In Udhampur’s Jandrore village, 40-year-old Des Raj is rearing silkworms for keeping his family tradition alive and earn some extra money to support the education of his children.
Raj, a manual labourer, has learnt the craft of silkwormrearing from his late grandfather.
“My grandfather insisted me to learn the techniques ofsilkworm rearing when I was studying. But I had to take it up seriously afterhis death, as the financial condition of our family was not good. At that time, I was only 12. I had to quitthe studies midway to work as a manual labourer with my father,” says Des Raj.
“My father would work as a manual labourer but used to getthe work only for 2-3 months in a year. Down the line, the manual labour daysincreased but the inflation rate also went up,” Des Raj says further.
But after some time health of Des Raj’s father deterioratedand the responsibility of looking after the family came on his shoulders.
“Thanks to my grandfather, who had taught me the craft ofsilkworm rearing. Besides working as a labourer, I started to rear silkworms.It helped me to sustain my family. Now I do it twice a year – in summer andrainy season – and it helps me to support the education of children.
Des Raj earns in between 7000-8000 out of one crop ofcocoons he produces and hence annually, he earns in between Rs 15000 to 16000.
According to him, sericulture department provides silkwormseeds twice a year to the rural farmers.
The department provides silkworm seeds to the rural farmersas small of size as ants and to produce a crop, the farmers put a lot of hardwork. As the silkworm seeds are fed slashed leaves of mulberry plant, a farmerputs a lot of efforts initially but when the worms grow in size, they eat eventhe twigs of the mulberry plants. It takes around one month to produce a crop.
“However, rearing silkworms is a patient job that requires alot of efforts, two crops an year give us a hope of seeing our family educatedand financially better than us,” says Des Raj.
“If government has launched some schemes for the Dalitcommunity, the government officials should try to reach out to rural Dalits sothat they, like me, can promise better education and better living to theirwards,” he says.
Dalits constitute 7.6 percent of state’s total population ofaround 1.25 crore. Despite numbers of schemes launched by Central and Stategovernments to uplift the community, the life of rural Dalits has not changedmuch, educationally as well as financially, courtesy lack of proper promotionof government schemes.