With the aim to promote self-employment among women entrepreneurs, the sugarcane department has directed its district officers to train rural women in preparing cane seedlings in nurseries through single bud and bud chip method so that they may earn by selling seedlings to cane growers.

Cane Commissioner Sanjay R Bhoosreddy said that sugarcane was cultivated on a large-scale as a cash crop in the state and there were immense possibilities of employment in cane growing districts.
“The department has decided to set up self-help groups of rural women and train them to prepare cane nurseries through single bud and bud chip, thereby employing them,” he said.

The Cane Development Council and sugar mills have jointly selected villages for setting up self-help groups of women to impart training to them. Such self-help groups were earlier trained in 24 districts, and the latest addition to this have been Gorakhpur and Maharajganj. So far, 1,399 rural women in 145 women self-help groups have been trained by the department.

Bhoosreddy said that necessary machines for this purpose were being made available on subsidised rates with the cooperation of sugar mills to the entrepreneurs.