Sixty-two-year-old Bhubaneswar Sahoo was aimlessly moving here and there until he settled down here at Ganesh Nagar a decade ago. He found it very difficult to sell his hand-made copper Naga (cobra) in local markets.
But today, he sells them just sitting at his home. Thanks to the State Bank of India and Bharat Integrated Social Welfare Agency (BISWA), a leading leading non-governmental organisation in the country having presence in at least 20 states, they made financial linkage and extended training and skill upgradation facilities to him, besides taking care of marketing of his products.
Bhubaneswar, who used to earn Rs 100 a day, is today earning more than Rs 500 a day. A resident of Gandhi Tikra under Bargarh district in western Orissa, Bhubaneswar moved in many parts of the country to sell his products. Most of part of his earning was spent on travelling and little surplus was left to sustain his six-member family.
During a survey at local Ganesh Nagar, BISWA discovered Bhubaneswar and extended all possible cooperation to the artisan to see that he gets due recognition.
Along with 10 other artisans, Bhubaneswar was taken on a trip to Kantilo, an artisan village, in Nayagarh district to learn the latest technology and innovations in brass metal and copper works. The trip helped him a lot and filled in his mind confidence and conviction.
“The trip helped me a lot. I came to know how to use machine tools in metal idol-making,” he says.
With assistance from the National Bank for Rural Development (Nabard), BISWA has opened up a Common Facility Centre (CFC) at Rengali where the local artisans, including women belonging to brass metal artisan families, are trained in different brass metal designs.
“These artisans, who were contemplating to quit their traditional occupation, have resumed their work with renewed spirit. Their earning has gone up substantially and they no longer feel disappointed,” says Dinesh Mahana, in-charge of Rengali CFC. BISWA is providing raw material to the artisans and buying back the finished products from them to sell in its own marketing chains. Besides, it is regularly organising “exposure trips” for the artisans to different places in the country like New Delhi, Bangalore, Channai and Hyderabad.
“Through BISWA, SBI has released around Rs 10 lakh loan assistance to 50 artisan families in our village. Most of the artisan groups have repaid their loan. We are greatly indebted to the SBI and BISWA for giving us a new lease of life,” said 68-year-old Mahendra Sahoo of Ganesh Nagar.
“BISWA firmly believes that social development processes is primarily an enterprise which needs to be nurtured with best inputs. The cluster development approach that BISWA has adopted focuses on local contexts and uses its experiences and innovations to address the local issues by people themselves to bring sustainable income to poor families. Not only dhokra or brass metal, the sectors like handicrafts and handlooms, non-timber forest produces (NTFPs) and agriculture and many more like this have proved to be most successful areas of interventions,” says Mr Prafulla Dhal, director BISWA.
BISWA chairman, Mr K.C. Mallick, who earned wide acclaim for successfully creating livelihood opportunities for lepers at Hatibari in Sambalpur district and beggars in Puri and Konark, feels “pragmatic” study of the problems and “practical” approaches to solve them primarily account for success of any livelihood intervention.
“We focus on the empirical study of problems and then attempt to address them with tools and approaches that are acceptable to the beneficiaries,” says Mr Mallick.