Women take up lac cultivation in this village to bolster livelihood

RAIPUR: Women of Banauli , a remote village of Kanker district in tribal Bastar region of Chhattisgarh have adopted lac cultivation to meet their ends.

A district administration official informed that the Kanker Krishi Vigyan Kendra has started lac cultivation at Banauli in Banskund gram panchayat of Kanker district with the assistance of members of Radha self-help group.

The cultivation was initially started in two acres land by planting 4,000 saplings of Semialata under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in 2018. The lac started breeding in the planted Semialata plants after a year in July 2019. Through this, cultivation of over two quintal lac was done after six months. Out of this, one quintal lac was sold and these women generated an income of Rs35,000. The remaining one quintal lac was used in the month of January-February for further lac cultivation in Kusum trees.

This again yielded eight quintals of lac in the month of July. Out of this, income of Rs1.74 lakh was generated by selling six quintals lac at the rate of Rs270 per kg.