Dream Chasers

HariPrasad-1

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Hi guys,

I am opening this thread to discuss the stories of some ordinary people, Indians mostly. To discuss the dream they see and their chase of the dream which made a big difference to society and in the process they made them self great human beings.

We have many such stories to discuss here. There are many great stories of people like Baba Ramdev, Acharya bal krishna, Narendra Modi, APJ abdul kalam, Shiv raj sing chauhan, Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev, Shri shri etc etc. We have many other stories of less known persons also like vistol Jockey who chased a dream of Indian stealth fighter and designed it, One couple made a forest, , Chetan bhagat, one guy revive the river, one other fellow cut the mountain to make the road etc.

I Humbly request all of you to make your contribution here. This thread will become a great treasure of inspiring stories.
 

HariPrasad-1

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HariPrasad-1

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Here is a great story of Pamela and Anil Malhotra who created their own forest. They chased the dream for years and created an only private wild life sanctuary of 300 acre of land.


Pamela and Anil Malhotra bought 55 acres of land 23 years ago, and today they have converted it into a beautiful forest of over 300 acres. Here’s how SAI Sanctuary, the only private wildlife sanctuary in India, came to host animals like Bengal Tiger, Sambhar and Asian Elephants.

There couldn’t it be great to wake up to the sound of chirping birds, with fresh air and splendid scenery around? In the busy lives of our cities when even house sparrows are fast disappearing, this seems like a dream. But a couple has converted this dream into a reality by creating a wildlife sanctuary of their own.

The couple, passionate about wildlife and nature conservation, bought 55 acres of land to plant native trees and protect the environment. Today, they are responsible for creating over 300 acres of wild life sanctuary that hosts animals like Bengal Tigers, Asian Elephants, Hyena, Wild Boar, Leopards, Sambhar, etc.
Dr. A.K. Malhotra and Pamela Malhotra, the NRI duo behind this amazing SAI (Save Animals Initiative) Sanctuary Trust first went to the Himalayas, but as the laws in the Northern part of the country have a land ceiling of 12 acres, they came down South to give shape to their dreams of preservation and protection of nature and wildlife.


Anil and Pamela Malhotra are responsible for a beautiful wildlife sanctuary.

“The problem is, we expect the government to do everything. Like-minded people, NGOs and other agencies should purchase land and do their own bit to conserve the wildlife,” says Pamela.

They bought around 55 acres of unused and abandoned land from the farmers who were not using it due to excess of rainfall in Kodagu district of Karnataka. “We chose Kodagu because it is the micro hotspot of bio diversity in the entire planet,” Pamela says.

The passion to expand the green cover grew stronger and they kept buying lands from farmers who weren’t using them. This way the land was used and also farmers got money to repay their debts as the land was anyway lying idle. Gradually the 55 acre forest cover became larger and today covers 300 acres of the land.

There were a lot of native trees that already existed there. The couple decided to retain those and follow three important rules: no chopping down of any tree, no human interference and no poachers.
And with this thought, the efforts to make a wildlife sanctuary started in 1991.


The sanctuary also has a river flowing in the heart which meets the water needs of the animals.

After 23 years, their unmatched passion for wildlife and nature has helped them transform the 55 acres of barren land in 1991 into a one-of-its-kind wildlife sanctuary spread over 300 acres, probably the only private sanctuary in the country!

The sanctuary also has a beautiful river in the middle that is home to several aquatic species like fishes and snakes, including the King Cobra.

The huge trees and thick forest has also helped several birds like hornbill find their homes. There are over 305 species of birds that visit this sanctuary regularly.

The dense forest cover.

“We make sure that we don’t interfere with these animals. Elephants are very important for regeneration of the forests as they swallow the seed completely without breaking it, unlike other species. Around 30 species of trees totally depend upon elephants for regeneration,” says Pamela.

Several cameras are installed across the sanctuary to identify new animals and keep a track on poachers.People think that animals need the forest. But the truth is, the forest needs the animals equally. While the forest helps animals in providing shelter and food, animals help forests in regeneration – they are both inter-dependent and we should make efforts to preserve both,” says Dr. Anil.

“A few days ago, I saw in the camera recording that a family of wild dogs and seven small puppies from that family were trying to attack a Sambhar just in front of my house gate. They were born a few days back and now had grown up. So, the fact that each puppy survived is commendable. That means the sanctuary is a good host to all these wild animals,” says Pamela.

You might also like: The Man Who Single Handedly Converted A Washed Out Land Into A 1,360 Acre Forest
When the Malhotra couple purchased the land, there were already native species of cardamom and other trees that were planted. They decided not to disturb those and planted more native trees around the existing ones.

As the green cover expanded, the animal and bird species increased too. The flora of this sanctuary includes hundreds of varieties of indigenous trees, many of which are of medicinal value.
“Our aim is to preserve the flora and fauna, especially the rainforests, for the future generation. We believe that when we die we should give back the same (if not better) Earth which we got from our ancestors to the next generation,” says Dr. Anil.


A family of elephants are frequent visitors of this sanctuary.

The duo makes sure that they do not interfere or disturb the existing eco-system. “Even the dead wood provides nutrition to the soil,” says Pamela.

The couple has grown 10-12 acres of coffee and around 15 acres of cardamom on the land. They are also involved in organic farming on the same land. The sanctuary, which offers a unique experience to the visitors, runs completely on solar and alternate energy. For days of heavy rainfall in the monsoon, the three small windmills meet the needs of providing enough electricity to the sanctuary.

We also make sure that people who visit here are responsible tourists. We only take those people who are actually interested in exploring the beauty of nature. Smoking and drinking is not allowed as it disturbs the animals and the overall air which is so pure,” says Pamela.

Related Read: Aravali Institute of Management: The Story Of Breathing Life Into A Barren Land
When Malhotra couple started this sanctuary, they invested their own money. Now they are a registered not-for-profit trust which runs on donations which get tax exemptions.

Apart from funds, another challenge comes while patrolling the sanctuary. As the area is very large it is hard to keep track of the poachers. To counter this, they spread awareness about preserving wildlife and nature in schools and nearby villages.


The sanctuary also hosts animals like Hyena, Sambhar and Bengal Tigers.

“To avoid any mishap, we don’t allow people to walk alone here. There is always a guide or we accompany the visitors ourselves,” says Pamela.

The sanctuary also won the “Wildlife and Tourism Initiative Of The Year” award by Sanctuary Asia in conjunction with Tour Operators for Tigers in 2014.
In conclusion, Pamela has a thought she’d like to leave us with, “Overcome your fear and respect the animals’ power. The animal might not understand our words but they do understand our feelings.”

Pamela and Anil also advice people to be careful about the lifestyle they follow. Eating organic food, recycling things, using more energy-efficient devices are some of the basic things they advise everyone to follow.

You’ll surely like: The Man Who Has Created 33 Forests In India – He Can Help You Make One In Your Backyard Too!
When I carried buckets of water in the Himalayas, I realized how precious it is. We should not waste it. It is only when we face problems we realize importance of things,” she says.

“For anyone who wants to bring a change, we advise them to set one single goal and believe that they can achieve it,” says the couple.
Watch the official trailer of a documentary on SAI Sanctuary being made by filmmaker Mellissa Lesh here:

This is an appeal that Pamela and Anil Malhotra have made to all wealthy Indians to save our forests, wildlife and fresh water sources. They are even willing to help anyone who is willing to try.

http://www.thebetterindia.com/16294...e-sanctuary-hosts-animals-like-bengal-tigers/
 

Bornubus

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Hi guys,

I am opening this thread to discuss the stories of some ordinary people, Indians mostly. To discuss the dream they see and their chase of the dream which made a big difference to society and in the process they made them self great human beings.

We have many such stories to discuss here. There are many great stories of people like Baba Ramdev, Acharya bal krishna, Narendra Modi, APJ abdul kalam, Shiv raj sing chauhan, Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev, Shri shri etc etc. We have many other stories of less known persons also like vistol Jockey who chased a dream of Indian stealth fighter and designed it, One couple made a forest, , Chetan bhagat, one guy revive the river, one other fellow cut the mountain to make the road etc.

I Humbly request all of you to make your contribution here. This thread will become a great treasure of inspiring stories.
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HariPrasad-1

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An another Big Dream chaser Molai Jadhav who made a 1360 acre of forest on his own by planting trees.

Almost three decades ago, a teenager, after noticing the deaths of a large number of reptiles due to a lack of a tree cover, started planting Bamboo in an area that had been washed away by floods. Today, that same land hosts 1,360 acres of Jungle called Molai Forest, named after Jadav “Molai” Payeng, the man who made this possible single handedly!

That forest is now home to Bengal tigers, Indian rhinoceros, over 100 deer and rabbits besides apes and several varieties of birds, including a large number of vultures. There are several thousand trees. Bamboo covers an area of over 300 hectares. A herd of around 100 elephants regularly visits the forest every year and generally stays for around six months. They have given birt“The education system should be like this, every kid should be asked to plant two trees,” Payeng says.

He was 16 when the flood hit Assam, and Payeng observed that the flow of migratory birds was gradually declining to the forest areas and wetlands near his home and snakes were disappearing in large numbers. This disturbed him.

“I asked my elders, what would they do if all of us die one day, like these snakes. They just laughed and smirked but I knew I had to make the planet greener,” he says.

His village elders told him that with decline in forest cover and deforestation, animals lost their homes. The solution was to build new homes or forests for the animals, they said. (Source)

He alerted the forest department but they asked him to plant trees himself (which he actually did). He located a riverine island, on the banks of River Brahmaputra, and began to plant the saplings. Payeng visited the island and planted a few saplings every day for three decades.

Watering the growing area of plants posed a problem. He could not draw water from the river and water all the growing plants, as the area proved to be vast for one man.

He built a bamboo platform on the top of each sapling and placed earthen pots with small holes in them. The water would gradually drip on the plants below and water them through the week until the pots were drained of water. (Source)



Picture courtesy- Bijit Dutta (Wikimedia Commons)

Next year, in 1980, he started working with the social forestry division of Golaghat district when they launched a scheme of tree plantation on 200 hectares at Aruna Chapori situated at a distance of 5 km from Kokilamukh in Jorhat district.

Payeng was one of the labourers who worked in that 5-year-long project. He chose to stay back after the completion of the project even after other workers left. He looked after the plants and continued to plant more trees on his own, in an effort to transform the area into a forest.

Payeng belongs to a tribe called “Mishing” in Assam, India. He lives in a small hut in the forest with his wife, and his 3 children. He has cattle and buffalo on his farm and sells the milk for his livelihood, which is his only source of income.

“My friends have become engineers and are living in the city. I have sacrificed everything and this Jungle is my home now. The recognition and awards that I have received is my wealth and that makes me the happiest man in the world,” Payeng says.

Payeng was honoured at a public function arranged by the School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University on 22nd April, 2012 for his remarkable achievement.

JNU vice-chancellor Sudhir Kumar Sopory named Jadav Payeng as “Forest Man of India”. In the month of October 2013, he was honoured at the Indian Institute of Forest Management during their annual event ‘Coalescence’. (Source)
 

OrangeFlorian

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Here is a great story of Pamela and Anil Malhotra who created their own forest. They chased the dream for years and created an only private wild life sanctuary of 300 acre of land.


Pamela and Anil Malhotra bought 55 acres of land 23 years ago, and today they have converted it into a beautiful forest of over 300 acres. Here’s how SAI Sanctuary, the only private wildlife sanctuary in India, came to host animals like Bengal Tiger, Sambhar and Asian Elephants.


http://www.thebetterindia.com/16294...e-sanctuary-hosts-animals-like-bengal-tigers/
Thats nice. The world needs more private wildlife sanctuaries.


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HariPrasad-1

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The Man Who Has Created 33 Forests In India – He Can Make One In Your Backyard Too!
Shreya Pareek

July 11, 2014

Bangalore, Bangalore Heroes, Changemakers, Conservation, Environment, Nature, Social Enterprise
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Shubhendu Sharma left his high paying job as an engineer to plant trees for the rest of his life. Using the unique Miyawaki methodology to grow saplings, Afforestt converts any land into a self-sustainable forest in a couple of years. He has successfully created 33 forests across India in two years. Here’s how he made it possible.

Did you know that you could convert a piece of land in your backyard into a beautiful forest within a year? Shubhendu Sharma, an Industrial Engineer, is allowing you to bring nature home.

It all started when Sharma volunteered to assist a naturalist, Akira Miyawaki, to cultivate a forest at the Toyota plant where he worked. Miyawaki’s technique has managed to regenerate forests from Thailand to the Amazon, and Sharma thought to replicate the model in India.



Shubhendu Sharma worked as an engineer for Toyota before he started Afforestt.

Sharma started to experiment with the model and came up with an Indian version after slight modifications using soil amenders. His first tryst with making forests was in his own backyard in Uttarakhand, where he grew a lush green forest within a year’s time. This gave him confidence and he decided to launch it as a full-time initiative. He quit his job and spent almost a year to do research on the methodology.

After much planning, research and enthusiasm, Sharma started Afforestt, an end-to-end service provider for creating natural, wild, maintenance-free, native forests in 2011.

“I realized it can’t be done as a ‘do gooder” activity. If I wanted it to succeed, I had to think it through and come up with a business plan, and a bunch of my friends helped me to set it up,” Sharma says.

Sharma, an Ashoka, TED and INK fellow was clear from the very beginning that Afforestt will be a for-profit organization. He wanted to change the industry and Afforestt was much more than just a business idea for him.

“The idea is to bring back the native forests. They are not only self-sustainable after a couple of years but also are maintenance-free,” Sharma says.

Taking the plunge
Shifting his career wasn’t easy. “Especially, convincing the family was very tough. They could not understand why I was bent on quitting a high-paying engineering job at Toyota to plant trees all my life,” Sharma says.


An empty land converted into a beautiful green spot in 24 months.

Sharma was adamant on making his idea work and started the company without his family’s knowledge; it was only after a couple of months of operation they got to know about it and finally made peace with it.

“My friends were a great support to me which gave me a boost. Till date, they take interest and engage in the activities of Afforestt,” Sharma says.

Having started on his own, Sharma now has a team of 6 that works from Bangalore. Initial troubles with finding the market and sustaining the business were solved to some extent when they received their first order from a German furniture maker to plant about 10,000 trees. Since then, Afforestt has served around 43 clients and planted over 54,000 trees.

How it works?
Afforestt works in two ways. One is end-to-end services, where they provide complete Project Execution and Management services which includes arrangement of labour, materials, equipment, tools and facilities required to execute an afforestation project using the Miyawaki Method. Another way is providing project management, on-site consulting and software support.

The process starts with doing a soil survey and finding out what the soil is missing. The minimum land size should be 1,000 square feet. Then a survey is done to study the native plant species and biomass. After the survey, saplings are prepared in a nursery and soil is mixed with biomass to make it more fertile.

Finally the process of planting 50 to 100 varieties of native species at a density of 3-5/sq meter starts. The last stage involves watering and weeding the area for next two years, after which the forest needs no maintenance and becomes self-sustainable.

Sharma designs and formulates in what pattern, sequence and ratio should the saplings be planted for rapid growth. On an average, a sapling grows approximately 1 meter every year. The biggest plus point of Afforestt is its low-cost model. They charge around Rs. 150 per square foot, which is far less than what a regular Miyawaki method costs.


The unique technique of plantation helps to grow saplings at a speed of around 2 meters per year.

The Challenges
“The biggest challenge was to launch something which had no existing market and we didn’t even know if it ever would,” says Sharma. Forests are something which require space, and not everyone is open to the idea of having a forest in their backyard.

Apart from that, as this is a one-of-its-kind initiative in India, Sharma had to do a lot of research. There was no help available as this had never been done before.

Again, as this was a unique model, finding clients and convincing people that it is actually possible was again a huge task.

What the future holds?
Afforest has created 33 forests so far across 11 cities of India and wants to increase the number. Sharma has a lot of plans to scale up and put this technology out there for more and more people to implement.

He is planning to launch a monitored crowd-sourced software where people will be able to feed their native plantation species in the tool. So, in case someone wants to plant their own forest, they would know what all species to go for. This will make their task a lot easier.

“We want to create a scenario where plucking a fruit from a tree in the backyard will be easier than buying it from the market,” Sharma says.

Lessons learnt
“The biggest lesson that I have learnt is that you need to keep earning money. This is the only way you can sustain your initiative and actually bring a change,” Sharma says.

Another thing he learnt is that people are ready to pay money only if you sell the idea well.“This should become a livelihood cycle, where a lot more people are engaged in afforestation,”Sharma says.

Want a forest of your own? Visit their website

Watch Sharma as he talks more about Afforestt-

Like this story? Or have something to share? Write to us: [email protected], or connect with us on Facebookand Twitter (@thebetterindia).
About the Author: Born with a hobby to travel, talk, express and write, Shreya gets to do all of that and is even paid for it! Interested in rural development and social issues, she dreams of actually bringing a change in society and writing a book of her own one day. When she is not preaching others about a better India she is busy watching movies and playing video games. Follow her on twitter: @shreya08


http://www.thebetterindia.com/12212/forest-backyard-sustainable-environment-afforestt/
 

HariPrasad-1

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Aravali Institute of Management: The Story Of Breathing Life Into A Barren Land
Ipsita Sarkar

September 2, 2013

Changemakers, Inspirational, Interview, Rain Water Harvesting, Rajasthan, Water management
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This is a story of fighting huge odds stacked against you. This is a story of sheer grit and perseverance. This is a story of putting Science and Technology to good use. This is a story of overcoming obstacles like corruption and red tape without compromising on your ethics. This is a story of transforming 95 acres of the ‘worst land in Rajasthan’ into a green campus of an educational institute. Read on.

Once upon a time in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, there used to be this vast land, forsaken by one and all. The highly saline wasteland had been rendered useless, infertile and barren. There was a reason why this 95 acres of plot had the distinction of being ‘the worst land in Rajasthan’. Nothing could be grown, nothing could be constructed and there was no water available on this land. That was in 2005. And then, suddenly it seemed that God showered his blessings like rainfall on this thirsty land.


The parched and arid land, where on non-rainy days, there was no underground water also.

Eight years later, in 2013, a different entity stands at the same spot, at Village Kaparda, Tehsil Bilara, District Jodhpur in Rajasthan. A bright, cheerful campus site greets you today. The land has transformed in colour, appearance and spirit altogether. It has become a greenbelt consisting of over 6000 plants and trees which have grown up to 12 feet. With a total of 15 lakes, made through rain water harvesting, it has a capacity to store around 6 crore litres of water with fishes, frogs and even tortoises in these. It has two large bridges constituting the rain water harvesting structures. This apart, the campus has three large size lawns of 2.5 acres each, with solar lights on the periphery of each and 60 benches made of fibre glass.



Highly uneven patches of land.

The campus that belongs to the Aravali Institute of Management is spread across 28,000 sq. feet of built up space housing the library, computer centre, classrooms, offices, guestrooms with attached bath rooms, electricity room, guard room and stores. There’s also a natural meditation centre, with a capacity to seat around 2000 persons, surrounded by 1500 plants. Today, the site not only invites several thousand students and guests, but also winged visitors in the form of migratory birds visiting the beautiful lakes.


Salt pan with deteriorated soil around.

The person behind this miracle, Varun Arya is a proud man as he recalls how this makeover was brought about, with the trials and tribulations that he faced in the process. However, the change didn’t happen overnight. The start to this difficult journey, for this IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad alumnus, was marred with pessimism from all quarters. He says,

When I left a high paying senior position with the American multinational DuPont 12 years back, people called me a fool. When I chose Jodhpur in Rajasthan as a location for establishing the top-quality educational complex, people called me a big fool. And when I purchased the above wasteland, people called me a bloody fool!


Salt, salt everywhere!

The land where the Aravali Institute of Management stands today was geologically given the thumbs down by experts, recalls Mr Arya. According to ISRO, the campus land was an extreme wasteland and the development of the same for academic purpose was going to cost enormous effort and money. As per the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (Jodhpur), Ministry of Agriculture, the plot lay in a wasteland with high inherent salinity. The salinity also made building construction risky because of corrosion. The Arid Forest Research Institute also came up up with some unfavourable data classifying the sand texture as loamy and the soil depth as 25 to 40 cm (rock beneath).


The fifth lake that was constructed on the site: Water now so pure, so sublime. There are now 15 lakes there, all filled to the brim!

Yet, he went ahead with this land. He reasons,

We really had no choice but to purchase this land since no one else was willing to give us the land with entire payment by cheque. When we got into this educational entrepreneurial venture 14 years back, we had told ourselves that education, by definition, was based on ethics. No compromise under any circumstances irrespective of the difficulties, hardships, sacrifices and struggles.
 

HariPrasad-1

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Tackling the problems one at a time

While everyone was busy, pointing out the problems, Varun was focused on finding and implementing the solutions. In Varun’s words,

This painstaking transformation from wasteland to wonderland has meant a lot of learning from the first principles, many intuitive experiments which fortunately succeeded, enormous efforts with patience and perseverance and investing reasonably large finances.

The following were the problems faced and tackled:


The execution of transformation plans began in right earnest : Water harvesting structures being erected.

English Babool: The purchased land was infested with English Babool, a plant that hindered the growth of other plants and made the land infertile. They had Magsaysay awardee waterman, Mr Rajendra Singh, called in to identify and repair the damage. Following this, they got a JCB machine to remove around 1500 English Babool from the site after several days of hard work.

Land earmarking: It wasn’t easy to construct cemented walls to mark the boundary of the land. The board declaring ownership would be destroyed by local protestors, engaging in reckless vandalism. Also, for the value conscious Varun Arya, paying sizeable cash amounts was never an option to get rid of this problem. Instead, on the advice of an elderly villager, they resorted to speaking to Darbar, ie Maharaja Gaj Singh of Marwah-Jodhpur, who sympathized with the situation. He amicably and peacefully settled matters with the local people, ensuring their co-operation in the project in future. Today, Maharaja Gaj Singh is not only a well-wisher of the project but also the Chairman of the Institute’s Board of Governors. The campus site is currently demarcated by a 3 kms long boundary wall.

e formation of lakes taking place under the guidance of Magsaysay awardee ‘waterman’ Mr. Rajendra Singh.

Water harvesting: Cultivating the flora and fauna of the area was a task that required water. The team had dug up areas in the land for 6 lakes, each up to 10 ft deep, for rainwater harvesting on the advice of Mr Rajendra Singh. This was indeed a testing period. Remembers Mr. Arya:

We had to extensively use blasting since at most places there were rocks beneath. People laughed at seeing the dug up areas, questioning where so much of water would come from in the scanty rains of Rajasthan.

To their happiness, the 6 dug up lake pits got filled with 2.5 crore litres of water in a matter of an hour, with the heavy rains in July 2006. In fact, the water started to overflow with more than a month of incessant rain. But the excitement was short lived as within 3 months, the water had become saline. Saline water was of no use for either construction purpose or for growing plants. They had avoided lining the pits as it was a cost-intensive, non-environment friendly and temporary way of preventing salinity, besides blocking the underground seepage of water. So they relied on Nature to filter out salinity, and they waited for six long years. The salinity gradually decreased with every passing year, till in the sixth year, the water remained sweet throughout the year! Sweet are the fruits of patience and hard work! Encouraged by this success, the team went on to make more lakes on the land and the nearby areas.


The water harvesting structure: The inlet of rain
water at the first rains.

Bridges: Another significant problem on this plot was that there was no proper inlet and outlet for excessive rainwater. The resultant (almost shoulder level) water passage would also make commuting an issue within the land premises. To sort this out, two bridges were constructed on both sides of the boundary in the line of this water passage. Today, these large bridges not only constitute the rainwater harvesting structures, but also enhance the beauty of the campus.

Plantations: Even thinking about plantations in a barren, highly degraded, saline land required courage. With the support of some experts however, this dream became a reality. With the advise and help of Dr. R. L. Srivastava, Indian Forest Service officer of 1978 Batch who was Director of Arid Forest Research Institute (AFRI) at Jodhpur, Mr. Narayan Dass Prajapati, Managing Trustee of Asian Medical Plants & Healthcare Trust at Jodhpur and Mr. Jagdish Kishwan, IFS, Director General, Indian Council of Forestry Research & Education of Ministry of Environment & Forests in the Government of India who advised AFRI to make the plot their experimental site, the team planted around 25 varieties of plants, some salt resistant and some normal ones. The major plants were Khara Jal, Karanj, Kasod, Neem, Peepal and Kumat. Mr Arya explains:

For all the plants, we first dug up a 1m x 1m x 1m pit in the rocky land using JCB. Then we got sweet soil from quite a distance and filled each pit with it after mixing it with traditional fertilizer made of cow dung and goat bits. Then the plant was placed surrounded by the tree guard. The tree guard helped us to place jute cloth around the plant in extreme summer to protect it. We also planted low roots, high foliage plants like castor and sunflower around each plant to protect these from the extreme heat in the summer. At those locations in our land where the salinity was the highest, we first placed a large multilayer jumbo bag and then put the sweet soil inside the said jumbo bag. This multilayer jumbo bag helped greatly in insulating the plant from the seepage of salinity and thus safeguarding its longevity.

Today, the site boasts of 6000 plants, growing up to 12 feet.


Maharaja Gaj Singh-II of Marwar-Jodhpur guiding on the water harvesting structures. He is also the Chairman of Jal Bhagirathi Foundation, set up by him jointly with Magsaysay awardee waterman Mr. Rajendra Singh.

Lawns: In spite of saline land, the team was able to make lawns, initially of around 25 feet by 25 feet in less saline areas. Then they made lawns of similar dimensions in more saline areas as well by demarcating the peripheries of the lawn area with pebbles to raise the level of the lawn and placing sweet soil there. They made 5 such lawns. Gradually, they increased the lawn dimensions for 2 more lawns to 100 m by 100 m each. They installed the sprinkler system to water these lawns, planted Neem trees and also placed solar lights around the lawns. Today these lawns are a key attraction for students (for various activities and sports too) and visitors alike.


First experimental lawn successfully developed, flanked by trees that were planted and nicely grown on the wasteland.

Salinity: When the land was purchased in 2005, it was thickly coated with salt. The problem was primarily combated with natural means that included rainwater harvesting, salt-resistant and salt-absorbent trees and plants and dhencha, a highly nitrogenous plant that greatly reduced salinity.

Construction: Salt blends with lime construction easily, but eats into cement construction, but construction with mudia lime (not easily available either) was 5 times costlier than construction with cement. So the team planned to use lime for construction only till the plinth level, where salinity came into contact. Above plinth level, cement was used for construction. The strength of construction with lime is the least initially but it increases over the passage of time. The strong 550 year old Meherangarh Fort in Jodhpur made with conventional lime is a prime example of this. On the other hand, the strength of construction made with cement is highest initially but it reduces over the period of time. Mr Arya reminisces:

Historically in Rajasthan, the mudia lime was processed using camels. Since we did not have camels, we again did our reasearch. We found a person in Didwana near Nagaur who used to make the machines for processing the mudia lime. We got two such machines custom-made from him. These were made operational using the tractor motor and it really worked.

The success of this experiment was proven to one and all when 3 years later, heavy rains in the region damaged the nearby Pichyak dam and other buildings, creating havoc in the surrounding villages and even came up to their site but could cause no harm thanks to the constructed 3 km long boundary wall.


Use of machine specially got made from Didwana,
near Nagaur, to process the raw lime, which used
to be traditionally processed using camels.

Vegetation: With all the work carried out in the area so far, they have successfully been able to grow a wide variety of vegetables including aloe vera, cucumber, spinach, ladies finger, tomatoes, brinjals, radishes, carrots, etc. The extra effort put in to be able to grow these vegetables involved bringing sweet soil from outside and mixing it with the conventional fertilizer of cow dung and goat bits. The result was that the quality and taste of the vegetables was better than even their market variants. The quality was even lauded by Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission of India and his wife Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia, who visited their site in November, 2008.


Migratory birds flock to the campus site in plenty, and are seen cooling off on the many lakes

Land conversion: Corruption was probably the most difficult obstacle that had to be overcome in setting up the institute. Mr Arya was neither prepared nor willing to compromise on his ethics to secure land meant for as sacred a cause as education. This, in spite of the fact that hurdles loomed large in the form of bribe- and ‘negotiations’-hungry politicians and top-ranking governmental authorities. Illuminating on his plight, Mr Arya says:

I met the highest authorities in the government but none of this helped in any way. Instead, with full force of state, the government unleashed against us several enquiries and false cases including concocted cases even for disturbing peace in the city of Jodhpur, death and molestation. There were attacks on me and my family members to make me surrender to the wishes of the netas and babus. However, I refused to buckle and continued to strive for results while persistently refusing to make any compromise.


Mr. Varun Arya in the Natural Meditation Centre at the site.

It was only after several months of struggle and strife (including a period of fasting at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi) over what rightfully belonged to them and with the extensive support of IITs & IIMs alumni and faculty members, former judges & Chief Justices of High Courts, top officials, academicians, defence officers, social activists, media, lawyers, staff and students of the institute, and also the villagers there, were they finally able to get their due. That is, now they have successfully acquired the conversion approval for the entire 236 bigha of their campus site land.


The students of AIM walking along one of the lakes

Today, their quest for educational entrepreneurship as well as various other societal benefits continues. And they pledge to do this without compromising on their morals. The success story of the Aravali Institute of Management strengthens the belief that it is not only possible to transform a barren land into a greenbelt with hard work and determination, but also challenge corruption with the right ethos and positive values.

Photographs: Courtesy Aravali Institute of Management
 

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The story of Swami Ramdev and Acharya balkrishna is mind boggling. They way duo promoted Patanjali and made it great brand in a very short span is mind boggling. In few years, they rose from missionaries giving medicine to village people carrying same on their head, they are an empire of 10k crore today and all set to take first number on consumer goods brand in India.

Here is a story.

The secret behind Patanjali’s rise and rise

  • PANKAJ GUPTA

  • DEEPAK HIMAN

  • VASANT RAMADOSS


Winning strategies: The services provided at Patanjali stores result in recommendations that go viral - Photo: Kamal Narang

The company’s sales and distribution methods help it to keep its costs low too

Patanjali Ayurved, started in 2006 by the famous Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev, has seen a meteoric rise in the past few years with revenues of ₹5,000 crore in FY16 from ₹450 crore in FY12. While Patanjali’s combination of low prices, ‘natural and pure’ proposition and ‘swadeshi’ positioning are widely acknowledged to be the reasons behind success, what is not that well known is the critical role played by Patanjali’s path-breaking sales and distribution strategy in driving this exceptional growth trajectory.

Patanjali can offer low prices to consumers due to very low selling, administrative and general costs at 2.5 per cent of revenues. Advertising spend in FY 16 at 6 per cent is also well below the peer set. Critically, it has kept retail margins at half or lower levels as compared to competition. The focus of the article is to demystify how Patanjali scaled up distribution in an intensely competitive retail FMCG environment in India despite low retail and A&P spends.

Distribution strategy

Patanjali has followed a two-stage distribution strategy in general trade (GT):

Stage 1: Create a strong alternative distribution system for demand creation and building word-of-mouth advocates

Stage 2: Pivot to GT once a sizeable consumer base is generated from Stage 1



Another distribution system

In a new market, Patanjali first drives trials and consumption using dedicated stores. These stores are essentially Ayurveda clinics, run by entrepreneurs entirely with their own investment. They are of three types – Arogya Kendra, Chikitsalaya and Swadeshi Kendras.

Patanjali extends support in two ways: It trains and certifies medical practitioners nominated by these stores in Ayurveda, and provides usage of the Patanjali brand name. This automatically bestows trust and credibility due to the rub-off effect of Baba Ramdev’s credentials on Yoga and Ayurveda.

In return, these stores provide various services. One is free consultation by certified medical practitioners. This assures high footfalls and likelihood of building a large scale of early adopters. It serves as a retail store. The entire range of around 200-260 SKUs is stocked across both OTC, pharmaceutical and FMCG products and there is typically a weekly replenishment cycle. There is skillful cross-selling across pharmaceutical and FMCG products. The presence of Ayurvedic medical practitioners at the outlet is a major determinant of sales. On the days when the medical practitioner is absent, sales fall 30-40 per cent! The average FMCG throughput per dedicated store is typically at ₹6-7 lakh per month in a metro.

A powerful network effect is seen at these stores. Early adopters bring in additional footfalls through strong word of mouth. The fact that a trustworthy consultation is free in an important area such as healthcare provides a strong hook for passing on recommendations to friends and relatives.

These stores also serve another function – product introductions are done extremely efficiently and decisions to continue tweaking or scaling up the product and communication mix can happen in a short time frame.

Currently, 10,000 dedicated stores (Chikitsalaya, Arogya Kendra, and Swadeshi Kendras) contribute to 60 per cent of the company’s revenues. In Delhi NCR, one of the older markets for Patanjali, there are over 400 of these stores whereas in a newer market such as Mumbai, there are approximately 270 stores.

The pivot to GT

Once a sizeable consumer base is built through these dedicated stores, these consumers would expect Patanjali’s products to be available at general stores, grocers and chemists in the vicinity of the dedicated store. These retailers are then forced to stock up on Patanjali’s products for fear of losing out on a customer’s goodwill. This builds a platform for the next stage of growth.

×
Various towns are at different stages of evolution. For instance, the company’s biggest market, Delhi NCR, is in Stage 2 and is responsible for revenue of ₹1,500 crore.

In 2013, dedicated stores contributed to 80 per cent of total FMCG sales across GT and the dedicated store network. As consumer awareness and pull were created, GT started stocking Patanjali’s top products (oral care and honey) despite uncompetitive margins. This pivot to GT continued resulting in dedicated stores’ contribution falling to around 45 per cent today.

Mumbai is still a Stage 1 market; dedicated stores contribute to around 70 per cent of FMCG sales across the GT and dedicated store network. As consumer trials and consumer pull is created, it is increasingly evident that availability in general trade would increase. Higher incidences of placards outside several outlets stating ‘Patanjali products are available here’ bear testimony to the same.

Alternative channels

While Patanjali’s scorching pace of growth has stupefied most FMCG players, the concept of winning in alternative distribution channels is not new. Select players have adopted a “flanker” strategy to bypass competition, entrench their position, encircle and then launch a frontal attack in mainstream channels.

Notable examples include Starbucks’ consumer packaged goods (CPG) business. Starbucks leveraged its retail store footprint to build a flourishing CPG business. The intent was to capture a larger share of coffee consumption – reaching consumers whenever they want great coffee.

The stores provided a perfect platform to drive effective sampling and build partnerships with retail consumers. Starbucks then enhanced availability through a tie-up with the CPG giant Kraft. Today, with its own network, these at-home consumption products are now available in grocery stores, airports, hotels, and convenience stores as well.

In the case of Yellow Diamond Wafers, the company targeted a relatively lesser contested space – smaller mom-and-pop retailers within the intensely competitive wafers market. Yellow Diamond also provided higher margins than competition to ensure a very high shop share with those retailers. In six years, Yellow Diamond grew to ₹700 crore. Yellow Diamond is now planning to enter the more mainstream bigger retailers.

Developing an alternative channel strategy can help a company create white-space opportunities and dominate them. This approach is valid both for incumbents as well as new entrants into the FMCG market. The question is “will a company take risks in a blue ocean and enjoy the associated upsides or will it try to compete in a red ocean with a classical sales and distribution approach”? Time and risk appetite will separate the winners from the rest of the pack.

(Pankaj Gupta is a Sr. Practice Head of the Consumer & Retail Practice at Tata Strategic. Deepak Himan is an Engagement Manager while Vasant Ramadoss is an Associate Consultant at the same division)

(This article was published on November 3, 2016)
 

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Analysis of Rise of Patanjali
  • Published on August 26, 2016

Shanthipriya Nagarajan


Student at Great Lakes Institute of Management
“What makes Patanjali a credible threat is that it does not try to beat other FMCG companies at their game; it changes the game for them” - IIFL

The herbal products and Ayurveda are not new to the Indian society. Yet here is a company that has created enough ripples in the FMCG sector with its Ayurvedic products and challenging the reign of some of the Giants in the sector. In this article let us discuss the entry of Patanjali into the Indian FMCG sector, its advantages and disadvantages, the challenges faced by the competitors and how Patanjali could keep up its pace in the coming years to become the top brand.

Patanjali Ayurved Limited started as a small pharmacy in Haridwar which was selling Ayurvedic medicines. Patanjali Ayurved Limited was then started by the Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balakrishna as a private limited company. The sole aim of this company is to change the lifestyle of the rural population in India and to help change the unhealthy lifestyle of the Urban Indians. They produce 500 healthy, herbomineral heal care, dental care, food, cosmetics, toiletries, hair care and other products. It was later changed into a public limited company.

The Competition:
The FMCG sector is valued at 436,000 cr in FY 16 with an expect growth to 16, 00,000 cr by 2025 which is around a 14% growth annually. The Ayurvedic products market is said to be growing nearly five per cent higher than the sectoral growth rate. The sector is largely dominated by large MNCs, around 60% and the rest are large Indian corporate houses.



By 2015, PAL has crossed the 2000 Cr mark and is in the third position in the FMCG players list. It is expected to grow its revenues two and a half times every 2 years. At this rate it is expected to hit a 20,000 cr revenue by FY 2020 to become the second largest company, next only to HUL.

Factors leading to PAL’s success:
In this section, we will discuss the success factors that placed PAL at the top of the industry, using the literature of consumer behavior.

Indians are becoming increasingly health conscious. This could be seen from the mushrooming of gyms, diet clinics and organic products. The attitude of consumers towards chemical based products worked towards the success of Patanjali. The natural-herbal-ayurvedic is not new to India, where traditions are still followed and healthy practices are endorsed. Thus the relative advantage and compatibility of PAL was high. Also the complexity was low as it produces the same product categories that people are already using. The trialability is moderate as Patanjali products are currently not available across retail chains or kirana stores. It is available at the Big Bazaars and its exclusive franchise stores. The observability is low as hese products are mostly personal care or food consumables. Also they are available in specific stores and not all.

Patanjali has used an existing belief (Fishbein Model) of ‘natural is healthy’ and has made that belief important in order to change the attitude of consumers. They had the support of Government also. The Indian Government’s Make in India and support for Yoga has increased awareness among customers on health and Indian products. They also increase involvement by adding a moderate amount of fear into the minds of customers. They took advantage of the Maggi (Nestle) incident and came out with instant noodles and marketed it as ‘Cook quickly and consumer it without fear’. It used the central route to educate the customers that its product did not contain harmful monosodium glutamate and lead. In a market that was desperate for having maggi but was not available, Patanjali’s product sold like hot cakes. This was feet in the door for Patanjali to educate the customer on how maggi and its noodles range were similar, while theirs is healthier. Though Baba Ramdev does not hold any percentage of share in the company, he serves as an icon of Yoga and Ayurveda (peripheral route). This has helped Patanjali build its reputation among the citizens.

Patanjali is essentially an underdog in the FMCG space. But it is catching up in a fast pace against the bugger players (the ‘top dogs’). Patanjali dragged the attention of the consumers towards their products by letting them try their product. They struck a deal with the Future Group and placed their products at Big Bazaar. Their products are kept at an exclusive section in the Big Bazaar stores. This increases the learning of customers when the MNC products and herbal Indian products are available at the same shop. He customers tend to compare and look for evidence. The upper class consumers are already well learned and look for natural and herbal products. However, Patanjali disrupts the agenda of a common man by teaching them that herbal is good, Ayurveda is good and chemicals are bad. They use the weapon of tradition and culture to impart knowledge to customer on the credibility of their product. They also impart a feeling of ‘Swadeshi’ by claiming that the products are 100% Made in India, made by Indians. The company also frequently releases videos of their plants in Haridwar which showcases how the soaps/oils/shampoos/noodles are made. This further gives credibility to the products. When the MNC products do not clearly give their processes or their chemical names are not known to the customers, there is an ambiguity if the product is good or not. This has helped Patanjali to disrupt their agenda.

Patanjali’s products were priced lower than the usual product prices in that category and this led to a comparison by customers. Customers compared the features vs benefits and saw that the same features with higher benefits (health and nature) came with a low price. This removed the initial inertia of the customers to shift from their usual brands. This pricing strategy also helped Patanjali to capture the rural markets were HULs and P&Gs of the world.

The Big Giants of the FMCG sector are however refusing the point that Patanjali would grow forever and overtake all of the top players. In an interview to ET Now, Rakesh Biyani, Management of Future Group and members of AAA have commented that it is a false belief that Patanjali might surpass that current market leaders. They pointed out that herbal or Ayurvedic products were not new in the market, but there was always a latent need for these and Patanjali catered to it. But with a new segment that has been opened it would be easier for the giants to take it up as their long term growth strategy. Though Patanjali has imposed a threat to the market leaders currently it would not be too long before they catch up. Patanjali’s advantage was their pricing point. Their strategy was less advertising and cutting labor costs. Many workers in the Patanjali factories worked for social causes.

But the market leaders have a very huge distribution network while Patanjali still is selling through franchisees and own stores. This could collapse Patanjali when the market leaders come up with competitive products. Colgate has already started with its range of herbal toothpastes which has eaten up 7% of Patanjali’s shares.

Recommendations:
  • Increasing distribution network to cover a larger market
  • Sell through all formats as customers who once buy Patanjali products are not able to find these products at ease at a nearby store. This decreases repeat purchase
  • Place the products next to competitor products in the super markets as it would induce comparisons and learning by experience/motivation
  • Increase advertisements as rehearsal leads to memory. Since most customers are not long term oriented, an increased memory will push customers to buy them in the long run
References:

 

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This how Anna Hazare changed Ralegan siddhi and made it a picnic place out of a dry desert sort of village.

Biography | Ralegan siddhi | Watershed development | Anti-corruption movement | RTI | Achievements


The dream of India as a strong nation will not be realised without self-reliant, self-sufficient villages, this can be achieved only through social commitment & involvement of the common man."
- Anna Hazare


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Ralegan siddhi

RALEGAN SIDDHI : A MODEL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Swami Vivekananda’s philosophy has great bearing on Anna Hazare. His thoughts and work have been a constant source of inspiration for him. While serving in the Indian Army, he had decided to dedicate his life to social work, but he did not know how to begin.

While in the army, he used to visit his village for two months, every year during his leave period. The condition of the village was pathetic and awful. The land was barren and undulated. As the village is located in the rain-shadow area, the annual rainfall is a meager 400–500 mm. All of the rainwater use to run off and get wasted. There were no means to harvest this precious resource. Whatever rainwater use to get collected was sufficient to cultivate only one crop on 300–350 acres of land out of a total 2200 acres of land available in village. 80% families were surviving on one square meal in a day.
As food production was insufficient and no employment opportunities were available in the village, some villagers started brewing liquor to earn their livelihood. Gradually the number of breweries rose to 35. They were aware that what they were doing was socially and morally incorrect, but the circumstances forced them to adopt this profession for their livelihood. Some villagers had to walk 5–6 km. each day in search of employment in the nearby villages.
The helplessness due to poverty and indebtedness led people to desperation and ultimately to alcoholism. Quarrels and street fights became daily chores. Hazare’s house was in a hamlet just half a km. away from the centre of the village. Hazare avoided going to the heart of the village due to this pathetic condition. He always felt helpless since he could not do anything to change the conditions prevailing in the village.

When he decided to dedicate his life for social cause in 1975, he believed charity should begin from home. Swami Vivekananda’s words resonated in his mind - people would not listen to philosophical ideologies with empty stomachs. Social change is not possible if people are haunted by the daily problem of making two ends meet. Hazare taxed his brains on how to solve this crucial problem. He remembered that Late Mr. Vilasrao Salunkhe had in 1972, started experiments in watershed development and water management in some villages near Saswad in Pune district. His work used to be frequently discussed in informal gatherings everywhere. So, Hazare visited his project and was inspired. States Hazare, ``This visit gave a direction to my ideas and I decided to undertake similar work of watershed development in my village. ‘’
Hazare then paid a visit to the office of the then Director of Agriculture, Mr. Dikshit, and told him that he had decided to work for betterment of his fellow villagers. He expressed his desire to undertake water conservation work in his village under his guidance. After some days, Mr. Dikshit paid a visit to Ralegan Siddhi along with his subordinates and made a geographical survey. He was convinced that the topography of the village was suitable for undertaking the watershed development programme and took a decision to implement it.



On resumption of the watershed development work in the village, Hazare started supervising the work at sites from dawn to dust, without taking a farthing as remuneration. He considered it as social work; and day by day his experience and knowledge was building up. With his experience and knowledge, he constructed many water harvesting structures with people’s participation. So far, 48 nulla bunds, 5 cement check dams and 16 Gabion structures have been constructed. The villagers under Hazare’s guidance, also undertook fodder development, continuous contour trenches and loose boulder structures on 500 acres of land.

The watershed development work helped in conserving each drop of rainwater in the village itself and in recharging the groundwater aquifers. This ultimately raised the water table. In the same village where earlier it was not possible to cultivate more than 300–350 acres of land for one crop, now the villagers are harvesting two crops in 1500 acres of land. Due to availability of water, the agricultural production has boosted up. The agricultural development has created lot of employment in the village itself. Not only has the distress migration completely stopped, but now wage labourers have to be hired from other villages in order to get various intercultural operations done in time.


Today the villagers have completely given up brewing of liquor. Nobody sells liquor in the village. Further, the shopkeepers do not sell cigarettes, beedies and tobacco too for the last 13 years.




Earlier only 300 liters of milk was sold from the village. Now the milk production has gone up to 4000 liters. This milk is purchased by cooperative and private dairies. This brings in Rs. 1.3 to 1.5 crores (13 to 15 million) annually to the village. The dairy business has flourished as a subsidiary to agriculture which has provided a new income generation avenue to the unemployed youths of the village.

The per capita income of the villagers has increased from Rs. 225 to Rs. 2500. This has completely transformed the economy of the village. The living conditions of the villagers have improved and the gap between the haves and have-nots has narrowed down. After the economic transformation of the village, villagers constructed buildings worth Rs.1 crore (10 million) for school, hostel and gymkhana and renovated the old village temple through financial contributions and shramdan.

Mass marriages are arranged in the village (generally 25 to 30 marriages at a time) in order to curb expenditure. This has helped in removing caste barriers and promoting social cohesiveness.
After the success of watershed development programme in Ralegan Siddhi, Hazare replicated it in the neighbouring four villages. The results are encouraging. Now the same project is being replicated in 80 – 85 villages of Maharashtra. Like any other village in India including Ralegan Siddhi, there was a social problem of untouchability. Today people of all castes and creeds live together in peace like members of the same family. The consecutive droughts led to non-payment of bank loans taken by the Dalit community for agriculture purposes. The bank decided to sell their mortgaged land to recover the loans. At this critical time, rest of the villagers decided to toil on the farmlands of Dalits and repay the loan by harvesting crops. The villagers cultivated their land in 1983-84 and 1984-85 through shramdan (voluntary labour), repaid the bank loan, and saved their land.

In the last 35 years, many institutions and cooperatives like Gram Panchayat, Cooperative Consumer Society, Cooperative Credit Society, Cooperative Dairy, Educational Society, Women’s Organization and Youth Organization, with different mandates are operating in Ralegan Siddhi. Till date no elections were held for the selection of members of these institutions. The members were selected unanimously by the villagers in the Gram Sabha. The Gram Sabha has emerged as a powerful forum for taking collective decisions at the village level. All the developmental programmes are implemented in the village after taking consent of the Gram Sabha.
Since last 15 years, thousands of visitors, not only from neighbouring states of India, but also from abroad, have viusited & are still visiting Ralegan Siddhi to study the impact of watershed development. They include researchers, academicians, farmers, government officials, people’s representatives and students.

While implemainting the watershed program trained manpower is required and realising that there was paucity of trained manpower in Ralegan Siddhi. a training institute to impart training in watershed development was established. So far, about 17–18 thousand people from different states of India have been trained at the Training Centre on Watershed Development.

Ralegan Siddhi should not be viewed from the narrow angle of materialistic development, i.e. structures in watershed or economic development. The developmental process in Ralegan Siddhi is beyond this. There is a social and nationalistic thread passing through the process of change.


The big dams are getting filled with silt due to soil erosion which is the result of uncontrolled tree felling in the catchment areas. No emphasis was given to soil conservation and range development. The top loose soil is getting washed away each year by the rainwater and getting deposited in the big dams. The top soil is the creamy layer of the land. According to scientists, it takes more than hundred years to form 1 inch of top soil. On one hand, this precious resource of top soil is being washed away from the villages; and on the other hand, it is getting deposited in big dams thus reducing the life of the dams. This is going to create many problems in the near future.

All the major cities are supplied drinking water from a nearby dams. All the industries and sugar factories are provided water from the same dams. The hydro-electricity power generation plants are situated on big dams. All these facilities will come to standstill one day when the dams get filled with silt completely. These dams will meet the fate of death; say after 100 or 200 or 500 years. Nobody can avoid this sorry fate. Neither the government nor the people would be able to de-silt these big dams as the back-water spread of these dams is 60 – 90 km. It will not be possible to remove the huge mountain of 90 km. length and 200 – 300 ft. height from the dam site. There won’t be any alternate sites available for construction of new dams. What is going to happen to all these big dams? That is the question.

Transformation of village economy alone could bring in transformation of the economy of the nation. That is possible only through watershed development programme. Today, our concept of development is based on exploitation of environment and humanity. We are dreaming of development by uncontrolled extraction of subsurface and surface resources like petroleum, coal, groundwater, vegetation and aquatic resources.

The growing population is putting tremendous pressure on the available resources. The demands will continue to grow. Villages in India are facing the problem of scarcity of drinking water due to depleted groundwater resource. Water tankers roaming the rural roads for supplying drinking water to villages is a common sight now. If the trend continues in future, one day water will not be available even for supplying by tankers. What will happen to our coming generations if all the resources of groundwater, petroleum and coal exhaust one day?
The development of an individual, family and village is not possible by exploiting environment indiscriminately, but by sustainable use of available resources. Watershed development and water management is the right approach in that direction. Today, every country is facing the problem of environmental degradation. International leaders and scientists are worried about the future of the Earth alike. Watershed development will certainly provide a solution to maintaining ecological balance.
Our idea of development is limited to construction of skyscrapers and wide roads only. On one hand, the height of buildings is going up day by day and; on the other hand, the level of human values is coming down. This is not real development. An individual should be able to stand on his own and at the same time think of betterment of fellow beings, which is true development. One should be able to look beyond oneself, think of one’s neighbour, village and the nation. Today, there is a need to create such individuals who are capable of looking beyond oneself. Such individuals are not created through donations, subsidy and grants. This is possible through local leadership building programme where stress would be given on character, right values and dedication. Somebody has to make sacrifices.
A field full of swaying crop tells us that a grain has buried itself into the ground to give birth to thousands of grains. The grains which do not burry themselves are taken to the flourmill and ground into flour. The grains which sacrifice by burying themselves in the soil, give birth to a swaying field of crop.

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Story of the transformation of a MP village near gujarat Border.

When the old gods died
Sunday 15 February 1998







And then there was green: a vi (Credit: Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain)

this is an amazing story. A story that shows that India can start eradicating poverty very fast and very cheaply. This is the story of the degradation and the regeneration of Jhabua - a poor tribal district of Madhya Pradesh bordering Gujarat. In 1985, when I first visited the district, I thought I had been catapulted to the moon. The degradation was just extraordinary. In 1986, when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi asked me to address his Council of Ministers and subsequently all the 27 Parliamentary Consultative Committees attached to various Union ministries on the state of India's environment, I began all my presentations with the moonscape of Jhabua. "Beware," I used to say. "This is what India is becoming." One minister even said, "Agarwal, you are showing us pralaya (the end of the world in Hindu myths)."

Therefore, when Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, whom I have never met, said that he would be happy to release our latest report on the state of India's environment which focuses on traditional water harvesting systems but that he would like to do so in Jhabua, I readily agreed, because it was over a decade since I had been there. When the time came to go, I was quite unwell and stayed back while my colleague, Sunita Narain, took the train. But Digvijay Singh, who was in Delhi, suggested that I take his plane to go to Jhabua. As I could not say no to his kind gesture, I got out of bed after a two-week-long bout of bronchitis and high fever, and went. On the plane were some senior politicians of the Congress party. The discussions revealed a sense of despair about the state of the country. One of them even said, "Just tell me, even if you or I were to become the prime minister, just what is it that we can change?"

I, therefore, landed in Jhabua feeling dismal. But the rest of the day made me a new man. After the release of the book in front of over 500 village people involved with watershed development, I returned the plane and decided to visit a few villages before I made my way back by car to Indore that night. What I saw was astounding. Instead of a moonscape, there was a land being nursed and being brought back to life with great love and care. Trees were beginning to grow and there was green grass all around. There was good coordination amongst the district officials. And the villagers had formed village-level committees to take charge of the watershed development work. They proudly talked of the enormous benefit they were already reaping because of the increased availability of grass. I asked the district forest officer, "But just what did you do to allow these poor villagers to take control of the management of government forest lands? What laws and rules did you amend?" He stared back at me blankly. "Why, what is the problem?" he asked. I retorted, "But all over the country forest departments just don't allow villagers access to the management of forest lands. It is the most contentious issue in forest management." He still stared at me blankly as if I was asking a meaningless question, which indeed in many ways it is.

I soon understood the reason. The watershed programme in the state is supervised directly by the chief minister (see box: Mission control). Given the political will behind the programme, bureaucratic rigmarole which stifles millions of other innovative efforts, just did not figure in Jhabua. In addition, the chief minister has chosen a bureaucrat who knows the subject to coordinate the programme, unlike hundreds of generalist administrators who don't know or feel anything about anything. On the other hand, R Gopalakrishnan, who was district magistrate of Jhabua in the mid-1980s when the land was reeling under massive and successive droughts, became so interested in land management that he took time off to do a master's on the subject of poverty and environment in usa. In the interim he also took a keen interest in a paper that Sunita and I had written called Towards Green Villages in which we had identified the key lessons of success stories like Sukhomajri in Haryana and Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra. Gopal wanted to go ahead and do a PhD on the subject when Digvijay Singh asked him to coordinate this programme. Gopal took to it like a fish to water. The result: there is rapid regeneration because of the combination of water conservation together with afforestation and natural regeneration, at a cost that is unmatched by any afforestation programme and with no new addition of government babus.

Jhabua is a dramatic story because of the three key ingredients that are missing in most government programmes: political will, competent and committed bureaucratic support, and people's participation. Every politician in India talks about eradication of poverty. But there is not one, I repeat, not one, who knows what to do. The story of Jhabua shows that a beginning can be made and made quite fast. It is a story that people like Atal Behari Vajpayee, Sitaram Kesari, I K Gujral and a host of others should read like a primer. Whether these lacklustre leaders will do so, I do not know. But Jhabua does show that there is no need for dismay. All that is needed is a sense of challenge. My congratulations to Digvijay Singh and Gopal.

After coming back, I sent Down To Earth reporter Richard Mahapatra twice to Jhabua to further investigate its turnaround. I hope his story inspires our readers as it has inspired me. Maybe one day Richard, who comes from Orissa, will do a sequel on why Jhabua is working whereas Kalahandi, with exactly the same kind of ecological and social conditions, is not.

Anil Agarwal


In wonderland


Collecting fodder during the 1 (Credit: Anil Agarwal /CSE)

the tribals have gone to war. The quest: regeneration of the environment. The location Jhabua, an upland in western Madhya Pradesh (mp) with an area of 6,782 sq km and a forest cover of 624 sq km. Almost 80 per cent of this forest is severely degraded or has suffered the ill effects of bad management of natural resources.

Jhabua is a weapon in the political sheath of the chief minister, Digvijay Singh, who made the dream come true. Jhabua is a prime example which proves that if all the mad hatters in the political and administrative system get it into their minds to produce the perfect cup of tea they will eventually come up with the recipe of success that Jhabua is.

There are two types of residents among the villages of Jhabua district. Those who have seen the forest and the jungle and those who were migratory labour, till recently. Gula Ralu is well past his 80th year.He is the eldest amongst the members of the 105 families of Ambakudra village. He has seen the forest and he has seen it vanish. But he feels that of late there is change in the air. The women dress better and the men have stopped running to town in search of jobs. All this has happened in the last three years.

The village used to see 500 people migrating every year in search of work and the women were left to look after the livestock. Three acres of land which had earlier sustained Jadila Bai, her family and her livestock were failing to do so. Getting fodder for the animals was a big problem.

"I used to go to Ratlam, 50 km from here, for a few kg of fodder for my three cows and had to borrow money from the village money lender who charged interest at the rate of 50 to 70 per cent," recounts Jadila Bai. In 1992, Jadila and her husband realised that the cows were a burden. After selling them off for Rs 100 they left for Indore 150 km away in search of work.

But today the hills have turned green and so have the once barren fields in the area. No longer does Jadila Bai have to leave her home. Her daughter who accompanied them during their hardships in 1992, now goes to a school. Her fields yielded one tonne of wheat in 1996 and her savings now amount to Rs 5,000.

Sixty-five-year-old Manna has a similar tale to tell. When the hills were brown his fields were filled with pebbles. Today, his five acres are green with corn and he expects to earn Rs 20,000 by selling the crop. He also manages to sell five litres of milk everyday for Rs 25. From the verge of starvation the villagers of Jhabua have virtually crossed the rainbow to find a pot of gold at the other end. How did this miracle come about?
Crossing the rainbow


Protecting the hills: people h (Credit: Richard Mahapatra /CSE)

the ecological carnage that Jhabua has witnessed in the last five decades is sporadically mentioned in official records. Elder residents, however, remember how the dense forests once enveloped the district.

"Hardly 60 years ago, my home was surrounded by dense forests," says 90-year-old Dholji of Samoi village. "The forests belonged to the king and he allowed us to settle in it. At night tigers roamed around my home and my bow and arrows were ever on the ready."

Today Dholji's home is surrounded by fields. The forest and the tiger have both faded into the mists of time.

From 1963 to 1993 more than 15 per cent of the districts forest and village commons were turned into farmland. By 1993, the dense forest cover shrunk to 4.9 per cent of the geographical area. According to the National Centre for Human Settlement and Environment, Bhopal, the forest working plan for Jhabua in 1964-65 records that the forest cover was 33.3 per cent.

Amlia, an 85-year-old resident of Piplipada village, recalls: "Piplipada was inaccessible 50-60 years ago. My family was employed by the king of Jhabua as a guide for shikar (hunt). The forest was thick with sal trees. Suddenly, there was hectic tree felling and I was employed full time for it along with other villagers."

Golia, a landless villager of Piplipada, who earlier used to live on felling trees for merchants now protects forest lands for regeneration.

"Earlier the forests belonged to the king who never allowed large-scale felling," he says. "We Bhils depend upon the forest for our survival, we never intended to destroy it. Somehow the ownership of the forest changed and the government babus appeared. We saw them helping thekedars (contractors) felling trees. It continued till the forest was given to the gram panchayat (village council)."

While forest officials agree that there was uncontrolled felling of trees, they blame it on the rapid increase in population and resulting pressure on land being brought under the plough.

But, at that time, some people came and told the villagers that the forests belonged to the tribals and they should encroach on them for agriculture. Villagers started clearing the forests for agriculture and constructed houses in different hamlets. The post-independence socialist movement hawked encroachment of the forest, motivating theBhils to convert their private forest lands into agricultural lands to strengthen their rights on it. This led to faster deforestation.

Deforestation resulted in the cultivation of the uplands and brought in its wake the ecological disaster which resulted in a loss of land productivity. It also meant fewer jobs, less income and migration of labour to towns in search of jobs.

Nagu Bhai, a 40-year-old resident of the catchment area of the Hathipawa microshed, and a member of the village forest committee, recalls: "When I was a child the hills were covered by thick forests. They were our only source of livelihood and never failed to sustain us. When the forest vanished, we were orphaned. Only then did we realise that the forest was our god. I had to sell my cattle, as no fodder was available and migrate for months in search of work. But this year I didn't have to migrate, I had surplus fodder and didn't sell my cattle, because I protected the hills."

Making amends
When the Rajiv Gandhi Mission for Watershed Development, ( rgmwd) came to Jhabua on August 20, 1994, it came to a tormented and tortured land. But it came with a healing touch, mending the scars of an ecological ravage.

A decentralised and time-bound programme, the rgmwd started with the objective of improving 12 lakh hectares (ha) of land through watershed treatment within four years.

Previous watershed management programmes had failed to produce the desired results. Unlike the rgmwd,where all activity was put under one body for coordination, these projects were implemented in segments by different departments. Relief operations were ad hoc in nature and soil and water conservation was never given any importance. Implementing agencies also lacked proper guidelines on watershed design and planning. The people were never consulted.

The mission broke all the rules. The people, instead of the bureaucrats, became the decision makers. In 1996 the target of the rgmwd was revised to regreening 28 lakh ha, one per cent of the nation's total land area covering 6,691 villages through 5,024 watersheds. The mission was introduced in 42 of the 45 districts of mp. The mission was started in October 1994 in Jhabua where at present 218 micro-watersheds function, covering 1240 sq km of land - nearly one-fifth of the district. With 12 government agencies and seven non-governmental organisations (ngos) as project implementing agencies, Jhabua has become a model of watershed management.

Surprisingly, the mission was the brainchild of a bureaucrat who was to have been taken into the technology mission initiated by Rajiv Gandhi. R Gopalakrishnan was the collector of Jhabua when it was reeling under the worst drought of the century in 1985. Today he coordinates the Rajiv Gandhi Mission (rgm). It was his experience in Jhabua which inspired him to look for a green poverty eradication measure.

In a research paper for the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship in Cornell, usa , Gopalakrishnan wrote, "The problem of poverty faced by people living in drought-prone districts is linked to the environmental degradation there... this calls for action which can address the linkage."

"Jhabua made me certain that we needed one such system under which not only the problem of poverty could be tackled, but also environmental problems," says Gopalakrishnan. "More so, we needed the system to work under a time frame for result assessment, with the active participation of the people."

"In the last 50 years, you just check out, all programmes and schemes meant for people have not included them. When the end-users are not involved, the system simply doesn't work," he says.

From dreams to reality
When Gopalakrishnan returned to India, his study was accepted by Digvijay Singh as the rgm. Later the mission was expanded to cover other sectors like primary education and rural industrialisation.

The rgmwd is funded by eight schemes, both central and state-level. There are the Drought Prone Areas Programme (dpap) funds and the Employment Assurance Scheme (eas) at the district level. Intensive Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (jry) funds at the district and panchayat level (see graph: Enhanced target), sectoral funds at the district level and funds from the Integrated Watershed Development Programme (iwdp).

It is for the first time that all watershed activities under various departments have been pulled into one body in a major effort to convert community demand into community action. This also meant the creation of several organisations at the grassroots level to implement the scheme. All this meant:
Creating infrastructure for coordination at the block and district level to facilitate planning and implementation at the community level;

Involving the rural folk as the key players in the process of planning, monitoring, management and maintenance;

Helping the locals in decision making by giving them adequate back-up of skilled personnel to assess the technical soundness of their decisions;

Developing an integrated approach to land and water conservation, where the two are perceived as one unit; and

Involving people's representatives and members of Panchayat Raj institutions.

Power flows through the hands of the people into the rgmwd administrative set-up. The monitoring is done at the highest level but bureaucratic meddling is out. Even the political machinery has been short-circuited. In truth, the chief minister is directly linked to the project as the mission-level apex body, the Empowerment Committee is chaired by the state chief secretary who reports directly to the chief minister. Policy matters are aired and thrashed out at this level in the presence of the secretaries of rural development, forests, Panchayat Raj and other members.

These decisions are passed on to the state-level mission office which looks after the administrative jobs. The office is headed by a mission director who is assisted by an advisor and other subordinates. The mission director reports to the rgm coordinator. The office works as the fountainhead for the activities of the other agencies involved in the watershed activities.

The planning implementation agencies form a watershed committee for every micro-watershed of 500 to 1,000 ha. Elected by the gram panchayat, this panel comprises eight to 10 members, one-third of whom are women and another third are from the gram panchayat. In some cases the panchayat sarpanch (village leader) is the head of the panel. In Jhabua, this trend of giving more representation to the panchayat members is more visible.

The watershed committee decides which trees are to be planted. It imparts information on where and how to build check dams, ponds and other structures. Decisions relating to all gulley plugs, contour bunds and boulder checks are shouldered by local initiative. The committee's kitty is replenished from time to time by the planning implementation agencies and the role of the bureaucrat is reduced to giving guidelines on how to spend the money.

Around 10 per cent of the money given to the panel goes into a fund for maintenance. Also, whatever the panel receives as donations and saves on labour through the help of unpaid volunteers is added to a development fund. Here villagers get a chance to function like bureaucrats, using this money for various welfare schemes in the village.

Other community structures which existed before the coming of the project are known as user groups and self help groups. The latter consists of a body of landowners who will directly benefit from watershed management from the user group, which undertakes activities in both government and private lands. Those who don't own land form part of the self help group, a group which generally stands to benefit from the income-generating employment activities in the watershed. There are 25,500 such groups now in the state.

The role of women in the management of land, water, fodder and households is of prime importance. Therefore women's thrift and credit groups have been formed. Social banking of a kind is coming of age in mp. The state has 5,000 such groups where each member contributes Re 1 or more to the bank every day. Each group elects a secretary and the money is kept in her name to be disbursed to members as and when they require loans.

Enhanced targetThe dramatic increase in area under the mission
1995-96 1996-97 Total
EAS
DRAP EAS DRAP
Districts 37 25 42 25
Blocks 297 134 354 134
Milli Watershed 284 139 488 165 653
Micro Watershed 1.859 932 3,220 1,151 4,371
Villagers 2,908 1,559 4,817 1,874 6,691
Coverage(ha) 1,319,393 597,758 2,193,255 730,44 1,923,399
EAS: Employment Assurance Scheme DRAP: Drought Prone Areas Programme
*Milli watersheds cover 5,000-10,000 ha, consisting of several micro-watersheds (500-1,000 ha)
Source: RGMWD

The angry giants


-- (Credit: Shri Krishan)

the pebbles in the fields have become potatoes in the Hathipawa microshed of Jhabua district. In Phoolgaodi village, the villagers are celebrating the Year as the year of the Grass. In 40 ha of degraded government land, the watershed mission took up pasture development, where the production of more than 50,000 kg of grass is going to change the life of the villagers. The government has decided to give this land permanently to the village.

In Kanadipura, a sumptuous meal of aloo - roti (potato and bread) is being prepared in many a household. With the regreening of the hills, the area has become prosperous once again.

All this came cheap. According to Gopalakrishnan, the cost of treating one hectare of land came to Rs 3,000. One of the reasons being that not a single extra official was hired exclusively for this project. Raw material locally available was used for the minor construction work carried out in the area.A B Gupta, the district forest officer, pegs the cost at around Rs 2,500 per ha in Jhabua, while the Dhar district rural development authority (drda) chief claims it to be around Rs 1,800 per ha. One reason for this is that more people are coming in to offer voluntary labour as the benefits of the project are publicised.

Ecological changes in the area are also showing up. The groundwater table has begun to rise (see graph: All's well that ends well). The conservation of soil and water has also changed the crop patterns. In the valley area of the hills, farmers have now started cultivating two crops, including paddy, which requires a lot of water.

The very hills - the angry giants - which contributed to Jhabua's ruin are the reasons for the success of the watershed mission. Nearly 30 per cent of Jhabua's terrain has a gradient and its terrain is the kind that will respond to watershed treatment. The regreening of the hills helped in retarding surface runoff and led to the absorption of water by the ground. But behind all this is the formidable political will of chief minister Digvijay Singh, bludgeoning the hills into submission and the bureaucracy into meek acquiescence.

The other reasons are social. Since 86 per cent of the population is tribal - without distinctions of caste and creed and living under the same economic conditions - the process of convincing the locals about the mission was easy. The equilibrium between nature and people had already been lost and since the rate of migration was unduly high it made the residents highly adaptable to new situations, by exposing them to the world outside their villages.

"This was the only dividend of large migration. It not only helped people in adopting a new concept but also helped the villagers in dealing with officials," says Rajesh Rajouria, drda chief, Jhabua.

Since there was already a joint forestry management programme in existence before the introduction of the mission it also helped as the mission did not have to create a people based superstructure when it began. It was possible for the forest department to smoothly involve the people in the project through village forest councils which had already been set up.

Forward to the future
The ghost of Sukhomajri in Haryana, however, haunts Jhabua. Will the success of Jhabua run out of steam and face a failure similar to that of Sukhomajri is the question in the minds of planners and environmentalists. Sukhomajri was a dream come true for the forest department and the people in Haryana. Then it soured.

Before Sukhomajri the Haryana forest department used to work on public and forest lands. But the work produced further conflicts between local people and foresters. The forest department was obviously not catering to the needs of fuel and fodder, which was alienating the people from the process.

Then came the Sukhomajri experiment, clearly demonstrating to the Haryana forest department that with the involvement of the community the results were long lasting. But no real effort was made to hand over the management of resources to the people. The result was a series of unending conflicts.

At the same time it is necessary to understand the needs of the different classes of people working in the village. Whether they are big, small or marginal farmers. Locally available technology also has to be assessed. The experiment failed in the Mittemari project in Karnataka as a uniform technology package was adopted for all the farmers. Worse, the participation of the people was incidental. No provisions were made for the transfer of the project to the locals once the officials left. So when the government exited, the project collapsed like a house of card.

The ghost of past failures haunts the success story of Jhabua. As fodder has been given prime importance in the project, it is feared that once the forest regenerates, it may lead to a reduction in the quantity of grass available for cattle in the area, leading to a conflict between the largely pastoral population and the forest. But officials and experts feel differently.

People will switch to better livestock and smaller cattle holdings, preferring it to large low-yielding stock, due to the availability of fodder. This will then bring down the demand for fodder, feels P K Mishra, executive director for the Society for Promotion of Wasteland Development (spwd), New Delhi.

"For the tribals, the economy is based upon the ecology of the region," says Mishra, adding that this is due to their dependence on the forest. "Definitely the availability of grass will decrease. But the forest will regenerate and sustain the people." But when the four-year mission is over, and the link between the government and the people, an essential prerequisite to implementing the project, diminishes, will the people be able to manage and will it be possible for them to continue interacting with the government?

In some of the watersheds where the mission is in the process of winding up people still run to officials for the sanctioning of funds and to check out the technicalities involved. It is a natural outcome as villagers are members of different groups and have to manage all the activities. For instance, 17 books of accounts are required to be maintained in a single watershed by a community that is largely illiterate.

However, Gopalakrishnan is upbeat. He has faith in the institution of the watershed committee and the women's thrift and credit organisations which, he feels, have proved themselves to be the power centre of the people at the lowest level. Once the people realise the benefits of the project it is very difficult to see it failing, he believes.

There has been a decrease in the migration rate which is now pegged at 33 per cent and land productivity has gone up. Officials feel these are indications of the project's sustainability.

There is another danger. The danger of conflicts arising over the use of peoples' money. The chances of this increase when funds are managed without any legal sanction or formal modalities.

However, Mishra seems to concur with Gopalakrishnan. "These grassroots organisations have been constructed as the pillars of the watershed activities. When the government was planning for a national programme on watersheds, institution-building was given priority. In mp, these institutions have proved to be effective so they will not create conflicts," says Mishra.

The grassroots organisations under the mission have certain credibility among the villagers as they are non-political. However, as they evolve and become stronger, the panchayat institutions will certainly be facing parallel power centres. To avoid this, district authorities have seen to it that most gram panchayat members become secretaries of the watershed committees. But it is possible that subsequent political interference may result in turning the watershed committees into bodies more political than they are supposed to be. Moreover the chances of conflicts over land are very high as the gram panchayat owns the common land and the committee owns the watershed and the area where the activities are carried out.

In the three years of the mission's work such problems have been noted. The status report of the mission observes that it is much better if the demands of the different groups are placed together and each group gets a feel of the other's demand. This brings out the latent conflicts between the demands. It also highlights the impossibility of meeting the demands of all groups from available resources. Different views of groups and members of groups are reconciled to find out impartial solutions. Efforts to resolve conflicts ensure that the benefits are shared equitably and the assets are maintained jointly by the community itself.

But Mishra is certain that Jhabua is a model that can be emulated nationwide due to its people participatory nature.





Cover Story,


http://www.downtoearth.org.in/coverage/when-the-old-gods-died-21178
 

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