JEEViKA Didi's Kitchen, set up at the month-long Shravani Mela in Sultanganj, Bhagalpur, has created fresh employment for more than 100 local women, offering them a steady income during one of Bihar's largest religious gatherings. The initiative, operating at Namami Gange Ghat, serves nutritious meals to over 1,000 pilgrims daily and is projected to generate roughly ₹30 lakh in revenue over the course of the mela.

How the Kitchen Works

Saurabh Kumar, manager of JEEViKA Didi's Kitchen at Namami Gange Ghat, said the setup has given a livelihood to women who had previously been without work. Each woman participating in the initiative is expected to earn between ₹8,000 and ₹10,000 during the mela period. 'More than 100 women are employed here through JEEViKA. They are all from the local areas of Sultanganj. Many of these women were previously not engaged in any work. When they heard about this opportunity through JEEViKA, they found employment,' Kumar said.

Ritu Devi, who manages a counter at the kitchen, noted that the venture has generated significant profits while simultaneously opening doors for women who had no prior source of income.

Scale of the Shravani Mela

The Shravani Mela draws enormous footfall from across the region. On a single day, as many as 2,26,747 devotees offered holy water to Baba Baidyanath at the famous temple in Deoghar, with chants of 'Har Har Mahadev' and 'Bol Bam' resonating through the town. The sanctum sanctorum opened at 4:08 am, with priest Gaurav Jha performing the daily Sardari Puja before devotees were admitted. The scale of the gathering underscores why a high-volume community kitchen at Sultanganj can sustain employment for over a hundred women across the full month.

What JEEViKA Is and Why It Matters

The Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS), under the Bihar government, implements the World Bank-aided Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project — popularly known as JEEViKA — to promote the social and economic empowerment of rural women. The initiative was later expanded to include the Livelihoods Restoration and Enhancement component of the Bihar Kosi Flood Recovery Project. Deploying JEEViKA networks at a high-traffic religious event like the Shravani Mela represents a practical extension of the programme's mandate: converting existing self-help group infrastructure into real-time income opportunities.

Impact on Women's Livelihoods

For many of the women involved, this is their first structured income-generating activity. The kitchen model — combining food service at a pilgrimage site with World Bank-backed institutional support — offers a replicable template for other large religious or cultural events across the state. Notably, the projected ₹30 lakh revenue figure, if realised, would translate into meaningful individual earnings for each participant, well above typical daily-wage benchmarks in rural Bihar. Whether the state government will extend similar deployments to other melas remains to be seen.