Livelihood Implications on Tribals Through Female SHG and Water Hyacinth Product Entrepreneurship: A Case in West Bengal

The tribes comprise nearly 3% of the entire population of West Bengal. They are, in general, confined to the rural belt of the state. Bauls, Bhuyiya, Santhal, Oraon, Paharia, Munas, Lephcas, Bhutiyas, Chero, Khariya, Garo, Magh, Mahli, Mru, Munda, Lohara, and Mal Pahariya are amongst the popular tribes in West Bengal. However, the Scheduled Tribes of Bengal record very high levels of poverty, and the pace of poverty reduction amongst them has been conspicuously slow. Self-help Groups are the most prominent channels for empowering rural communities, particularly women, and enable them to move from subsistence to sustainability. Numerous of such groups are outstanding producers/creators of local arts and crafts of great aesthetic value. However, the development of household decors and handicrafts from natural fibre sources such as water hyacinth can be an ecologically sustainable and economically remunerative entrepreneurial option for these rural poor. However, it is still an innovation operating at a small scale prevailing at in experimental stage. The cost of raw material is negligible as the water hyacinth grows in any water body left stagnated for long without any cost of maintenance involved. In fact, they are hazardous in nature because this aquatic plant is a prolific vegetable matter-producer and has the ability to choke out any closed waterbody at an astonishing rate by cutting off sunlight as well as reducing oxygen levels in the water, making it unfit for commercial use. So making commercial use of them can help managing them rationally and making use of the features of water hyacinth to the maximum advantage in an environmentally sustainable manner. Producing natural fibre handicrafts can be an important commercial use of the water hyacinth that can be easily adopted by SHGs given the high labour-intensive and low-investment nature of the enterprise. In view of the fact that the Eco-friendly product market has grown geometrically over the last 7 years globally owing to rising awareness about climate change and its alarming ramifications on the environment-man kind, with India no exception, a research study by TerraChoice, a global marketing company revealed a 73% growth in the eco-friendly product market over the above reference period and more new companies and products are making a new entry into this space with each passing day. Given this, water hyacinth natural fibre-based handicraft development can prove to be a sustainable lucrative enterprise solution for the poor mass of tribals of Bengal in the near future through thorough and sincere involvement. With this as the backdrop, a primary survey is carried out in the FY of 2023 in the Bolpur district of Birbhum, one of the major tribal belts of West Bengal where the water hyacinth-based artefact entrepreneurship has picked up good momentum for transforming the livelihood of the tribals. 34 SHGs, primarily comprising women belonging to the ST category had been trained by NABARD/local NGOs to recycle widely available water hyacinth in the water bodies around and develop natural fibre-based paper bag-purses as a pioneering initiative to improve the livelihood of these cohorts of impoverished women. Each of the 34 SHGs comprised 12 members on average. Therefore for the purpose of primary data collection, 3 members each from the 34 SHGs were selected through “Random Sampling Method” and the total sample came to be 102. A small sample of the control group was also selected for comparative analysis as to the economic empowerment of the female entrepreneurs which included SHG non-participant women working in local household industries available in the study area (50) and in the farm against wages (50). Findings show complacency, the surveyed women entrepreneurs experienced 7% more household income than the control group engaged in the household sector and a perceptible 16% more than the female counterparts working as farm labourers by virtue of water hyacinth fibre handicraft works. The share of natural fibre handicraft-based earnings claimed a significant 48% of the total household income of the target group during the reference period of the study.