Latest Idea for Micro enterprises- GRQ Project

    Kudumbashree, State Poverty Eradication Mission of Kerala has changed the lives of thousands of poor people in state through its various programmes since its inception in 1998.

The unique experiment being implemented through the Community Based Organizations (CBOs) of the poor envisages a multi sectoral attack on poverty. Some of the programmes conceived as a part of the strategy to reduce poverty include the thrift and credit operations, micro housing, micro enterprises, Balasabhas(Children’s NHG), Ashraya(Destitute Identification Rehabilitation  and Monitoring Programme).

Two key elements covering all the programmes are the use of inputs from the community and innovation in designing the programmes.

GRQ (Goat-Rabbit-Quail) project is for rearing the three species together to earn a steady income to the entrepreneur. The predominantly non-vegetarian population of Kerala will ensure potential market for the produce.

The GRQ (Goat-Rabbit-Quail) project aims at utilizing the inherent advantage of the homestead farming practiced by number of families. Quail rearing as an activity can ensure a weekly cash flow and that combined with the quarterly and half yearly cash flow of rabbit and goat would ensure a source of steady income to the family.

Some Important achievements of Mission

·        Kudumbashree Programme has been extended through out the State covering 991 Grama Panchayaths, 53 Municipalities and 5 Corporation. 

·        165840 NHGs of BPL women have been formed till Mar 06 in the process, covering 33,45,509 families.

·        Thrift collection crossed Rs 642.15 Crore

·        Internal lending to the tune of Rs 1473.12 Crore

·        99356 NHGs have been graded and 71702 NHGs linked with banks under linkage banking scheme. Credit flow Rs 32281.00 Lakhs through Linkage banking

·        Formed 27463 Balasabhas with 504979 children

·        Bhavanashree - 19922 houses constructed using credit amounting to Rs 6765.91 lakh from banks

·        57436 acres of land brought under cultivation with the involvement of 354513 families in 914 Grama Panchayats through lease land farming.

·        1145 women from the Kudumbashree CBOs elected to the Local Self Government Institutions in the recent elections.

·        Ashraya - Destitute identification, Rehabilitation and Monitoring (DIRM) Programme launched in 391 Grama Panchayats and 6 Municipalities 

Micro Enterprise Programme

Micro enterprises have always been considered as an important tool in poverty reduction efforts. This prompted the Kudumbashree mission to setup the first enterprise unit in 1999. The first enterprise was a data processing unit, in the competitive IT field. The venture proved to be successful and that resulted in more enterprises being setup in activities like Direct Marketing, Catering Units, Computer Data processing units and Food processing units. The first enterprises were setup under the centrally sponsored SJSRY (Swarna Jayanthi Shahri Rojgar Yojana) in the urban areas.

The various programmes for setting up enterprises are:

Self Employment Programmes under SJSRY

This programme is meant for the urban areas of the state and covers the 53 Municipalities and 5 Corporations. Individual enterprises and group enterprises can be setup, the minimum number of persons for a group being 10. The activities taken up under this programme are to suit the needs of the urban areas; there are 1365 group and 15382 enterprises under this programme.

Rural Micro Enterprises (RME) programme

The success of the enterprise programme in the urban areas encouraged the mission in developing the RME programme for the rural areas. Individual and Group enterprises are formed under the RME programme, the minimum number of members for group enterprises being five. 1423 group and 779 Individual enterprises have been formed, thus benefiting 20713 people.

50 K Programme for Educated Youth

This programme targets unemployed youth in the age group 18-35; both men and women are covered under the programme. The focus is on new and innovative enterprises, 211 group and 170 Individual enterprises have been formed, thus benefiting 1307 people.

Livestock - Situation in Kerala

Kerala accounts for a small percentage of the total livestock population in the country. It just accounts for 1.6 % of the cattle and Goat population. But interestingly 32 lakh out of the 55 lakh households are involved in some livestock rearing activity for supplementing their incomes. The Latest census of livestock in Kerala indicates the following figures.

The consumption or the demand side reflects a different picture. The state is entirely dependent on the external sources for fulfilling the internal demand.

The demand and supply gap can be seen from the following table:

The per capita availability of milk is 214 gm/day in 1999-2000. The egg production is sufficient to meet only 25% of the internal demand. The state is largely dependent on external sources for maintaining the supply for meat, which is around 50 gm per capita per day during 1999-2000.

Different Activities under GRQ

Goat Rearing  5 female goats:

Goat is a multi functional animal and plays a significant role in the economy and nutrition of landless, small and marginal farmers in the country. Goat rearing is an enterprise, which has been practiced by a large number of people in rural areas. In pastoral and agricultural subsistence societies in India, goats are kept as a source of additional income and as an insurance against disaster.

The advantages of goat rearing are:

·        The initial investment needed for Goat farming is low.

·        Due to small body size and docile nature, housing requirements and managerial problems with goats are less.

·        Goats are prolific breeders and achieve sexual maturity at the age of 7-12 months, gestation period in goats is 5 months and it starts giving milk at the age of 13-17 months.

·        Goats are ideal for mixed species grazing. The animal can thrive well on wide variety of thorny bushes, weeds, crop residues, and agricultural by-products unsuitable for human consumption.

·        Good market for goat meat.

·        Goat milk has a good market. The goat milk enjoys a premium price in the various ayurvedic firms and companies. Moreover it can be milked number of times in a day.

Rabbit farming is another livestock activity with great scope as it is relatively easy, rewarding and takes little space compared to other livestock activities. Rabbits are mainly raised for their fur, which is known for its quality.Rabbit farming can also provide a very valuable additional source of income in the rural areas. Along with the fur, in Kerala, there is a growing demand for rabbit meat in number of places.

The advantages of rabbit farming

·        Rabbits are highly prolific in nature

·        High growth rate reaching market weight of 2 kg in 8 weeks.

·        Consume a large amount of forages from diverse origins and so can be reared on small amounts of costly concentrates.

·        They can be reared in the kitchen garden/backyard of farmer's house

·        Initial investment cost is low

·        Quick returns i.e. six months after the establishment of farm

·        Income generation at quarterly interval makes the repayment easy.

Quail Rearing

Quails in India were first introduced at Central Avian Research Institute by Dr.B.Panda, founder Director in 1974. Japanese Quail (Coturnix japonica) is the type of quail used for meat and egg purposes. Quail rearing is recommended to follow all –in all out rearing system. Under this system only one age group of quails are reared per house. This system allows for better management practices and disease control.

Salient features are

·        Quails are hardy, grow faster and have a short generation interval.

·        Eggs even though are smaller in size (8-10 gms), is much useful in providing quality nutrients.

·        Quail meat is light and tasty and is referred to have medicinal values.

·        Requires less space for rearing. 8-10 quails can be reared in the space of one egger bird. The cages can be arranged in cluster units one above the other so that land requirement for housing is considerably less.

·        Start laying eggs at the age of 7 weeks and produces up to 300 eggs in a year. They can be marketed for meat purpose at 5-6 week age.

·        Comparatively disease resistant and good thriving capacity than egger poultry.

Potentialities of the Project

The activities like Goat rearing and Rabbit rearing have been done individually till now and this has helped in enhancing the income of women from poor families. The Mission has helped thousands of women in setting up similar enterprises and helped them in augmenting their incomes. The experience with these enterprises has been encouraging.

The marketing of these produce does not present a serious problem in a state like Kerala where 90% of the population are non-vegetarians. Moreover 65% of the meat consumed is from animals brought from other states. This would indicate that marketing of quail and goat for meat is taken care in the local markets. The demand for quail eggs is the local market is always ahead of the supply and there would be a ready market for the production. Rabbit is mainly used for the fur and at present the rabbit units are acting as the source of raw material for the processing units in Tamil Nadu. This marketing setup could be used for the new setup.

The technical inputs required for rearing the combination of Goat-Rabbit-Quail is very less as all the three species are very easy to rear. As with all Kudumbashree programmes, a detailed and comprehensive training programme has been prepared. The seven-day training programme will ensure the necessary inputs for personality development, financial aspects and the technical inputs. The training module has already been prepared. (Annexure 1)

The facilities of the Animal husbandry department will ensure that the veterinary services are available round the clock. The proximity to veterinary dispensary, goat-breeding center and livestock markets would ensure the availability of timely services. This activity can easily be carried out by a family, which has less than 10 cents of land. Only additional space and infrastructure is required for the quail rearing, the use of multi tier cages will ensure the optimum utilization of the space. The availability of Green/dry fodder, concentrate feed, medicines is not a cause of concern in most of the rural areas of Kerala.

Project Cost

One GRQ unit would consist of

The total cost for setting up the unit

The detail of each of the activity is given in the Annexure 2 & 3.

Each unit will be setup under the Rural Micro enterprise (RME) programme. The source of funds for the project is shown below:

This project would be able to give net earnings (After loan repayment) of Rs 47000 per year. The details are shown in Annexure 2.

It has been decided to locate an optimum number of units in an each gram Panchayath; this would be of help from the marketing and input services. Considering the various factors, the optimal number of units in each Panchayath has been arrived at as 100. This programme would be spread across only 10 panchayats in each of the districts. Thus the total number of units across the 14 districts would amount to 14000.

                              Annexure 1                                                    Annexure 2