Mrs. Sumitha Sagar, Puthazhikam, Mayyanad, Kollam is a graduate, employed as a cashier cum clerk in the nearby CBSE School earning less than Rs.10000/month. In search of an enterprise which could improve her income, she attended training on value added products of Coconut at KVK-Alappuzha in March, 2017. Based on the skills and confidence gained from the 3 days training programme, she soon started producing coconut based products utilizing the vessels and scraper available at her home. She mainly focused on virgin coconut oil made from the milk of fully matured coconut. In order to utilize the leftover kernel, she started preparing various types of curry mixes and chutney powders. Among the curry powders, the fish curry mix prepared using leftover coconut kernel was in high demand. When the demand for the virgin coconut oil and other products increased, she installed a few machineries like scraper, coconut milk extractor, VCO cooker and roasting machine by availing loan from a bank.
The products were marketed in the brand name ‘Paithrika’, often customers directly purchasing the products from her home owing to its quality. She also sells it through the nearby shops. Engaging only a male worker for deshelling and scraping of coconut, rest of the work of the unit were managed by Mrs. Sumitha alone with the help of machineries. All activities like coconut collection, other raw material purchase, packing material procurement, product preparation and its packing and labeling, marketing, stock and sale details maintenance are managed by herself. The products are prepared twice in a weak utilizing 100 nuts per batch. By this enterprise she could make an additional income of Rs.10000-12500 per month after repayment of the loan installment of Rs. 6500/month. Thus Mrs. Sumitha set a good model as a household entrepreneur.
