Bamboo Basketry

Presentation

The customer

The Chaitanya client here is Medar Mahadevi, a 40 year old woman living in Hiremunavalli, a small village located 50km north of Dharwad.

She is doing the bamboo basket making activity with her husband, and has 3 children who are currently studying. Her grandmother is also living with them, so they are a household of 6 persons. 50 other families are engaged in this activity in this village, and in her case it has been passed from old generations.

Production steps

Baskets of middle size during the production

There are two main steps to make bamboo baskets.

First they scratch the bamboos, which takes 2 hours for one. Then it takes around 1H to make a big one and they make 2-3 per hour small ones. It is a 12 months activity, and they do it every day from 10h30am to 6:30pm. For the little baskets they also add some colours on the top by using colour water. Finally, they sell the baskets to three local markets: Hirebagewadi, Parishwad and Belgaum.

They also do other bamboo products such as bamboo rice sieves to clean the rice, or decorations, etc. Their production numbers depends on the demand of the clients.

Economics of the activity

They are three different bamboo baskets. With one bamboo, which costs 100 rupees each, they can make:

• 20 Small baskets and sell them each 30 rupees           
• 3 Medium for 60 rupees and           
• 2 Large for 70 rupees

For example: they are 2 persons, her husband and herself, doing this activity. In one day, let’s assume they are actually scratching the bamboos and making the baskets for 4 hours each.

In one day, they can : scratch two bamboos (4h) then make a big one (1h), three medium ones (3h), and 2 small ones (one hour).     

The cost for the day is 200 rupees for the bamboos.

The revenue is 310 rupees. So around 110 rupees of profit per day. Let’s multiply that number by 6 (number of days), leaving one day to buy the bamboos and sell them.  And again by 12 to get the profit by year. We get something around 30 000 per year income, which is the annual profit they estimated.     

The only other revenue of the household is the 500 rupees pension per month of the grandmother, making the total income for one year of 36000.

The two loans (22000 and 27000) taken in 2013 and 2014 were used to buy more bamboos, making a 40 000 revenue (before expense).

Final products