Livelihood Mission. Over 16,000 women in and around West Singhbhum are engaged in Tasar cultivation. JSLPS Communications Manager Kumar Vikash says segregating quality diseasefree laying is the most challenging job in sericulture, as it requires highly trained hands, but the tribal women, mostly illiterate, do it exceptionally well.
By September-end, JSLPS will promote 15,441 farmers in commercial cocoon production under Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana where over 8 crore cocoons will be produced, says Kumar Vikash.The impact of this economic revival is visible. Manju Sevaiyan, a postgraduate, who had been teaching in a private school in Manoharpur, too, has joined Tasar cultivation. “Everything has changed in the last year since I started doing Tasar cultivation. With my income growing, I was able to send my daughter to a boarding school in Rourkela,” says Sevaiyan, a resident of Hakagoi village under Manoharpur block.
For Sarita Pingua, a housemaker in Hatgamharia of West Singhbhum, Tasar cultivation means financial liberty. “By adopting scientific methods, our lives have completely changed. With an investment of merely 1,800, I am earning Rs 48,000 by working for only two months.”