FOREST BASED ACTIVITY AND CONTRIBUTION OF WOMEN IN ENRICHING TASAR COCOON PRODUCTION IN CHHATTISGARH STATE – A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

Livelihood opportunities in Indian subcontinent for tribal and village population are very limited. NTFPs offers some amount of support for various tribal communities who thrive on procurement of non-timber forest products and marketing them to fulll their basic necessities of food and clothing. With environment lobbies becoming stronger and governments yielding to their inuences by making stricter forest laws thus are restricting the tribal population to explore other means for their survival. Tasar culture is one of the most suitable and highly specialized occupations which have been practiced in tribal and inaccessible area of Chhattisgarh with larger tribal population by producing tasar cocoons and marketing them. In the process, Chhattisgarh state has emerged as the second largest producer of Tasar silk or popularly known as Kosa Silk locally. The women populations engaged in or supporting the activities of tasar culture are of prime signicance by contributing substantial labour force in various activities of tasar culture. Women constitute about 33% of manual work force in various activities of production of cocoons and subsequent chain of reeling and spinning activities. The present paper deals with the various aspects of women empowerment engaged in tasarculture activities have been enumerated and subsequent contribution to rural economy have been assessed. The state of chhattisgarh is formed few decades ago has made signicant strides in production of tasar silk. Women's contribution in achieving milestones is highlighted.