In the Kangar Valley National Park in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, local women are ushering in a positive change by engaging in economic activities through self-help groups. They are now successfully operating a restaurant within the park premises, whereby they are promoting eco-tourism as well by adopting eco-friendly practices and strictly adhering to environmental standards.

The women were helped by 2011-batch IFS officer and Park Director Vijaya Ratre to start this business. Indian Masterminds interacted with the officer to know more about this initiative.

A PARK RESTAURANT RUN BY WOMEN

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Kanger Valley National Park is a small park near Jagdalpur in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. It is one of India’s densest national parks, and is known for its biodiversity, landscape, waterfalls, and subterranean geomorphologic limestone caves. The only village inside the park, Kotamsar, had a self-help group of women called ‘Lal Gulab Women Self Help Group’ which was not so successful until IFS officer Vijaya Ratre made special efforts to revive it two months back. With her help, the group opened a restaurant inside the park and this created more earning avenues.

FOREST DEPT HELPED SET IT UP

The restaurant is being operated near the ticket counter of the park and is already doing brisk business. Ms. Ratre told Indian Masterminds, “The park gets funds from the government to promote tourism. We opened a restaurant for the women by giving them seed money of 1 lakh. We got a building lying vacant near the ticket counter repaired for this purpose and our staff helped the ladies set it up. When tourists started coming, the restaurant started operating fully and today the women are earning from Rs 2000- 3000 every day. Right now, there are 11 women in this group.”

She also informed that the forest department reactivate the self-help group and guided the women to start the restaurant business. They have also made arrangement for vehicles to pick and drop the women from village to restaurant everyday.

“These women are now completely self-sufficient and are running the restaurant very well. In the beginning,they needed our help. But now, they do most of the things themselves. Due to its proximity to the ticket counter, many tourists go there and order breakfast or lunch. Being close to the highway is also an added advantage.”

PROMOTING ECO TOURISM

A special feature of this restaurant is that it is compliant with environmental standards and promotes ​​eco-tourism.

The officer said, “We had an objective that we have to reduce plastic use. We decided to avoid using plastic stuff in the canteen. So, we told the ladies about it and gave them some ideas. The women started using Dona-Pattal, a kind of shallow bowl made from the leaves of trees. The special thing is that these serving bowls of leaves are made by the women themselves and other villagers.”

GENERATING EMPLOYMENT AVENUES

Known for its biodiversity, the Kanger Valley National Park has a lot to offer for tourism. Recently a proposal has been sent for the park to be included in the World Heritage Site list. It became a national park in 1982 and is famous for its special type of forests and is also one of the densest national parks in India.

Ms. Ratre said, “We have a lot of beautiful things for tourists to explore. Among them, the Kotumsar caves are world famous. We also have guides to take the tourists around. All the guides are from nearby villages. In this way, we are generating employment avenues for the local people. We also assist them to get loans on very low interest to start small businesses.”