Vegetable peels are providing a means of livelihood to rural women of Mayurbhanj and Balasore districts in Odisha. They use the skin of bananas and vegetables like banana, potato, ridge gourd or bottle gourd to prepare a local traditional delicacy called patua. To make this dish, the peels are mixed with mustard seeds, almonds, garlic, ginger and oil.
The initiative was the brainchild of Yuva Bikas, a group comprising the youth of Mirigimundi village in Balasore district. They arrange a 3-day training programme in preparing and marketing patua for rural women. Now over 300 rural women, in the age group of 35-70 years, are using their cooking skills to make a living. These include more than 100 women of Kanpur and Banakati villages of Rasgobindpur panchayat of Mayurbhanj district and more than 200 women of Mirigimundi and Jhinjipur villages of Rupsa area of Balasore district. They are earning Rs 8,000 to 10,000 per month. Their successful enterprise – they earned Rs 34 lakh in just two months – has made the area a patua hub, breaching the rural boundaries to reach the plates of residents of cities like Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.
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Prativa Ghosh is an independent journalist from Odisha.
