Nestle extends more power to rural women

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You teach a woman, you teach a family. With that belief, Nestle has begun helping 25,000 village women become financially independent. The company's Women Development Programme in Punjab may be a model other corporates would like to follow, reports CNBC-TV18. 

After her husband leaves for the farm every morning, Jaspal Kaur, who is one such housewife, gets busy feeding and milking her cows. She is just one of the 25,000 women accross 450 villages in and around Punjab's Moga district, who are part of Nestle's village Women Development Programme. As part of this programme, rural women are trained not just in the commercial aspect of the dairy business, but also about hygiene, health and conservation of resources.

Jaspal Kaur said, "I earn about Rs 50,000 a month and save about Rs 30,000. It feels nice to contribute to my household and look after my kids."

Dr Raj Singh, Exec VP, Nestle India , said, "The housewife plays a key role in this area and she can contribute tremendously towards the improvement of productivity and supply of good quality milk to the company. So we invest our time in training housewives."

Apart from training on dairy farm practices, Nestle is now encouraging women to become milk collection agents. Thus moving them up in the supply chain from raw material supply to procurement.

Nestle currently has about 1,850 milk collection agents in Moga and has recently added six women agents on board. With the aim of nurturing their women's empowerment project further, Nestle has now kickstarted a microfinance project to promote women self help groups. If succesful, Nestle will initiate it in other villages of the Moga milk district.