Rahiyanath Shamsudeen traveled from Alappuzha to Thiruvananthapuram to visit the office of the Executive Director of Kudumbashree, Harikishore, and sell him a lottery ticket. She was among the Kudumbashree members who were receiving training to become lottery ticket sellers as part of an initiative of the Nava Kerala lottery, to raise funds to rebuild the state.
Nava Kerala Lottery was formed by the state government to raise funds after the August floods that wrecked parts of the state. “The scheme was designed for raising funds for the CMDRF (Chief Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund) to rebuild the state. There is a provision to give casual agency to registered individuals or organisations. Kudumbashree is an organisation which has roots at the lowest level,” says Kerala State Lotteries Department director M Anjana.
Fourteen members of Kudumbashree from different districts were trained by the lottery department about the lottery structure and process. They then went back to their respective districts and trained others.
Kudumbashree members undergo training to sell lottery tickets
“It is a different structure from the normal lottery. Here the prize amount is much less. There would be 90 prizes of Rs 1 lakh and 1,00,800 prizes of Rs 5,000,” Anjana adds.
Kudumbashree had welcomed the proposal from the Lottery Department and became a casual agency, so that the members could reach more people. “There are 1,064 panchayat CDS in the network. Every member would be given a book of ten tickets to sell. A ticket costs Rs 250, so selling a book would mean Rs 2,500. Those members who sell a book would be given Rs 500,” says Harikishore.
However, he was surprised when Rahiyanath who had come all the way from Alappuzha said she was not interested in the 500 rupees. He wrote in a Facebook post of his experience with her, “When I said, “So, try to sell maximum so that you will also get a good income”, she replied “Sir, my focus is not my income. By selling this lottery, we will be able to help the state government to get more funds to reconstruct Kerala!”
Rahiyanath has been with Kudumbashree for 14 years now, she became an ADS chairperson and is now a state resource person. “Our training group decided that I would go to sell the first ticket to sir. He has been very helpful. So I took a bus at 12 in the noon and came to his office. This is not to earn anything for me. This is so I could give a hand in a small way and do something for others,” she says. Rahiyanath has been actively involved in flood rescue and relief, even going without food to help the others in need.
“Millions of people with this attitude are surely the strength of Kerala. We hope that, by involving [them] in this activity (selling lottery), Kudumbashree will be able to contribute further to the state rebuilding process,” Harikishore ends his post.