Babul Mia, 34, a resident of Nageswari in Kurigram, was unemployed two years ago. But an innovative idea of Babul to manufacture a mobile rice mill has now changed his life.
He collected some money by selling a major part of his 20 decimals of land and bought a shallow pump with Tk 26,500 as he could not manage to get any work two years ago.
Babul was doing relatively well for his living by supplying water for irrigation in different fields, he thought he would do more.
He bought a trolley and other equipments and set those up with the shallow pump to make a mobile rice mill.
Babul goes from home to home in different villages with his mobile rice mill.
He mills around 80 mounds of paddy a day. He charges Tk 25 for one mound of paddy and makes a profit of Tk 3 to Tk 3.50.
Babul’s daily earning ranges between Tk 150 and Tk 250.
His customers are happy as they do not need to go to a rice mill anymore.
One of the customers at Kachari Payradanga village under Nageswari union, Misiran Bewa, 70, who milled 20 kilogram of paddy said, ‘Now we do not need to go to Nageswari Bazar, two kilometres away from here, for milling rice. As poor women, we can mill little amount of paddy here which is not possible at the big rice mills in the local market place,’ she said.
Babul is now planning to upgrade his mill as his customer base is increasing day by day.
