The Himachal Pradesh State Rural Livelihoods Mission (HPSRLM) being undertaken by the department of rural development today started an initiative to sell the vegetables grown by the Self Help Groups (SHG) in the rural areas at the special outlet opened for this purpose in the State Secretariat building at Shimla.Director Rural Development, Lalit Jain, who is heading the livelihood mission in the State, informed that the vegetables have been grown by using natural farming method by Self Help Groups. He informed that these vegetables have been grown by self help groups consisting of 30 members, working under the name of Himalaya in village Gehni of Basantpur block in district Shimla.These farmers have been encouraged under the convergence of the scheme of the natural farming with the HPSRLM activities of training and making self help groups self sufficient.The entire produce has been grown without the use of pesticides and using the cow dung and cow urine mixed with neem etc.
The HPSRLM provided training to the ladies of SHG from the agriculture department. Besides they were provided a collective fund of Rs. five lakhs for this purpose as well as for purchasing hybrid seeds and other inputs for farming. The four women in this group were given 10 days residential training in Chinmaya Organisation for Rural Development (CORD) Dharamshala which was fully sponsored by the Rural Development Department.The shop, which has been opened in the secretariat, will be open from 10 am to 5 pm as a pilot project and the vegetables will be sold on Monday and Thursday. Once the pilot project succeeds, the products will be sold daily. In today’s inaugural sale, the ladies had already sold the entire vegetables stock amounting to Rs. 6.5 thousand till the filing of this report.Director, Zero Budget Farming, Rakesh Kanwar, Incharge of the programme Latika Sahejpal, Member of SHG Promila Devi and many other staff members of the secretariat were present on the occasion.