Rupee 1 Vs 12...story of Ghamandi

The old man seen in this picture is a making broom at Sekhar village (Nayakahdeia Panchayat, BABINA block, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh). His name is Ghamandi, 55 years old. He has received a piece of barren land from Government, which is of no use (because of infertility and non-strategic location). Now he is forced to quit agriculture and to ensure livelihood he and his family get involved in broom making, with available local resources. He sells one broom at Rs. 1.oo  to the contractors and further on contractors sells the same broom to the market at around 12 rupees. In a day Ghamandi and his family able to make around 20 brooms and are able to earn around Rs.20 in a day.

When JCSS team talked to him about project HARIT PRAYAS he expressed his pessimism and said no project can help him and his family out of this cycle of poverty. But after few interactions on regular basis, he has expressed that it would be better if there would some mechanism where in he, his family and others like him in the village would get the better price for the broom making.

In the village around 25-30 families involved in broom making with locally available resources and there could be possibility of Common Livelihood Group, but the concern should come out not only from Ghamandii, but other people who involved in it!

JCSS-HARIT PRAYAS team is working on it…hope for some positive changes in the lives of people like Ghamandi!