To VIPs, with love

Lalit Mohan

The Kangra district administration has taken a unique initiative of gifting products manufactured by women of different self-help groups to VIPs visiting the district.

Kangra Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Kumar said generally Rs 8 lakh to Rs 10 lakh is spent by various government departments every year to buy gifts. It was decided that all government departments would buy products manufactured by local self-help groups in villages, he said.

The Dharamsala district administration has prepared gift hampers under ‘Namaste Dharamsala’ title, which carry items produced by local women.

Women of self-help groups have also been sent to national-level fairs to promote their products. Shalani from Shakti self-help group of Bagli village recently participated in SARAS Aajeevika Mela organised under the aegis of government of India at New Delhi. While talking to The Tribune, she said they managed to sell products worth Rs 15,000 in a single day. The money earned gave them some confidence. They said they can now even go to metro cities and sell their products.

Abhineet Katyayan, former BDO associated with the programme, said some products that are being given to guests coming to Dharamsala include seera, flax seeds, haldi, bariyan, coriander seeds, red rice and amchoor (dried mango powder). These products are being utilised locally to prepare Kangri Dham. The products are sealed properly to ensure its quality is not affected. The carry bags are produced from recycled paper, he said.

Seera is a wheat halwa that is given to pregnant women in Kangra region and is considered to be highly nutritious. We are getting to get its nutritious value evaluated from some institute and also get the product registered for copyrights, the BDO said.

Under the ‘Namaste Dharamsala’ initiative, the district administration in the recent past had coordinated a tour of students from prestigious institutes and tourists. Students and tourists from all over the country are being invited to visit rural areas around Dharamsala. The idea was to involve villagers in activities during tours of tourists as well. The self-help groups of women are involved in preparing Kangra cuisines for tourists and later present cultural programmes. The expenditure is borne by the Rural Development Department, he said.

The BDO said a website has been developed by the department in which tour packages would be offered to tourists coming to Dharamsala. Under these packages, tourists would be encouraged to have an interface with rural people of the region. “Slowly, we intend to encourage tourists in villages, so that the economy of rural areas could be boosted,” he said.

To promote rural tour programmes, publicity material would be distributed in Volvo buses of the HPRTC plying from Dharamsala to Delhi. We are also tying up with tour operators and corporates to encourage rural tourism in Dharamsala region, he said.

The initiative is being welcomed by rural folks, but many such schemes such as tea tourism, which were conceived by many other officers working in the region, met a dead end after the officers were transferred out from the region.

Some officials said the government should give fixed tenures to officers, who conceive innovative schemes for the welfare of people in order to generate good results from such initiatives.