You may have tasted different varieties of Laddus, but, have you ever tried Laddu, made of ‘Mahua’ flower? This flower is normally used in brewing a local liquor in tribal belts of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
Tribal women in Odisha’s Kandhmal district, are making delicious Laddus of Mahua flowers, which not only highly nutritious and healthy, but are also providing employment. Women from the many tribal community in the districts have enhanced their livelihood with Mahua laddus.
More than 600 women of two ‘Van Dhan Vikas Kendra’ (VDVK) have gotten the training of making Mahua Laddu, and further being trained to make other 20 other items like cakes, jams, toffees, pickles, squash and biscuits etc with Mahua flowers.
But laddus are their most famous products. In January this year 10 women were sent to Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Nandurbar and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra for training. After that, those women trained women SHGs in VDVK. This year Mahua season – from February to May – has already ended, but these tribal women have pinned their hope on next season as this year was used for leaning the skills. Now, the state government is even planning to supply these laddu in anganwadis and tribal residential schools.
Indian Masterminds interacted with Mr. Malaya Ranjan Kalo, Assistant Conservator of forest, Phulbani-Kandhamal, Mr. Naresh Chandra Sabar, Field Officer of ITDA, and Mr. P Murali Mohan, Project Manager, ITDA, Phulbani, to know more detail about the initiative.
MAHUA
TRIFED (Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India) is the nodal agency under Ministry of Tribal Affairs, which establishes Van Dhan Vikas Kendras (VDVKs) in Tribal Dominates areas. Odisha government’s Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) is collaborating with TRIFED for this project.
ACF Mr Kalo said, “This scheme is helping tribal women to enhance their income. They are making products that are beneficial for hey are also training others as well.”
Two VDVK at Taladandika and Paderipada, have 60 SHGs. There are at least 10 women in each SHGs, thus more than 600 women are working here.
Women dry Mahua flowers to make Laddus and other items. After that, products packaging is done by ITDA. And then, product is supplied in the market.
PROCESS
Local traders buy the flowers collected by tribal women from forest at 15-30 rupees per kg. They sell these flowers to liquor manufacturers at 50 to 60 rupees per kg. These laddus sold at 3 to 5 rupees each and now have become a good source of income.
Project Manager at ITDA, Mr P Murali Mohan said, “ Right now, all the items manually. Soon we are going to buy machines. We also have a plan to set up two processing units for drying the flowers and powdering them.
The Mahua laddu is prepared using ingredients such as cashew, rasi, groundnut, jaggery, and mahua flowers. Mahua laddus will be laboratory-tested too.
SELL
Though this programme is in training phase, the women SHGs have sold worth Rs 40 thousand Mahua products in local markets so far. The Administration has decided to market their products across the country through different agencies.
ITDA will also provide ISO certification for Mahua products. ITDA will apply to the Bhubaneswar-based Odisha unit of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for a licence.
WHY MAHUA LADDU
Mahu laddu is rich in vitamin C, fibres, irons, Manganese, calcium and phosphorus. Fakir Mohan Sahu, assistant professor at Navsari Agricultural University, Gujarat, who conducted a study on Mahua plant, says, ‘Mahua flower contains 40-50 per cent of sugar and 5.62 per cent of proteins.’
