From eating chiwda to sampling mom’s cooking, Parrikar gives SHGs life lessons

Panaji: Chief minister Manohar Parrikar took a trip down memory lane on Thursday as he recalled his younger days spent with his mother, sampling her cooking. He fondly reminisced how she would call on his taste buds to help her better her culinary skills. He hoped that his experience with his parent would help the several self-help groups gathered in Goa to take the reins and live more entrepreneurial lives.
Looking back at his time as a child, the chief minister talked about how earlier women would prepare most condiments like mango pickle and papad at home.The women from the neighbourhood would come together to help in the preparation. “This was when I was seven or eight years old. I used to be the taster. She (mother) would call me and ask me if the salt (proportion) is right or if something was missing,” he said.
The chief minister asked the women present to take her leaf out of his mother’s book and use the available opportunities to change their individual fortunes along with that of their families. Parrikar was speaking at a function organized by Nabard (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development) at the Institute Menezes Braganza to commemorate 25 years of Nabard-backed self-help groups.
“A few days ago, I got the chance to eat some chiwda at home and I remembered my mother who used to make first-class chiwda,” he said, adding that he got a “taste of those days” after eating the savoury snack prepared by a self-help group.
He went on to ask the women present to maintain proper accounts and keep a tab on their income. He said that accounting was a weak point with self-help groups as women often functioned based on their emotions. “My mother never kept a proper account of her earnings. She used to pay two kinds of taxes, one for the raw material and the other to her grandkids,” Parrikar said, recalling how his mother pampered his sons.
Striking a serious note, Parrikar said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi supported the move to remove reverse charge mechanism as the tax burden on self-help groups had increased. “This government is proactive in ensuring that self-help groups succeed and go forward,” he said.