She gains a stable income from masala powder business

The sight of barren fields and forests on both sides of the road greeted me on my way to the village of Jadamangalam. Manonmani Marimuthu, leader of a Joint Liability Group, was awaiting my arrival. An amicable woman, I felt welcomed even before she invited me inside her home. Manonmani’s group had received a loan to manufacture and sell masala powder. Her group has built a successful business now and I urged Manonmani to share the details with me. 

Different varieties of masala powder are uncommon in the village of Jadamangalam. Identifying this, Manonmani’s group decided to cater to this need and offer something unique to the residents. “People here have to travel quite a bit to buy quality masala powder,” Manonmani said. “We thought why not make it within the village and sell it? This would marginally reduce the hassle. We started making and selling the powders to shop-vendors and to people within our family and community.”   

Manonmani’ s group of five manufacture 10 kgs of masala powder a month, around 200 in terms of packets. Chicken masala, mutton masala, rasam powder, chilli powder, horse gram powder – you name it and they make it all. The group sources the raw materials for the powders from a farmer’s market in the panchayat town of Pavithram. This costs them around Rs. 3000 monthly. After buying the raw materials, they roast it and dry it out in the sun before grinding the mixture into a fine powder. The five women camp in the courtyard of Manonmani’s home twice a week to make the masala powders. “We share the work equally amongst ourselves,” said Pappu Nallaselli, a member of the group who was also present. “After the powder is made, each of us takes a few packets with us and sells it to people we know and have networked with. A majority of our income is from this, selling it via shop-vendors is secondary.” A kilogram of masala powder takes a couple of hours to produce, depending on weather conditions. A 200 gram packet sells for Rs. 15 and a 250 gram packet sells for Rs. 25. “The money we make, we split amongst ourselves,” explained Manonmani. “Each of us makes at least Rs. 4000 per month.”

I requested a picture of the two women with one of their powders. Manonmani went running in and came out with a plastic container of chilli powder. The two women held it as I clicked the picture.

Note: The loan purpose(goat-rearing) stated in the loan story was entered incorrectly. We will ensure that such errors don't occur in the future.