VILLAGE EXPOSURE PROGRAM

FACILITATED BY : TAGORE SOCIETY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT LOCATION : PATAMDA, 20-22 ,JULY 2012

GROUP MEMBERS: UDDALAK BANERJEE VARUN MAHNA VIKASH SURYAN YOGESH JOON ADARSH GOPI ( H12058) (H12059) (H12060) (H12061) (H12062)

We were the fifth group to visit Patamda from XLRI for the academic year 2012-13.Being a small group the team coordination was vital for the overall results that our group has successfully achieved through strenuous effort put in by each of the group members and myriad interactions that we had with the villages within the short spell of time that we were allotted. Patamda as a village was an outcast one. It was about 30 km from Jamshedpur .We were accommodated in Tagore Society of Rural Development s accommodation facility about 1 km from the Patamda Police station. We reached there on 20th july itself. It took us about 1 and a half hours to reach our destination from our Campus (XLRI).

With our instructor and guide in Arun Das and ably assisted by our driver Babu we started our village program on 20th july itself. While on jeorney we learnt that Patamda had two blocks. Nearest Railway stations were Nimdih, Barabhum and Tatanagar about 30 kms each. The two freedom fighters from Patamda were Late Chowdhary Mahto from Village named Lachipur and Late Amrendra Nath Dutt from Village named Kultand.We also got to know that the villagers living there mostly suffer from lack of medical facilities and lack of recruitment of school

teachers causing acute shortage for teaching staff in schools . He also told us that there were just 1 college ,5 middle schools and 21 junior schools in the entire 1,25,000 acres of patamda.He also told us that the residents mostly spoke hindi and Bengali as the languages and had no savings facility and mostly live in a hand to mouth existence.

DAY 1 SCHOOL VISIT AT Aaguidangra

The village exposure program was underway for us with the school visit at Aaguidangra.

The school of Aaguidangra was known as the middle school which had just 5 teachers out of which 2 government teachers and 3 private teachers who were recruited by the school authorities. We had a lengthy conversation with Devendranath Majhi , a government teacher and Vishva Dev Singh , a contract teacher. Patamda was divided into 2 blocks. This middle school was one of the few middle schools of the region and inspite of poor communication villagers from far off places sent their children to these schools. The syllabus followed in these schools is of CBSE and books referred are of NCERT. In this particular school there were 257 students .The school timings were 10:00 am to 4:00 pm . Teachers often go to households to convince parents to come. Mid day meal scheme and Integrated Tribal development program are still on force so as to attract more and more children to the schools. Cycles are provided to backward class girls from government but

they have not yet reached to them . As per new notifications from government bank accounts for each student have been opened and stipends are provided for children once they reach class 6. The exam system has also been revamped. And from now onwards there will be no separate exams and students are marked on cleanliness, attendance ,class performance.The meritorious students are given a stipend of Rs 2000 per annum. However there are plans to open model schools for the same. The basic problem of the school were the lack of teachers. After the death of one and retirement of one there have been no new recruitment . The attendance on the day of our visit was good and the government teacher Devendranath Majhi told us that apart from the time of seeding or harvesting usually attendance is good and students want to read . However since there is no savings and people live from hand to mouth the demands of life is huge and often find priority in life decisions of students and many drop out after class 8 . The only college in the region being a degree college attracts a few students to persue their education there but it being unrecognised by government agencies often serve a futile purpose. Children have holidays during regional festivals most conspicuous of which are during durga puja and summer vacation. The tools used for harvesting is wooden plough which is perhaps reduces efficiency . The lack of teachers have also compounded the problem since most students who wish to study dont get to understand the meaning of what they were taught which was reflected in our question them. Most students were able to recite the multiplication table and alphabetical order and could even read their books aloud but could not say what they actually mean.

After the school we visited the junior school (photo above) where there were only three employees one was sevika , sahayika and a nurse. On interview with one of them we found that they are unhappy with the current government provisions of food allotment to the children . The sevika said, The government does not allot enough funds to arrange for different meals every day and the children they just dont want to eat the same thing everyday. They are small and dont know much so we have to dedicate a section of our salary to provide them with some different food.. She continued to say, The nurse comes only once a week to supervise . IT is myself and sahayika who do all the job of cleaning the babies and giving them food and watching over them. . The vaccines are provided by the nurse herself at different phases as and when the drives happen. But the necessary day to day medical facilities are conspicuously absent. Towards the evening we

decided to go to the Market place and to look at the Market and National Horticulture scheme which was taking place in Patamda.

Day 1 Market and National Horticulture scheme

The market place of Patamda was a melange of people from all walks of life. A huge crowd assembled there during the only day of the week when the market opens in full scale. Various food items ,grocery items ,utensils are all sold at once in different parts of the market.We asked different shopkeepers and grocers regarding prices of different items just to get an idea of the market and cost system prevalent. Cost of chicken in the market was Rs 120 (average cost) and cost of potato was Rs 12/kg. Fishes that were available included hilsa,katla,rui etc. There in the market we met a mix of people mostly villagers of low income group who were crowding up near the grocers and continuously negotiating on prices parsimoniously.

National Horticulture Scheme was shown by our guide Arun Das. He took us to the area of Drip irrigation implementation. He told us how 90% of the cost was bourne by the Government of Jharkhand and is serving as a pilot project . We also discussed the land area notifications .Arun Das told us that 3 begha was equal to 1 acre and that land there was comparatively cheap . He also told us that it takes 15 days to implement drip irrigation scheme. Arun das further explained that drip irrigation was an irrigation method that saves water and fertilizer by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants either onto the soil surface or directly onto the root zone through a network of valves, pipes, tubing, and emitters. He said that It is done through narrow tubes that deliver water directly to the base of the plant. We even touched the emitters and then as it was growing dark we decided to move back . While we were returning we discussed on how profit could be enhanced by this new technology .

Day 1 Rishikul Vashisht Yoga ashram

Rishikul Vashisht Yoga ashram was established on 1941 with aim of world peace by Swami Adyanand saraswati. 6 children and 1 Guru lived there. There was no other source of income other than Dakshina accumulated from neighbouring houses. The Area on which the Ashram was built was around 4 Begha . The Guru served us a few delicious Mallika mangoes. There was a kitten which roamed around in the open spaces of the ashram. The boys who were living there were mostly ones from poor families . The guru himself said, To get admission here u dont need to pay anything. IF u genuinely want to be here and study we select them and keep them here.. Tata Steel had installed a solar light inside the ashram premises.

Day 2 JODSA VILLAGE

We visited Jodsa village the very next day morning. The Sabar population there were our object of study . The village was at the outskirts of patamda.41 houses were made by government for the population of 250.Population in this part of Patamda is scanty. Initially, the lands were allotted as per family size to the families by government .Transport and Healthcare were main problems. Schools are too far away from here . Roads are virtually non-existent. Corn and tomato were the main crops there. Most people here do farming as the primary occupation. Those who dont have lands or have sold them away to meet daily expenses , go to different places to work in others firms so as to make a living. Many people here go to the forest and cut trees and sell them in the market . Most of the people here are addicted to village liquor and often resort to selling woods from the trees to get them. Many NGO s including Tagore society of Rural Development have been working with the village people to provide them with a savings society. Self Help groups have been trying to educate the people of the need for savings . Most families have a family size of 6 .Government officials seldom visit this part of Patamda. Last time some one from government visited them was twelve years back when the houses were built for them. Ever since, there were no visit from government officials. Many people here make paper plates with sal trees leaves. We had a few conversations with many household people . Some of them consumed wild mushrooms and domesticated wild hens. We chatted with a few youth of the population . Most of them were frustrated due to lack of any job opportunity from the government. People were complaining that inspite of gaining a BSC degree they were not getting any preferential treatment in jobs and that this was the picture in all households. There were no electricity due to the damage done to one of the transformers. There was no initiative from the government to repair the damaged transformer. Whenever one went to call the concerned people who were incharge of the transformer they were asked to deposit some money in the form of bribe so as to ensure the repair of the transformers. The other major issue of concern for most people were the lack of medical facility in the hospitals and the lack of transport to the hospitals. Only few people in the village had any motorcycle and since there were no bus or any other means of transport ,to commute to the hospital for checkup or to go to school was painstaking. We also asked a few boys to tell us the alphabetical order and multiplication table of different numbers inorder to check their interest for letters and numbers and we found that they were very enthusiastic and did not take much time to tell us the the results. One of the local youth even took the initiative to teach them in his spare time on the request of most students of all ages. Lack of sanitation and banking facilities was also a cause of concern. Most self help groups including TSRD have come up to help procure for security of the woods and also have provided for reforestation so as to sustain the ecological balance and have also helped in preservation of water sources like local pond. People have ration cards and get 35 kg rice free and kerosene at Rs 13 /litre upto a max of 3.5 litres and also 2 kg of salt .Although 10 hours of electricity was supposed to be free asper the grants of the government but due to fault in the transformers these villagers are deprived of it. Current Gram panchayat is Mrs Rupen Singh. Major

diseases that these people are suffering from is diarrhoea and Malaria. Lift irrigation project implemented in the village by Tagore Society costed around 2.5 lakh.

Day 2 Poultry Farm ,Layadi

On visiting the Poultry farm we got to know about the structure of business that can be done in these parts of villages and their viability . One thing that came through was that if organised and well explained to the villages can be profitable. Each Poultry farm costed around Rs 33000 per pen as an establishment cost . A part of the money gets funded by the Cooperative society present here. Batch size of each pen is 400 . Currently all hens of these pens have been sold. Maximum days the hens are kept are 45 . One person is assigned per pen to look after the daily needs and it is a part time job that he does. He comes three times a day during this 45 days and feeds the chickens and cleans the pen.The money he gets for this activities is around Rs 4500 per batch. Tagore society operates around 100 farms in and around Patamda. Profit in such cases is decided on the

basis of mortality. One supervisor has around 20-22 firms under his supervision. One who takes care of individual batches works around 3 hours a day .This idea of setting up a poultry farm took birth in 2007 . Rates of chickens vary per season. Max Rate was last month (june) at Rs 87/kg. 30 day old hen fetches max rate. Mortality rate is maximum during summers and hence most farms avoid summers. There was also an incident in which disease spread in one of the farms which destroyed the batch . Hence regular watch is needed to be done so as to guard against vaccination failures. The disease that spread was contracted from wild hens and water . Hence during the 45 days the entire area needs to be clean and wastes has to be cleaned regularly.On an average profits are shared among the cooperative based on amount of effective work put in by the members.Most of us were enthusiastic as we too realised that these villages provided a great opportunity for future entrepreneurs as they provided cheap labour and excellent fertile land which if cultivated properly with latest machinery can yield huge yield capable of sustaining the entire population of india and also yield a huge profit at a bare minimum investment.

Day 3 Meeting with Nandlal Bakshi ,Coordinator

We all wanted to know more about TSRD and its functions before coming back from the memorable stay at Patamda. It was fulfilled on the final day when we met the coordinator Nandlal Bakshi.Mr Nandlal gave us an overview of the initiative after a brief introductory session. We learnt that Father Augustine one of the founding fathers from XLRI did a lot of work on literacy in this area and that each year students from XLRI work closely with TSRD on various rural upliftment project.He named sigma as one of the initiatives of XLRI which had made a major impact in social service sectors of Jamshedpur.He expressed hope that a premier Bschools like xlri who have the very best 1% of students of india coming from backgrounds as varid as IITs and MBBS can in future to give huge boost to research and development in improvement of lives of people living in these rural areas . He also highlighted how important it was to know more about the village life which is very important because it is in the villages where even today actual india resides. Villages form the 70% of the indian population and hence if developed holds the key to exponential growth for the country and also to any organisation that seeks to maximise its profit. He underlined the need for rural employment and the part that new and compatible technologies can play in it. He also shared with us the fact that one of the previous GMP batches from XLRI had proposed a model in which the mechanical energy derived from oxes can be converted into electric energy needed to draw generators thus saving energy . He said that the model is now under government observation and that such suggestions from enlightened minds of business would definitely come in good stead for the country

and the entire village besides opening up new thresholds of development parameters for TSRD too.

Mr Nandlal then showed us a model of a cold storage technique implemented in Chittu (A.P) near Chennai. IT is a model of mini cold storage of 20 tonne capacity . The best part of this model is that if implemented it can save a lot of vegetables and grocery items from being rotten due to lack of proper storage. The cost associated with this facility is also ver less and it also doesnot need exponential establishment cost with high capacity storage as the land required is less and the equipment required is modest too. One time investment of 18 lakh could yield a running cost of 12 paise/kg/day!. The product has been marketed by FrigoScan foods but yet have not yet caught the government eye in a big way. Although owing to large market size and good economic location AP government have already implemented this technology ,other governments have been stubborn to use it although the scope of this project is so huge that it could solve majority of food related problems of india.The entire running cost can be further minimised by using solar power but then research is underway on this very aspect. At present it can run on 5.75 KvA Diesel Gensets.Anything apart from onion and garlic can be stored at a temperature range of 010 C .At present in patamda the net production of tomato alone is 40000 metric ton. Production Cost of which is 1.20 /kg but sometimes due to lack of proper storage it has to be sold at 50 paise /kg and then too 10% of the product dont get sold.By using this facility as much as 90% of the loss can be covered up.Besides Multiple Chamber 120 ton cold storage capacity is also under consideration.

Only major challenges that might be faced will be : 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Power ( Diesel running cost is high) Educating Farmers to use this facility Institutional Model( who will own it ? who will run it?) High establishment cost (Rs 1 lakh /ton ) Working Capital ( running on 7.5 KVA Diesel Genset for a 10 ton cold store for 14 hours /day needs 35 litre diesel that is Rs 1400/ Day)

Our Group Proposals

1. To try to implement solar stations on a mass scale to generate alternate source of electricity . The cost of establishment of these have to bourne by government who can inturn educate the villagers how to use it (one time cost) which could reduce

the yearly expenditure bourne by government in the form of free electricity that is provided via wires. 2. To recruit as many individuals from these belts with sufficient educational qualification in the development works of the region. Which will solve the problem of trust which is soon becoming a big issue among the villagers on the education system in india and also the government . 3. Try to expand the poultry farms via cooperative help and government initiatives to all parts and then channelize the profits into developing fisheries and also food production. 4. To reduce alcohol consumption by educating the people more through their own representatives and hence creating good will which will provide a good base in case of launching the small cold storage scheme.