Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SS)

Mangaluru, Oct 19: If education and degrees reflect the sublime nature of knowledge, employment and self-employment decide the skill and competence of life. Dairy farming was a part and parcel of our lives. Now, the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA scheme is encouraging many of them to take up rearing goats, pigs and poultry.

Wilson Monis, son of agriculturist Dennis Monis, a BCom graduate has bid good bye to a job in a garment factory in Bengaluru and has returned home to Panekkal of Nada village in Belthangady taluk. Now Mahatma Gandhi NREGA scheme has come to his help in becoming a self-employed and a self-sustained entrepreneur.

Wilson who owns a 2-acre agricultural land built a shed there with the help of MNREGA scheme after spending Rs 2 lacs on it. Initially, he bought 11 Yorkshire piglets at a cost of Rs 3,500 for one from Koyala Animal Husbandry and Cattle Development Centre in Kadaba taluk.

The pigs are in demand as they are sold for Rs 120-140 a kilo and this turned out to be a profitable profession for him.
From 2019-20 to date, 119 poultry sheds, 29 pig sheds, 50 goat sheds and 1241 cattle sheds have got MNREGA assistance.

"Initially, I started with rearing 11 piglets. One of the pigs gave birth to 8 piglets and another gave birth to 7 piglets taking the total to 17 piglets. I have sold nine of the pigs that I had bought initially. I am now thinking of rearing goats," said Wilson Monis.