Lalu Devi shows a silk worm to Bihar Institute of Silk Textiles principal SB Gupta at Bhimbandh Wildlife Sanctuary in Munger. Picture by Amit Kumar

Lalu Devi, a resident of Chouki village in Munger, has been living in a makeshift hut to look after worms, not just any but tasar silk worms. Protecting Lalu is her four-year-old son Lahan with his toy bow-and-arrow.

Thirty-year-old Lalu and her husband Lakshman Koda (34) live inside Munger’s Bhimbandh Wildlife Sanctuary. The couple have become a source of inspiration for the remaining 40 households in the village.

At Chouki, they are the first beneficiaries of the Mukhya Mantri Tasar Vikash Yojana (MMTVY) launched last year in the Maoist-affected district.

The couple’s ancestors also used to rear tasar silkworms but with MMTVY, the villagers have an opportunity at livelihood generation.

Bajrang Koda, a 21-year-old resident of Chouki, said: “We all are interested in rearing tasar silkworms and have decided to do so from the next season.” Bajrang’s wife, Pancha Devi, has started to spend most of her time in the orchard of Lakshman to observe how the couple rear the tasar silkworms.

Most of the villagers, eager to become beneficiaries of the scheme, have started to take training from the Koda couple.

Lalu said: “We have to succeed so that our fellow villagers are motivated to manufacture the tasar cocoons.”

The couple collect larvae of the silkworms and deposit them on the Asan and Arjun plants (necessary for sericulture) in their orchard, around 1km from their home. In around 30 days, the worms start to secrete on the branches to form cocoons, the silk threads of which are collected to be sold to the authorities concerned.

The mother of five has been living in a makeshift hut in the orchard for the past 40 days to keep a steady vigil on the tasar silkworms. “The silkworms take 30-40 days to create silk cocoons. So this period is very critical,” she said. Her youngest son, Lahan, stays with her to drive away birds that fly in to destroy the silkworms. Daniya Kodain, Lakshman’s 74-year-old maternal grandmother, hopes for a better future now.

To sell the silk threads, the villagers would have to travel either 6km south to Lakshmipur in Jamui or 16km north to Ganta more in Munger.

Bihar Institute of Silk and Textiles, Bhagalpur, principal Shyam Behari Gupta who is also the additional director of industries (sericulture), said: “The aim of the project was to allow the villagers to rear the tasar silkworms in own fields rather than in the forest. People from other villages like Sonarwa, Bhimbandh and others involved in the indigenous rearing of tasar silkworms in Bhimbandh forest, do not get the due remuneration but this project would bring about lots of changes.

“The project attempts to make people in the rural areas self-dependent by manufacturing cocoons and producing tasar yarns,” he added.

The Bhimbandh forest cover, around 200km east-south of Patna, was once a famous tourist spot. However, after then Munger superintendent of police KC Surendra Babu was killed in January 2005, the area became a Maoist bastion.

“Except the people in uniform, either police or party men (Maoists), no one dares to enter the forest today. But as the forest has plenty of Asan and Arjun plants and the villagers have these plants in their own fields as well, we started to motivate the residents of some 10-12 remote villages to rear silkworms,” said Ramanuj Paswan, a secretary of a Munger-based voluntary organisation, who is a motivator in the state government project.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar had launched the Rs 170.92-crore scheme in December last year.