Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s 1st exclusive Millet Shakti Café in open air restaurant mode was launched in Keonjhar District on Friday by Ms Tukuni Sahu, Hon’ble Minister for Women & Child Development and Mission Shakti, Government of Odisha in virtual mode. Ms Sujata Karthikeyan IAS, Commissioner cum Secretary, Mission Shakti was Guest of Honor for the event. Hon’ble Minister interacted with WSHG members and appreciated the efforts of WSHG involvement in the value addition.
Mr Ashish Thakare IAS, Collector & District Magistrate Keonjhar said more such Millet Shakti cafés will be set up in the district. WSHG Federation members were extensively trained on technical and managerial aspects by Odisha Millets Mission. The Millet Shakti Café will sell an array of millet-based food products ready to cook, ready to eat, millet flour, millet drinks, millet evening snacks, dry bakery items etc. Complimentary items like coffee, tea, chocolates will be served to make it an attractive spot for the young audience. Packaged millet grains, ready to eat and ready to cook products supplied by processing units anchored by WSHGS. 15 Millet Shakti Café Outlets will be established within the next year in urban areas of Odisha. Further training and exposure visit on advanced value addition and standardisation will be done by OMM under technical guidance of CSIR-CFTRI Mysore.
Addressing the participants, Smt. Anu Garg, Principal Secretary of Women and Child Development appreciated the proactive response of CCIs during any kind of disaster especially during the Covid-19 wave emergency. She emphasized that the DRR package and capacity building effort will enable the CCIs for better and effective preparedness measure for children.
Dr. Monika Nielsen, Chief of Field Office, UNICEF emphasized that state like Odisha, which is highly vulnerable to disasters. UNICEF has been closely working with W&CD Department towards improving preparedness, capacity building & inculcating risk informed programming strategies right at the most elementary level of institutions. Shri Gautam Aryabhusan, State Coordinator, OSDMA The Disaster Risk Reduction for children in CCIs will help all the stakeholders associated with CCIs for building disaster resilient institutions across the state and strive for a better tomorrow.
The event was facilitate by Program Manager OSCPS Dr. Pritikanta Panda and is ended with vote of thank by Ms Neha Haidu UNICEF Child Protection Specialist.
“Special programme for promotion of millets in Tribal Areas” otherwise known as Odisha Millets Mission was launched in the year 2017 aiming to revive millets on farms and on plates. The programme has its presence in 84 blocks of 15 tribal dominated districts of the state. While Mission Shakti was launched in the year 2001 aiming holistic empowerment of women by forming Self Help Groups (SHGs). Presently, it has 6lakh SHGs and 70 lakh women under its umbrella. The two-state government run programmes signed a collaboration in the year 2020 to promote nutritional security of its population and millets-based livelihoods through women’s SHGs.
Under the collaboration millets-based food outlets such as tiffin centres and mobile food trucks had been planned to be established with women’s SHGs and federations to fulfil the twin objectives of empowering women by providing them a source of livelihood as well as providing a platform for making healthy and nutritious millets-based food available to the common people of Odisha. To recognize both the programmes, all the units established under this initiative were branded under “Millet Shakti”.
The SHG for these outlets have been selected purely based on merit upon floatation of EOI by the block level and district level committee finally approved by the district collector. Till date 32 numbers of Millet Shakti Tiffin Centres are actively functional in 12 blocks of 6 districts of the state namely, Bolangir, Ganjam, Mayurbhanj, Malkangiri, Nuapada and Rayagda. As a part of investment, these units individually have been provided with an initial one-time investment cost of Rs. 30,000/- by the Odisha Millets Mission utilized for purchase of brand-new cooking and serving vessels such as Gas stove and cylinder set, Rechargeable battery and lights, Kadhei, Idli maker, steel dekchi with cover, Belna Badi set, Grinder, Pressure cooker, frying stick, Steel plates for serving, Steel basin, Water jar-100 ltr and steel bucket. A variable cost ranging from 10,000/- to 20,000/- depending on the SHG’s willingness have been invested by the SHG that caters mainly to minor construction material, printing of flex, framing and facia at the tiffin Centre location.
The selected SHGs have been essentially groomed with the help of the much-needed capacity building trainings such as: training on leadership that has helped them to confidently take the venture forward; millets recipe preparation that has helped them add variety of dishes to their already existing menu, some of them being Ragi idli, Ragi dosa, Ragi vada, Ragi aluchop, Ragi samosa, Ragi pakoda, Ragi puri, Upma, Ragi kakara, Ragi malpua, Ragi laddu, Ragi jalebi, Tikiri khaja and Rose cake; market linkage that has helped them to connect to the external world and expand their business along with making available some of their non-perishable delicacies such as Ragi khurma, Ragi Murku, Ragi mixture, Ragi and Sorghum ladoo to the common public. Each plate in the menu is in an affordable range from Rs. 5/- to Rs. 25/-.
The rich recipe invention adhering to the local area cuisine combined with affordable cost and strict health and hygienic practices followed in preparing, safe keeping and selling of the food items has helped it gain a lot of popularity in a short span of time. The roles and responsibilities are equitably distributed among the members of the SHG starting from purchase of grocery, vegetables, managing counter, maintaining registers etc. that helps create strong bond among the members. Most of the outlets are actively functional with annual business turnover of some of these SHGs have reached more than a Lakh. Most of the tiffin centres received regular payment from the customers except for the export orders that generally take a few days. The SHGs are making an average income ranging from Rs. 7000 to Rs. 9000 from the tiffin centres per month depending upon the nos. of functional days in a month.
“The effectiveness of the SHGs has increased many folds because of getting engaged in this venture. Our roles and responsibilities are well divided amongst us. We feel that we are functioning more cohesively after being into this. We are able to generate some income for ourselves to support our family and we are immensely happy about it”, said Maa Santoshi SHG of Malkangiri.
“Though our turnover is not that high at this moment, still we are very happy with our little income. We wish to expand our business to expand so that our income increases and our dependency on male members decrease”, said Baba Simileswar SHG of Bangiriposi block, Mayurbhanj district.
“The venture has given us recognition and so we desperately want to work towards expanding it further”, said Jayashree SHG of Khaprakhol block of Bolangir district.
