Startup in Kanniyakumari district to market products of tribal women

Nagercoil district administration to market tribal women's products and banana fiber handicrafts from Western Ghats, aiding economic growth.

The Kanniyakumari district administration will soon design a mechanism to market the products of tribal women living in the Western Ghats and Thiruvarambu banana fibre handicrafts, Collector P.N. Sridhar said on Thursday.

Mr. Sridhar visited the expo organised at Petechipaarai for selling the products of women farmers’ associations, Thiruvarambu banana fibre handicrafts manufacturers and tribal women living in the Western Ghats.

 Around 300 tribal women living in 22 hamlets in the Western Ghats, including Koduththurai, Mudavanpotrai, Aandipotrai, Thatchamalai, Thottamalai, Maangaamalai, Mothiramalai, Aalampaarai, Valiyamalai and Killiko, sell pepper, musk turmeric, tamarind, clove, all cultivated in the Western Ghats, and bathing soaps prepared by them with navarapachiliai, garbageman and aloe vera. The farm produces and soaps were being procured and marketed by Thiruvattar Women Farm Producers’ Association.

 “Since the bathing soap being prepared and marketed by the tribal women are providing fitting remedy to a range of skin diseases, demand for them is heavy,” Mr. Sridhar said.

 When the women appealed to the Collector to prepare a strategy for selling their products continuously, Mr. Sridhar assured them that the district administration would soon design a mechanism in streamlined fashion.

 “We will explore possibilities of creating a startup for exclusively selling the products of SHGs and the tribal women so that our products can reach other districts and even other States,” the Collector said.