Centre sponsored scheme skills NE rural women in coconut husk products

As many as 60 women from the Northeastern region are now skilled to make products out of coir (fibre from the outer husk of the coconut) under Mahila Coir Yojana. 

This information was given by Union Minister of State for MSME  Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma in a written reply in Lok Sabha on December 22.

The fibre from the outer husk of the coconut is used in making ropes, matting, brushes, rugs, mattresses, insulation panels and packaging. White coir has strong resistance to salt water. It is used in making fishing nets. Brown coir is said to be stronger than white coir and is more widely used than the latter. 

The Ministry through Coir Board, a statutory body is implementing various skill development activities across the country under the component ‘Skill Upgradation & Mahila Coir Yojana’ of Coir Vikas Yojana, a Central Sector Scheme. Among the various skill development programmes under Coir Vikas Yojana, the Scheme Mahila Coir Yojana (MCY) envisages provision for training only for women artisans.

MCY is being implemented by the Coir Board for the empowerment of women artisans in the coir sector with an aim to provide self-employment opportunities to rural women artisans in regions processing coconut husk and providing scope for large-scale employment as well as improvement of the standard of living of rural women artisans.

Verma said that under the scheme women will be trained in the cadres of Supervisors/ Instructors/ Artisans and meet the requirement of skilled manpower for the development of the coir industry.

The minister said that the scheme will help in the transfer of technology to non-traditional areas through the development of skills of coir workers. Along with assisting the MCY-trained women artisans in procuring spinning equipment/coir processing machinery from the PMEGP.

“We are aiming to inculcate quality consciousness among workers at the grass root level and to educate them on proper methods of producing standard quality fibre, yarn, and products,” he said.

As many as 100 women in Tamilnadu, 40 in Port Blair, 40 in Karnataka, 40 in Gujarat, 160 in Maharashtra, 20 in Goa, 40 in Andhra Pradesh, 80 in Odisha, 120 in Kerala, and 40 in West Bengal. 

In FY 2022-23, around 33 woman artisans who were trained under MCY got employment in units. During FY- 2022-23, 740 women were trained under MCY in the country, according to government reports.