The festival of harvest turns boon for some homemakers

The festival of harvest 'Makara Sankranti' has come like a boon for homemakers to find a way to earn some money. Some homemakers, maids have earned around Rs 2000 to Rs 10,000 in the last two weeks by cutting ingredients to prepare Sesame (Yellu Bella).

Some of the women have got bulk orders to prepare the Sankranthi Mixture (sesame), while in some cases the house owners have assigned the task to maids and have paid Rs 100 to Rs 200 for cleaning and roasting the mixtures.

Bhagya, resident of TK Layout said that accompanied with four other women they worked continuous for three weeks to prepare 'Yellu Bella' and prior a week to festival they hand over the ready ingredients to a retail shop.

“We chop the dry coconut and jaggery into tiny pieces and pack them separately. While fried gram, sesame seeds, ground nuts will be roasted and after deskin peanut will be packed. The mixture will be added with coated saunf (sweet jeerige). For cleaning, roasting, cutting, and packing we will be getting good amount,” added Chandrakala, resident of Vidyaranyapuram.

While, there are some women who make sugar candy at home and distribute to shops and make out some money during this festival. Most of them handover to the shop they place orders, and which will be sold in retail price.

Housewife Geetha says:'Due to lakh of time and need some time to prepare seasam, many prefer readily packed mixtures. With the help of maid I got the mixture prepared and a big relief with once mixture is ready.' Raghavendra, a retail shop owner said that there is good demand for ready mixtures, and he sales around 60-80 kgs of sesame every year.

Hike in price of sugar stem

The cost of sugar cane stem has gone up considerably this time.

Last year the each stem were sold for Rs 15 to Rs 20 depending on the size. While, this years its Rs 20 to Rs 30. About 60 farmers from Hole Narasipur, Hassan have come to city, and have spread over across city to sale the cane.

Ranjit said: 'Every year we come during Sankranthi festival. If we give for middleman the profit margin is very less, thus we directly come and sale the grown cane. Due to drought, we have grown cane using bore water and this time we are selling a matured stem of cane for Rs 30.'

eom/mys/rathna