Broom making activity

Presentation

Bhajantri Hema Laxman is a Chaitanya client who lives in Sulebhavi with her husband, their two children and her mother-in-law.
They have been making brooms for 70-80 years, among other activities such as the band business taken care by the husband, and fruits selling by her in-law. Both she and her husband take care of making the brooms while the mother sells them.

They are not the only ones in the village doing this activity, they are 30 to 40 other families involved in this business. 

Production steps

They make two different brooms, one made of Shindi Gari and the other of Madi (the yellow ones). Those two materials are bought in bulk at one time for the whole year. These are the two raw materials, plus the wire they need to make the brooms out of it. It is a purely hand-made activity, no machines are involved in the process.

They usually work from 10am to 5pm every day. 

Economics of the activity 

The costs are divided into:

• The Wire, 60 rupees per kilogram, and they can make 100 brooms with one kg.
• The Shindi Gari, 100 bundles they buy, at 40 rupees the bundle. Plus 1000 rs per year for transportation. So a total yearly cost of 5000 rupees.
• And the Madi, for 100 bundles per year, it costs them 10 000 rs, transport included. 

They also make Shimbi out of the Madi, which costs them 40 rupees to produce and is sold 50 rs. Their production numbers depends on the clients’ demand.

And for the revenues:

Daily, they make 20 Madi and 30 Shindi Brooms. This broom activity gives them a profit of 5000 per month.

As for the other source of revenues: The band business is done for a season of 2 months, which makes 20 000 rs per year. And the mother-in-law’s fruit business brings back 5000 rs per month, plus her 500 rs pension.

So that makes a yearly income of 146 000 rupees.

The Chaitanya loan of May 2015 was used to buy the raw materials of the broom activity but also helped the band business.