MASUTA Producers Company Limited is the biggest producer of Tasar yarn in India. Presently it is a company of 2500 yarn producers and is growing by number and business volume every year, all of them women from disadvantaged rural families living across three eastern States of India. It is the only collective of its kind in the country. MASUTA has also promoted two joint venture companies. One of them already started functioning and produces finest quality Tasar fabric and markets them in India and abroad. The other in the process of registration, will procures Tasar cocoons, the raw material for tasar yarn and supplies to yarn producers throughout the year.

MASUTA Producers Company Limited was registered on 26th December 2005 as a Producers’ Company under Section 581c (5) of Part IX A of the Companies Act 1956. `Producers Company’ is often called a `Cooperative Company’ or `New Generation Cooperative (NGC)’, because such a company operates on cooperative principles even though it is registered under the Companies Act.

MASUTA is owned by the village level primary groups of shareholders, formalized as Mutual Benefiting Trusts (MBT) comprising of women from communities like tribals and various lower castes of the society. They hail from interior villages of Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh where alternative and dignified work opportunities for them are scarce. A Tasar yarn producer undertakes her production activity as an individual enterprise even though a group of producers often work under a common facility centre and formalized as MBTs. MASUTA helps them acquire productive assets for yarn making (like reeling machines etc.), supplies them with raw-materials and other inputs, provide on-job trouble-shooting supportand finally market their produce. The enterprise of Tasar yarn making has helped the women to have control over their own earning, create space for their leadership, make business decisions and run their own business. They now have an enhanced say in their family and the community.

PRADAN, a voluntary organization working in the poverty regions of India has helped the women promote MASUTA. PRADAN provides MASUTA with the required professional management support. The focus of PRADAN’s work is to promote and strengthen livelihoods for the rural poor. This involves organizing them to enhance capabilities, introducing ways to improve their incomes and linking them to various economic services. The shareholders of MASUTA are participants of PRADAN’s development interventions. PRADAN helped them in transfer of technology, capacity building, membership development etc. PRADAN continues to draw developmental finance to invest in technological up-gradation and promotion of new yarn producers for MASUTA.