Vizianagaram: SHG women making masks

Vizianagaram: The lockdown caused by Coronavirus has its impact many sectors and thousands became workless. Shops, firms, business centres, malls, theatres, hospitals and others were badly affected. Lakhs of workforce became jobless. But women Self-help groups (SHGs) became busy nowadays making masks as the government of Andhra Pradesh wished to distribute around 16 crores of masks to the people. Every individual is going to get three masks to cover their face to curb the spreading of Coronavirus. The SHGs in this district were also assigned the job to prepare masks to distribute in Vizianagaram, Parvathipuram, Bobbili, Salur and Nellimarla municipalities. As of now, around 9,000 women workers were involved in mask-making.

K Sugunakara Rao, project director of MEPMA said, "We have prepared around 5.45 lakhs of masks in the past few days with the support of the women workers. We have two tailoring units-- one at Vizianagaram and another at Parvathipuram. The government has supplied 66,078 meters of cloth to stitch the masks and we have totally utilized the cloth and made 5.45 lakhs of maks out of that cloth. We are expecting some more cloth to prepare the masks. The government is paying Rs 3.5 per each mask to the women groups. This is a good income source during these hard days. They can take the enough cloth to their homes and return the finished product to the concerned centres. From there, the masks would be distributed to the people, through ward volunteers."

Around 1,35,000 masks were supplied to Vizianagaram town and 80,000 to Salur 30,000 to Nellimarla and Bobbili got around 50,000 masks.

K Lakshmi of Thotapalem in Vizianagaram said, "I brought the cloth from the centre and stitching at my home. I am making around 160 masks per day at my home. This is an opportunity for me to earn something as my husband lost his income due to lockdown as his shop was shut down."