Mancherial woman strikes success with millet food business

In a pioneering yet innovative venture, a woman member of Annapurna Swayam Sahayaka Sangham, a self-help group, established a millet food store in the heart of the town for the first time by availing loans from the government.

Mancherial: People are now willing to consume dishes prepared using millets, thanks to modern day diseases caused by sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy dietary habits. But they are unable to find stores that sell the dishes in tier-II towns. However, foodies from Mancherial town are probably fortunate to buy various mouthwatering dishes and snacks made of different grains.

In a pioneering yet innovative venture, a woman member of Annapurna Swayam Sahayaka Sangham, a self-help group, established a millet food store in the heart of the town for the first time by availing loans from the government. Her project is evoking a good response with foodies swarming the outlet for dishes including various types of laddus, garelu, murukulu, etc., cooked using the organic ingredients.

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“I took a loan of Rs.1 lakh extended by the Society for Elimination of Poverty (SERP) and Rs.10.65 lakh under Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprising Scheme (PMFMFPES) to set up the store. The objective of the project is to provide healthy food to the public. The store is seeing an overwhelming response from the people,” Ch Durgabhavani, the proprietor of the store told ‘Telangana Today.’

The first woman entrepreneur to enter into millet food business, Durgabhavani rented a room in a commercial complex belonging to Mancherial municipality. She along her husband Mahender is preparing 12 types of laddus, snacks, powders of grains and selling them at the store. She is operating the outlet by employing two women of the group in making the snacks and organising the store. She stated they are using barnyard, foxtail, finger, little, pearl, proso, sorghum or great millets, green gram, horse gram, flaxseeds, sesame, jaggery and cold pressed oils.

They have also displayed health benefits of millets using flex posters to create awareness among the public. The store was formally inaugurated by Collector Badavath Santosh and Additional Collector (Local Bodies) B Rahul on Friday. Santosh and Rahul were all praise for the women for coming forward to set up the store. They advised the public to adopt healthy food habits by consuming nutritious dishes made of millets.

While sajja (pearl millet) gaarelu are priced at Rs 700 per kilgram, the rate of laddu made of green gram (Pesara) is Rs 800 per kg and multi-millet laddu is sold for Rs 1,200 a kg. Gondh laddu meant for pregnant women can be bought for Rs 1,200 per kg. Laddus prepared with barleys are priced for 1,200 a kg. Dishes without sugar, powders of cereals and stone grinded chilly powders are also sold here.