Washed Out in Flood, Razed in earthquake, a Gujarat town bounced back to be the richest Indian town.

HariPrasad-1

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This is a story of a town of Gujarat. It was a nice town happy and flourishing. People were very nice and hospitable as well as very entrepreneur in nature. It had a very nice flourishing ceramic business. It had no water crisis as the Machhu River was flowing just beside the town. There was a dam on it and water used to last till the next monsoon. However, in a heavy monsoon, dam burst and some ten thousand people washed away and lost their life in flood. All housed were destroyed and pet animal died. Generally, it is very difficult to recover from such catastrophe but with very strong will of survivor and NGOs’ support and help of people of Gujarat and Government rehabilitation work, town started building itself once again. It started regaining its glory brick by brick and with the hard work of people who survived. Yes, this is a story of a small town of Gujarat name Morbi.

As town started building itself and regained its lost glory , hard luck struck it once again in 2001. It was struck with rector scale 6 earthquake. Town got badly damaged and many people lost their life. Historical Mani mandir palace also got damaged. Many houses totally razed. Once again very strong NGOs of Gujarat, Arya samaj, RSS came to rescue and a great effort was made in rescuing the people from disaster. Gujarat government also did a fantastic job and build so many very nice Houses for poor people. The endeavor to build town begun once again with survived people. Putting behind all sad incidents and horrible memories, they begun a fresh endeavor to rebuild town from scratch once again.

The entrepreneur minded people started putting up their business once again. The destroyed factories and ceramic units were built once again and this time on much larger scale and with Modern machinery. Electronic business was also rebuild with much larger scale and much more sophistication. The people who were in agriculture, set up their tiles and ceramic units. In blinks of a movements, the city emerged as the world’s second largest Ceramic tiles cluster of the world. The large scale manufacturing made them world's cheapest manufacturer of the ceramic tiles. The Ceramic tiles rate dropped down to INR 30 per Sq ft from INR 60 to 70 a decade ago. All this happened with the small scale units and not with any giant company. Today, the high quality ceramic such as Ceramic Tiles, Bath tubes, Wash Basin Pedestal, Table top Basins, Wash Basin , Pan, Urinal pan, Cups and saucers and other ceramic items of very high quality is manufactured here. The town tops in India in manufacturing roof tiles also and more than half of India’s roof tiles and ceramic tiles is manufactured in a single location. The town has highest density of digital printer in the world. The biggest ceramic tiles 2mX1m is produced here.

This did not stop with only ceramic but extended to electrical and electronic goods as well. In a small time of less than 2 decade, the small electronic units set up few decade back and rebuild after catastrophe became the giant units. Ajanta wall clock unit emerged as the world’s biggest wall clock manufacturing unit. ORPAT brand calculators, cloth Iron, Room Heater, Kitchen Chopper, Mixer, Hand Blander became very famous because of its decent quality and reasonable price. All these small scale units turned Morbi into cluster of ceramic, electronic goods, home appliances etc.

Today Morbi is a town of 1.5 lakh population. It employs 2.5 Lakh people. Collective income of these small scale businesses has crossed Rs 15000 crore i.e 2.2 bn USD. Their way of doing business is very unique. All of them do not keep all the inventories of machinery they require. If machine breaks down, they call their friends and ask for the spare which is returned after purchasing. The expertise and technical knowledge is shared among themselves and if any problem arises in manufacturing, it is sorted out with the help of another manufacturer who has faced and sorted out similar problem. .The evolution of Morbi is an excellent example of community based development. The whole business is run on faith and friendship without any formal agreement. Money is also financed in the similar way. A small chit of paper is kept for keeping the accounts which is destroyed on settlement of accounts leaving no trail of transactions. For short term requirement, money is sourced from friend circle and from relatives and paid back when the requirement is over. There is hardly any formality and pukka agreement. The word of Mouth is final and no cheating is ever done. The town has no bank default of payment and all the money taken on the loan are paid in time. The solvency of bank loan is more than 99%.

The town has risen from ashes after two big natural calamity. Today the town has the highest per capita Income in India surpassing all those IT hubs and manufacturing hubs in India. This region has emerged as the ultra-rich region with prosperity clearly visible across the area including small towns. Luxury cars are commonly visible every next door. Food is served free in many temples and nobody would ever go hungry. People across the country come here to earn their livelihood often decide to stay here because of the treatment they get. The development of Morbi has all potential to be a role model of collective small scale manufacturing cluster. It is a classical case of relationship based, informal socio- economic development based on social relationship, mutual trust and cooperation. Unfortunately, No economist, or so called IIMIAN has ever found any time to study this stunning economic success of a small town which refuses to accept defeat either against circumstances or nature. Mr. Modi has never mentioned it while louding economic success of Gujarat. If I will get a chance, I would certainly like to go to Morbi and stay there for few day to have a closer look at how the businesses are done, its economic success and feasibility to replicate the success in other areas of India. I would certainly like to have at least one thousand such economic cluster in India creating at least 25 million jobs and bringing prosperity to the masses. Unconcerned of anything, the town is flourishing and evolving and it is in race with only itself to touch the new heights of economic successes.

This is an small effort to highlight the success of those brave people who do not want to lose, either against the people or against circumstances or against nature. Ever since I heard S. Gurumurthy mentioning Morbi in one of his Interview, I had a great curiosity to learn about this small town and present it to the masses to make them aware of this untold success story which is by and large hidden from the public. If highlighted, it has a great potential to inspire many people and give them new direction to think and enable interested people to study a new economic model they would probably have never came across.

Copy Right: The article cannot be reproduced without due acknowledgement to the writer Vipul Dave

-Hari Prasad.
 
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HariPrasad-1

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HariPrasad-1

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I saw some awesome Tiles with unimaginable shining with an unbelievable size of 8 Ft X 4 ft. Its is really an impressive piece of tiles.
This model of development may be described as community Participatory model where the problems are issued and solutions are worked out by community by sharing the experiments and experience. Knowledge so generated is passed on and it is worked upon further to take it to a new height.
 

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