The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : For these Irula women, ornamental fish offer a lifeline

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Thursday, Jun 28, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

For these Irula women, ornamental fish offer a lifeline

K. Manikandan

Over 100 families are now on the path to self-reliance

— Photo: A. Muralitharan

EMPOWERED WOMEN: Thanks to the self help group movement, many women of the Irula community in Perungalathur have taken to ornamental fish farming.

TAMBARAM: Dozens of concrete and glass tanks greet visitors at Pournami Irular Women Self Help Group in Perungalathur near Tambaram. For the past five years, selling ornamental fish has been the source of livelihood for a number of Irula families.

Over 100 families of this community are on the path towards self-reliance, putting behind them, decades of catching rats, snakes, wild cats and mongoose for a living. “We have been living here for five generations,” recalled M. Lakshmi, who, however, is unable to tell her age.

In the past, they were engaged in “smoking out” rats from paddy fields and catching poisonous snakes to extract venom, but decline in agriculture coupled with government restrictions deprived them of this livelihood.

They were left with the job of cleaning houses and other odd jobs. “But that too was restricted after the arrival of gadgets like vacuum cleaners and washing machines,” said M. Boopathy. Just when life seemed to be heading to a dead-end for this small segment of a very docile community, they were led into the self help group movement.

No savings habit

“We never had the habit of saving money. After getting initiated into the self help movement, we started by saving Rs. 5 a week,” recalled D.Vijaya, president of Pournami Group that was the first group to be started among Irula women in 2002. In 2003, it received an assistance of Rs. 25,000 from Kancheepuram Central Cooperative Bank and started cultivating ornamental fish.

Since then, there has been no looking back.

Now there are six groups in the Federation of Irula Women Self Help Groups in Perungalathur with about 75 members. “We get huge orders but we are unable to cope with the demand,” Ms. Vijaya said. Most of their customers are individuals maintaining aquariums in houses and retailers.

Last year, the groups received a sum of Rs. 2 lakh, using which, they expanded their operations. The members are able to earn approximately Rs. 1,500 each a month.

Ms. Vijaya’s daughter is a final year student in Madras Christian College, Tambaram and is the first from their community to enter a college.

The groups want a piece of land so that this scheme could be expanded to include many more such groups.

They also expedite the process of issuing community certificates.

A training centre built at a cost of Rs. 8.4 lakh under a central government scheme near their cluster was completed a few months ago, but is yet to be operational.

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