Assam Foundation of North America

ABOUT Meghalee Bora
In my childhood I was taught that" when there is a will there is a way". In those days I was not able to fully realize the meaning of that line, but I understand that with a strong will, one can cross all barriers. And now I believe that no body can stop a person with strong will. I was born and brought up in a rural area of Sibasagar District Called Charing. My father was a teacher. When I crossed 12th Standard I got married. My Husband was a business man. We passed two years comfortably. But then suddenly our bad days started. Due to the situation which was unavoidable, my family become bank ruffed. But I am lucky that my husband is also a strong hearted man and ambitious like me. We thought together to start a new business. But we had a cash of only Rs. 500/-(Five hundred) and we had been thinking what can be done with such a small amount. We thought and thought and at lat I told my husband to bring some coconut and sugar from that amount. It was that time of ‘Bohag Bihu’ The festivals of Assam. I prepared coconut ladu and he supplied it to a grocery store. Within two days all the ladu were sold out and the owner of the store ordered me for the next.
It was the turning point of my life. The year was 1997. Gradually before Bihu I managed to supply coconut ladu of amount of Rs. 6000/-. Bihu passed and we start to prepare chilly pickle. We worked up to 2PM midnight to pack the pickles. And with we started to dreaming about some big. We started to bring different items like Kahudi, Kharoli. We got very good response from the local market. We were the pioneers to bring those traditional items in to the market in those days. Then I took training on fruit and vegetable preservation. Now we start to prepare wood apple squash and carambola squash. And like the previous products here also we got very good response from the market. One day I participated at Farmer’s fair at Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat in the name as" Megalee Food Product". Where we introduce a new product. Viz R.T.S. of Pumelo (Robab Tenga). One person came to our stall, he was Mr. Bidyut Boruah , The Regional Manager of APEDA( Agricultural Process food Export Development Authority). He was so much impressed to see the new product that he selected us to participate in ‘AHARA’, the international trade fair at Progoty Maidan, New Delhi with Pumelo juice. We were told that we were the first in India in the field who have prepared Pamelo juice commercially. At the fair we got very good response from the crowd.
That time we were concerned to improve the quality of our products. So we approached ‘NEDFi’( North East Development Financial Institute) to sponsor us to train our self at C.F.T.R.I(Mysore) and we got it. Both of us took training there. I completed training on modern ‘Packaging’ & my husband on ‘Soft Drinks’.
After retuning from C. F. T. R.I we took a rented house and availed a loan Rs. 50,000/- from SBI, Jorhat branch. Then we applied for F.P.O license. We spent the amount for purchase of a juicer, sealing Machine, Pouch sealing machine etc and coloring of the walls as directed by the inspector of M.F. P.I. in the year 2002 We got the F.P.O licence