Dear Friends,
Greetings from BDT!!!
I am very happy to share BDT progress with you on a regular basis. Over last 30 months, I have tried my best to inform all of you to about the progress of Bihar Development Trust on monthly basis. My sincere apologies for the delay for this update as I got married on 1st of Dec 2009. So, I was unable to write mails due to various marriage rituals spread over a week and preparations over a month.
Bihar Development Trust is making steady progress as planned although slow. We are now a diversified group having interest in Microfinance, Textile and Agribusiness. We are working with Women, rickshaw pullers, weavers, farmers as distinct groups and providing them various services. We are slowly taking shape of conglomerate and emerging as platform where various ideas and people with entrepreneur mind can converge. There is a heartening trend with us as lot of IITians and MBAs from reputed B schools are contacting us for working as partners on BDT platform.
On Microfinance front, BDT has disbursed around 2300 loans of value around 185 lakhs to women borrowers. The portfolio outstanding is 85 lakhs. It is heartening to note that women borrowers of Bihar have honestly returned us over Rs.100 lakhs in last two years. Our confidence in microfinance is increasing day by day and we are very bullish about it. The systems and processes are in place. The banks are very slow in lending in Bihar which is affecting our growth. Our proposals are moving with SBI,UBI,SIDBI, NABARD with its own pace over months. But, we are optimistic and have no choice but keep following up and wait. We have offered personal guarantee to get loans but still loan is eluding BDT. We are trying our best to get loans and grow the microfinance operation. The delay is keeping 100s of women borrower waiting for loans for months. We are trying our best to meet the demand.
On Tasar Silk front, The progress has been good. We have increased the numbers of weavers to be supported by us. Champa Nagar is the new cluster being explored in Bhagalpur. AIACA and SDTT has given us funds. 25 weavers will get pucca floors and work place, toilets and lodipur village will get drainage facility and drinking water facility. Lodipr village will become neat and clean. By provision of clean drinking water and good sanitation, there health cost will decrease by 80%. This support will help the 50 families of Lodipur to improve their quality of lives. Order are coming from Kamdhenu Trust, CFM, and two NRI people from Bihar. We are scaling up. We have been conducting workshop with our weavers on contemporary designs. Fashion designers are visiting Bhagalpur on BDT behalf and training the weavers. The silk initiative has the potential to change the lives of weavers BDT is working with.
On agribusiness front, we are learning the supply chain management. We have supplied 300 tonnes of vermicompost to JEEVIKA programme of Govt of Bihar which will help 1000s of farmers to use it for systemic wheat intensification and increase per acre yield of wheat. The demand was given on very short notice and we managed to supply 40 trucks to districts like Mujaffarpur, khagaria, Nalanda and Purnia. We will be opening Kisan Sewa Kendra in two block of Bihar on pilot basis. These Kisan Sewa Kendra will provide input services like seeds, diesal gensets on rent for irrigation, fertilisers, vermicompost, SRI and SWI techiniques, Processing facilitation, price discovery, internet services, storage facilities and marketing services to farmers. Agri knowledge expert will be hired from rural areas who may not be 10th pass and will be assisted by Agriculture graduates and agri scientists. Workshops will be conducted for farmers to increase production and earn more value out of per unit of land. The focus are on small and marginal farmers.
We have got sanction letter from ITC to start incense stick manufacturing in Jamui. It will create employment of 100 persons around the center. ITC people have finally send the letter but they are too confused and afraid to start it in Naxalite affected region. We believe everyone needs employment and sustainable economic activity. We are hopeful of ITC will release the money and center will be started. Without basic processing machines, we can not supply bamboo slices to SHG members to be converted into incense sticks. Without Gen sets, the machines can not be operated. ITC programme officers are unable to understand the basic issues of production. They are more afraid of naxalites damaging the production center.
One of the problems we are facing is the sector specific focus of donor agencies. Every one is saying that this is age of specialisation. Everyone is advising not to diversify. Microfinance donor says that do only microfinance. But they do not understand that Bihar does not need only microfinance. Lot of work needs to be done simultaneously to develop a geography. Our focus is Bihar as a geography not microfinance as an activity. Creating employment and livelihood opportunities for millions of people of Bihar is our goal. They should earn well in their home and improve their quality of life. Microfinance support the livelihood by providing capital to grow of business for entrepreneurs who know how to do business. Not everyone can use credit and start their own. We tried to provide microfinance loans to weavers but failed. They needed work which can be created by bringing orders. So, we focussed on marketing for weavers so that they get work. Farmers need lot of inputs besides microfinance. We are planning to learn with farmers and become farmers ourselves and demonstrate the kind of money creation opportunities in agriculture.
We are ready to burn our fingers. We found out that we are not smart guys who learns from other mistakes and read from books. We went through the destruction of our microfinance and livelihood and supply chain knowledge and learn hard way when groups failed, when truckers refused to send trucks after promising and when driver refused to drive the truck after banana got loaded on Trucks. We are finding the truth of life that we read in MBA courses by doing the same mistakes that so called Guru profess. But, we are hellbent on surviving and making it Big. The ambition and passion for Bihar is increasing day by day. The harder some body hit us , the harder we rebound. We are learning that there are groups that are afraid of our emergence. This include the professionally qualified groups as well as entrepreneurs. We can grow together and make a better Bihar. We can create win win solutions together. We need all kind of entrepreneurs who can create employment.
BDT is emerging as a platform for economic development and taking a shape of movement. We are confident that we will get 500 energetic youth , one for each block of Bihar who will lead development in their block and create employment and wealth through their entrepreneurial ventures. We started as two and now we are four professionals managing various functions. We are getting queries from 3-4 more persons who have impeccable degrees and passion. As for families whom they belong, they have gone mad. Bihar needs such mad people. The movement for Bihar Development is gathering pace and we can feel it.
We are thankful to FWWB, BASIX, RGVN,TMN,INDIAN BANK, PNB, AIF, SIDBI, CFM, Kamdhenu Trust, Ford Foundation, SDTT, AIACA,ITC and many others for supporting BDT and believing in the cause of Bihar Development.
Thank you for reading such a long post.
Regards
Dr. Ravi Chandra
Monday, December 14, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
At a monday morning, I am thinking about the last three years of Bihar Development Trust . It has been a whirlwind drive , a roller coaster ride. Starting with no idea except development of Bihar to finally a diversified group with interest in Microfinance, Textile, Agribusiness. Starting with two people to a 30 people team working in various programmes. Somehow, a shape is being visible far away. Either we emerge as an INFOSYS or TATA Group, it has to be seen. As there are 4 indepenedent promoters from 2 to start with and whose number will keep on increasing as we need manpower and money, we seem to be following INFOSYS model. INFOSYS is a group of 7 people leading a team of more than a lakh professionals. We may be same as Infosys. But, our domain is not single one. We are already in 3 verticals and trying to consolidate that. Then, wwe will increasing our verticals as Bihar need power, many more factories of production and services. We may be building power plants albeit from renewable sources for rural electrification . We may be building biggest decentralised handloom production system of textile in Bhagalpur. We may be building food processing factories as well as creating Kisan Sewa Kendra and rural godowns.
Activity wise, we are following TATA model with BDT becoming a holding trust for Microfinance, Textile and Agribusiness and many other initiative.
I do not know when and how we throught 20 billion dollar dream for Bihar. But, as we are growing through struggle, the convictions seems on getting stronger and stronger. All 4 promoters now believe strongly that a 20 billion dollar enterprise is possible in Bihar. The journey started with 2 promoters with 5000 rupees. The journey has reached to a balance sheet size of 2 crores in three years. It took three months to open a bank account. Now, banks are requesting to open accounts in their branches.
Over the last 3 years, we have been able to reach 3000 families and providing them some services. This is a miniscule fraction of 10 lakh families that we seek to reach. But, we have started and journey continues.
This is a long journey and we are just started walking. We know that we have to keep walking........................... Keep Walking........................
Activity wise, we are following TATA model with BDT becoming a holding trust for Microfinance, Textile and Agribusiness and many other initiative.
I do not know when and how we throught 20 billion dollar dream for Bihar. But, as we are growing through struggle, the convictions seems on getting stronger and stronger. All 4 promoters now believe strongly that a 20 billion dollar enterprise is possible in Bihar. The journey started with 2 promoters with 5000 rupees. The journey has reached to a balance sheet size of 2 crores in three years. It took three months to open a bank account. Now, banks are requesting to open accounts in their branches.
Over the last 3 years, we have been able to reach 3000 families and providing them some services. This is a miniscule fraction of 10 lakh families that we seek to reach. But, we have started and journey continues.
This is a long journey and we are just started walking. We know that we have to keep walking........................... Keep Walking........................
Saturday, May 30, 2009
A positive Story on Bihar in WALL STREET JOURNAL
APRIL 10, 2009 India Defies Slump, Powered by Growth in Poor Rural States Article
By PETER WONACOTT
DEV KULI VILLAGE, India -- This country's path out of the global economic turmoil may start here, among a community of outcastes who dine on rats.
In Bihar, India's poorest and least literate major state, the Mushahar are the poorest and least literate. Most are farm laborers. About one in 10 can read. So impoverished is this group that they hunt field rats to supplement a deprived diet. Mushahar is Hindi for "rat eater."
But the outlook for the state's two million Mushahar has brightened in the past year. Thanks to government aid programs, more Mushahar children are attending school. Increased state investment in roads and local factories has put their parents to work. Demand for laborers has pushed up wages for field work.
Bouncing Up From the Bottom Rung
View Slideshow
Peter Wonacott/The Wall Street Journal
The one-room primary school for Mushahar children at Bihar's Dev Kuli village, where several hundred of the low-caste Mushahar families live.
In a sign of the times, a government proposal to promote rat farming was ridiculed by the Mushahar, the very group of untouchables, or Dalits, it was supposed to benefit. They worried it would pull their children out of school and extend a social stigma to the next generation. Some protested on the streets of Bihar's capital, Patna, shouting: "We want to learn to use a computer mouse, not catch mice."
The Mushahar in Bihar are part of a political and economic shift that is building across the Indian countryside. The transformation, largely driven by development spending by national and state policy makers, will be put to a test starting next week. The world's largest democracy kicks off a month of polling April 16 in which many of the leaders behind these experiments are seeking re-election.
Growth has slowed in the new India of technology outsourcing, property development and securities trade. But old India -- the rural sector that is home to 700 million of the country's billion-plus people -- shows signs it can pick up the slack. The rural awakening helps explain why India continues to grow even as the U.S. recession drags on the world economy.
The change is largely political. In years past, many state leaders rode to power with vows to give voice to lower-caste voters. But after failing for the most part to lift living standards, these officials have been replaced in many cases by leaders who have. In poor and largely rural states from Orissa in the east to Rajasthan in the west, many new leaders have invested in health, education and infrastructure. That has set the stage for the creation of industry and consumer markets and enabled upward mobility.
It's unclear whether development spending in rural India will spark longer-term expansion. "Up till now, a lot of our growth has been bubble growth," says Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman of Infosys Technologies Ltd., a software and outsourcing company. "That makes the internal reforms even more important now, so we create momentum for future growth."
Teaching India's Untouchables
3:18
India's lowest castes, the Dalits, are known for their illiteracy and deep poverty. But in rural India, something remarkable is happening: Dalit children are attending elementary school. Peter Wonacott reports from India.
The rural economic rise is recent, with few figures yet available for 2008. In the five-year period ending in 2007, rural Indians' consumer spending grew faster than that of city dwellers, according to Indian brokerage IIFL. Rural India has surpassed urban centers in the number of households earning $2,000 a year, above which families begin to have disposable income.
Companies from Coca-Cola Co. to telecom provider Reliance Communications India Ltd. say rising sales in once-spurned rural areas are driving their India growth. The Indian unit of LG Electronics, which sells low-voltage appliances for power-deprived areas, expects rural areas to account for 45% of its Indian sales this year, up from 35% last year. Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., a car and tractor maker, says it couldn't keep up with orders for its new Xylo, a cross between a minivan and SUV, in part because of surprising rural demand.
"If any one part of the economy is decoupled from the global crisis, it is India's rural sector," says Anand Mahindra, vice chairman of auto maker's parent company, Mahindra Group.
Tariff Barriers
The countryside's strength comes in part from a trade policy that free-market economists say may hurt India in the long run. Tariffs on agricultural imports are among the world's highest and may have deterred investment in rural India. But these tariffs have also sheltered swaths of the country. An estimated 88% of India's rural incomes are tied to activities inside those markets, according to IIFL.
Even slight improvements here are significant, economists say, because they build on a base of practically zero. "For so long, these states were a drag on our economy," says Surjit Bhalla, head of Oxus Research & Investments, an advisory firm in New Delhi. "Now larger rural populations can become a fillip to growth."
India's economy has held up better than most, in spite of slowing tech sales and falling real-estate and stock markets. The International Monetary Fund projects India will grow 5.1% in 2009, faster than Brazil (1.8%) and Russia (-0.7%). India is also closing the gap on China, whose 6.7% projected growth for 2009 marks a sharp decline from recent double-digit gains.
Bihar, which borders Nepal, was once a breadbasket of eastern India. But it largely missed out on the economic miracle of the last decade. In the 1990s, as India's economy expanded about 5% a year, Bihar barely grew.
Infrastructure was poor. Farm goods often rotted before reaching the market. Amid corruption and rampant crime, the state was branded India's "kidnap capital." The young left to seek education and jobs.
More than half Bihar's 83 million residents live below the international poverty line of about $1 dollar a day. Fewer than half are literate. The state attracted $167 million in foreign direct investment between 1994 and 2004, a period when India as a whole attracted $29 billion.
Government Open House
In recent years, political candidates won elections with promises to empower to lower-caste voters. But education, health and infrastructure projects were often neglected, presenting opportunity for opponents. In late 2005, a former railways minister from a low-caste background, Nitish Kumar, became chief minister, the leader of Bihar state.
Breaking from the torpid bureaucracy of his predecessors, the 58-year-old Mr. Kumar has tried to prod the government machinery into action. He hosts Monday open houses at his residence, where ministers and department secretaries are required to field public complaints. Bureaucrats must also accompany him to town-hall meetings in far corners of the state, where they pitch tents in fields. His critics say the exercises simply aim to drum up votes; Mr. Kumar says an open government serves the people and the economy.
"My message is that democracy should provide solutions to the problems," he said in an interview at his residence, where he wore traditional white linen trousers and shirt.
With an alliance led by his ruling Janata Dal (United) party, Mr. Kumar has built thousands of miles of roads. He has hired 200,000 schoolteachers and is recruiting 100,000 more. He has lured private-clinic doctors back to public hospitals.
Development projects and strong harvests have helped Bihar's economy close the gap with the national average. The state is growing at an annual rate of about 5.5%, and that is expected to accelerate, according to the Asian Development Research Institute. The number of people migrating out dropped 27% in the 2006-08 period compared with 2001-03, according to the Bihar Institute of Economic Studies, a local think tank.
Homes in a Gully
One of Mr. Kumar's toughest challenges is improving the lot of the Mushahar in places like Dev Kuli village.
Home to about 10,000 people, Dev Kuli is surrounded by farming hamlets and abuts a two-lane highway where long-haul trucks blast their air horns as they rumble toward New Delhi. The lives of all residents, from low caste to high, have long revolved around the rice and wheat harvests.
Special Coverage: India Elections
See news, analysis and opinion from The Wall Street Journal on India's elections.
Several hundred village families are outcaste Mushahar, who live among goats, pigs and swarms of flies in a dried-out gully. The government began to build brick houses but left them without windows or doors.
As a caste the government has identified as "extremely backward," the Mushahar will be eligible for a $57 million government program that will provide families with a water supply, toilets, radios and educational support, according to Vijoy Prakash, the principal secretary for two government departments dedicated to low-caste assistance.
On Mr. Prakash's desk sits a stuffed rat, a reminder of who such programs aim to help. Yet he says past efforts have failed in part because only 9% of the Mushahar can read. "This is the group that has remained excluded from India's growth," he says.
As the sun came up on a recent day, a group of Mushahar gathered round a water pump to wash clothes. Later in the morning a long line of Mushahar children made their way up a mud embankment and, in a profound departure from community tradition, headed to primary school.
Parents complain that their children face discrimination even at Dev Kuli's one-room school for Mushahar children, the name of which translates as "Slum People's Primary School." Children from other castes attend a school nearby.
The government has repaired the school's roof in recent months, hired a new teacher and added an extra bathroom to provide privacy for girls. Even so, the school doesn't have chairs or desks, so students sit on empty grain bags and write on a cement floor covered with dirt.
Each day, a group of government-hired Mushahar, known as "motivators," roust children from their homes and escort them to class. Motivator Phulwanti Devi, a recent and rare Mushahar college graduate, says she battles parents almost every morning to release their children from farm work.
"We tell them, 'It will improve their future,'" says Ms. Devi, 25 years old.
"They reply, 'We don't see that you have such a good job.' I tell them: 'I have a diploma, and so I can get a better job. What about you?'"
Still, Ms. Devi and other motivators say attendance at the school has grown. Teachers say about 150 children are enrolled. On a recent day, the motivators rounded up about half that many.
There are other challenges. Some motivators say they haven't been paid their salaries of 2,000 rupees a month, about $40. Local officials occasionally tell teachers to skip class to conduct government work, such as counting votes at election time.
Mr. Prakash, the secretary for lower castes, says the motivators will soon be paid from funds his department has set aside. Bihar's education secretary, Anjani Kumar Singh, says a Bihar court has ruled that teachers can't skip class for government work, but admitted the order could be hard to enforce at election time.
Spicy Masala
Generating genuine business activity among a largely illiterate community hasn't been easy, either, judging by Mr. Prakash's rat-farming initiative. He estimated that three million people in the state would welcome a stable supply of the protein-rich meat.
Many Mushahar say they enjoy the meat, typically barbecued or cooked with a spicy masala, and believe it keeps their hair dark. But many resented being pushed into farming them. "If we get involved in rat farming, our children will also get involved," says Ms. Devi.
After some Mushahar protested in Patna late last summer, Mr. Kumar, the chief minister, shelved the proposal.
Yet Dev Kuli's economy has improved. The infrastructure push has created jobs building and repairing roads. That has helped bring factories to the area, say locals, including a steel mill and a cola-bottling plant. Those jobs have boosted farm wages to the point where the Mushahar won't work in the fields for less than about $2 a day, says Raj Ballabh Raji, a local farmer from a different caste.
Mr. Raji, who now works his six acres with a new tractor, notes one more sign of prosperity. "You can now find a petrol pump within a mile of here," he says in a tone of pleasant surprise. "The economy is changing."
—Manoj Chaurasia in Patna and Vibhuti Agarwal in New Delhi contributed to this article.
Write to Peter Wonacott at peter.wonacott@wsj.com
By PETER WONACOTT
DEV KULI VILLAGE, India -- This country's path out of the global economic turmoil may start here, among a community of outcastes who dine on rats.
In Bihar, India's poorest and least literate major state, the Mushahar are the poorest and least literate. Most are farm laborers. About one in 10 can read. So impoverished is this group that they hunt field rats to supplement a deprived diet. Mushahar is Hindi for "rat eater."
But the outlook for the state's two million Mushahar has brightened in the past year. Thanks to government aid programs, more Mushahar children are attending school. Increased state investment in roads and local factories has put their parents to work. Demand for laborers has pushed up wages for field work.
Bouncing Up From the Bottom Rung
View Slideshow
Peter Wonacott/The Wall Street Journal
The one-room primary school for Mushahar children at Bihar's Dev Kuli village, where several hundred of the low-caste Mushahar families live.
In a sign of the times, a government proposal to promote rat farming was ridiculed by the Mushahar, the very group of untouchables, or Dalits, it was supposed to benefit. They worried it would pull their children out of school and extend a social stigma to the next generation. Some protested on the streets of Bihar's capital, Patna, shouting: "We want to learn to use a computer mouse, not catch mice."
The Mushahar in Bihar are part of a political and economic shift that is building across the Indian countryside. The transformation, largely driven by development spending by national and state policy makers, will be put to a test starting next week. The world's largest democracy kicks off a month of polling April 16 in which many of the leaders behind these experiments are seeking re-election.
Growth has slowed in the new India of technology outsourcing, property development and securities trade. But old India -- the rural sector that is home to 700 million of the country's billion-plus people -- shows signs it can pick up the slack. The rural awakening helps explain why India continues to grow even as the U.S. recession drags on the world economy.
The change is largely political. In years past, many state leaders rode to power with vows to give voice to lower-caste voters. But after failing for the most part to lift living standards, these officials have been replaced in many cases by leaders who have. In poor and largely rural states from Orissa in the east to Rajasthan in the west, many new leaders have invested in health, education and infrastructure. That has set the stage for the creation of industry and consumer markets and enabled upward mobility.
It's unclear whether development spending in rural India will spark longer-term expansion. "Up till now, a lot of our growth has been bubble growth," says Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman of Infosys Technologies Ltd., a software and outsourcing company. "That makes the internal reforms even more important now, so we create momentum for future growth."
Teaching India's Untouchables
3:18
India's lowest castes, the Dalits, are known for their illiteracy and deep poverty. But in rural India, something remarkable is happening: Dalit children are attending elementary school. Peter Wonacott reports from India.
The rural economic rise is recent, with few figures yet available for 2008. In the five-year period ending in 2007, rural Indians' consumer spending grew faster than that of city dwellers, according to Indian brokerage IIFL. Rural India has surpassed urban centers in the number of households earning $2,000 a year, above which families begin to have disposable income.
Companies from Coca-Cola Co. to telecom provider Reliance Communications India Ltd. say rising sales in once-spurned rural areas are driving their India growth. The Indian unit of LG Electronics, which sells low-voltage appliances for power-deprived areas, expects rural areas to account for 45% of its Indian sales this year, up from 35% last year. Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., a car and tractor maker, says it couldn't keep up with orders for its new Xylo, a cross between a minivan and SUV, in part because of surprising rural demand.
"If any one part of the economy is decoupled from the global crisis, it is India's rural sector," says Anand Mahindra, vice chairman of auto maker's parent company, Mahindra Group.
Tariff Barriers
The countryside's strength comes in part from a trade policy that free-market economists say may hurt India in the long run. Tariffs on agricultural imports are among the world's highest and may have deterred investment in rural India. But these tariffs have also sheltered swaths of the country. An estimated 88% of India's rural incomes are tied to activities inside those markets, according to IIFL.
Even slight improvements here are significant, economists say, because they build on a base of practically zero. "For so long, these states were a drag on our economy," says Surjit Bhalla, head of Oxus Research & Investments, an advisory firm in New Delhi. "Now larger rural populations can become a fillip to growth."
India's economy has held up better than most, in spite of slowing tech sales and falling real-estate and stock markets. The International Monetary Fund projects India will grow 5.1% in 2009, faster than Brazil (1.8%) and Russia (-0.7%). India is also closing the gap on China, whose 6.7% projected growth for 2009 marks a sharp decline from recent double-digit gains.
Bihar, which borders Nepal, was once a breadbasket of eastern India. But it largely missed out on the economic miracle of the last decade. In the 1990s, as India's economy expanded about 5% a year, Bihar barely grew.
Infrastructure was poor. Farm goods often rotted before reaching the market. Amid corruption and rampant crime, the state was branded India's "kidnap capital." The young left to seek education and jobs.
More than half Bihar's 83 million residents live below the international poverty line of about $1 dollar a day. Fewer than half are literate. The state attracted $167 million in foreign direct investment between 1994 and 2004, a period when India as a whole attracted $29 billion.
Government Open House
In recent years, political candidates won elections with promises to empower to lower-caste voters. But education, health and infrastructure projects were often neglected, presenting opportunity for opponents. In late 2005, a former railways minister from a low-caste background, Nitish Kumar, became chief minister, the leader of Bihar state.
Breaking from the torpid bureaucracy of his predecessors, the 58-year-old Mr. Kumar has tried to prod the government machinery into action. He hosts Monday open houses at his residence, where ministers and department secretaries are required to field public complaints. Bureaucrats must also accompany him to town-hall meetings in far corners of the state, where they pitch tents in fields. His critics say the exercises simply aim to drum up votes; Mr. Kumar says an open government serves the people and the economy.
"My message is that democracy should provide solutions to the problems," he said in an interview at his residence, where he wore traditional white linen trousers and shirt.
With an alliance led by his ruling Janata Dal (United) party, Mr. Kumar has built thousands of miles of roads. He has hired 200,000 schoolteachers and is recruiting 100,000 more. He has lured private-clinic doctors back to public hospitals.
Development projects and strong harvests have helped Bihar's economy close the gap with the national average. The state is growing at an annual rate of about 5.5%, and that is expected to accelerate, according to the Asian Development Research Institute. The number of people migrating out dropped 27% in the 2006-08 period compared with 2001-03, according to the Bihar Institute of Economic Studies, a local think tank.
Homes in a Gully
One of Mr. Kumar's toughest challenges is improving the lot of the Mushahar in places like Dev Kuli village.
Home to about 10,000 people, Dev Kuli is surrounded by farming hamlets and abuts a two-lane highway where long-haul trucks blast their air horns as they rumble toward New Delhi. The lives of all residents, from low caste to high, have long revolved around the rice and wheat harvests.
Special Coverage: India Elections
See news, analysis and opinion from The Wall Street Journal on India's elections.
Several hundred village families are outcaste Mushahar, who live among goats, pigs and swarms of flies in a dried-out gully. The government began to build brick houses but left them without windows or doors.
As a caste the government has identified as "extremely backward," the Mushahar will be eligible for a $57 million government program that will provide families with a water supply, toilets, radios and educational support, according to Vijoy Prakash, the principal secretary for two government departments dedicated to low-caste assistance.
On Mr. Prakash's desk sits a stuffed rat, a reminder of who such programs aim to help. Yet he says past efforts have failed in part because only 9% of the Mushahar can read. "This is the group that has remained excluded from India's growth," he says.
As the sun came up on a recent day, a group of Mushahar gathered round a water pump to wash clothes. Later in the morning a long line of Mushahar children made their way up a mud embankment and, in a profound departure from community tradition, headed to primary school.
Parents complain that their children face discrimination even at Dev Kuli's one-room school for Mushahar children, the name of which translates as "Slum People's Primary School." Children from other castes attend a school nearby.
The government has repaired the school's roof in recent months, hired a new teacher and added an extra bathroom to provide privacy for girls. Even so, the school doesn't have chairs or desks, so students sit on empty grain bags and write on a cement floor covered with dirt.
Each day, a group of government-hired Mushahar, known as "motivators," roust children from their homes and escort them to class. Motivator Phulwanti Devi, a recent and rare Mushahar college graduate, says she battles parents almost every morning to release their children from farm work.
"We tell them, 'It will improve their future,'" says Ms. Devi, 25 years old.
"They reply, 'We don't see that you have such a good job.' I tell them: 'I have a diploma, and so I can get a better job. What about you?'"
Still, Ms. Devi and other motivators say attendance at the school has grown. Teachers say about 150 children are enrolled. On a recent day, the motivators rounded up about half that many.
There are other challenges. Some motivators say they haven't been paid their salaries of 2,000 rupees a month, about $40. Local officials occasionally tell teachers to skip class to conduct government work, such as counting votes at election time.
Mr. Prakash, the secretary for lower castes, says the motivators will soon be paid from funds his department has set aside. Bihar's education secretary, Anjani Kumar Singh, says a Bihar court has ruled that teachers can't skip class for government work, but admitted the order could be hard to enforce at election time.
Spicy Masala
Generating genuine business activity among a largely illiterate community hasn't been easy, either, judging by Mr. Prakash's rat-farming initiative. He estimated that three million people in the state would welcome a stable supply of the protein-rich meat.
Many Mushahar say they enjoy the meat, typically barbecued or cooked with a spicy masala, and believe it keeps their hair dark. But many resented being pushed into farming them. "If we get involved in rat farming, our children will also get involved," says Ms. Devi.
After some Mushahar protested in Patna late last summer, Mr. Kumar, the chief minister, shelved the proposal.
Yet Dev Kuli's economy has improved. The infrastructure push has created jobs building and repairing roads. That has helped bring factories to the area, say locals, including a steel mill and a cola-bottling plant. Those jobs have boosted farm wages to the point where the Mushahar won't work in the fields for less than about $2 a day, says Raj Ballabh Raji, a local farmer from a different caste.
Mr. Raji, who now works his six acres with a new tractor, notes one more sign of prosperity. "You can now find a petrol pump within a mile of here," he says in a tone of pleasant surprise. "The economy is changing."
—Manoj Chaurasia in Patna and Vibhuti Agarwal in New Delhi contributed to this article.
Write to Peter Wonacott at peter.wonacott@wsj.com
Monday, February 23, 2009
GIVE FUND TO BDT
Dear Friends,
Greetings!!!
We are happy to share the growth of Bihar Development Trust with you. Without your support and good wishes, we may not have survived two years. Over the last two years, we have lots of problems and tribulations but some how we keep surviving. Generally, it is said that first 1000 days for a organisation is crucial for its long term survival. We have crossed 700 days of our existence and hope to cross the 1000 days milestone with glory.
Over the last two years, we have not done any charismatic changes on the ground. We have given loans to 750 women borrowers who do not have access to credit from formal system. These women are returning loans which is commendable and needs to be celebrated in Bihar. We are trying to help 30 weavers to earn their livelihood through market orders. To help them in retaining their traditional weaving and giving them enough work so that they need not to migrate. We have much more to do for them. We are planning financial inclusion for our silk weavers. We have been forming producer company in which weavers have been made shareholder. We have worked in september providing food and clothes to flood affected people in Kharik Block. Recently, Bihar Chief Minister visited the same Kazikoraiyya village where we have distributed food and clothes and promised solution for these flood affected villages.
Our achivement is not that we may have provided some services to women , silk weavers or flood relief. If we have not been there, some other agency would have been doing that and many more are doing. We have been able to demonstrate to some extent that middle class educated youth can turn entrepreneur in Bihar by virtue of its professional education. There will be difficulties but if you dont have the guts to face the problems, you should not turn entrepreneur.
Our biggest battle is to get Loans in Bihar. Banks officials have simple abandoned to lend to entrepreneurs in Bihar. They simply say that we dont give loans in Bihar. If you dont give loans, then why are you having branches in Bihar. Just to suck out money from Bihar and give it to some project in Gujarat or Maharashtra or other states. Entrepreneurs in Bihar are as much creditworthy as outside. We are presenting ourselves as a serious credit worthy organisation. Only thing is that we do not have much collateral to offer. Our Networth will be 15 lakhs but we need crores of loan. We have fixed assets worth Rs.15 lakhs. Our debt equity ratio is 2.15:1. Our balance sheet size will be 80 lakhs for FY 2008-2009. This battle is still being fought upon.
Bihar is looking like a positive investment destination. People are enquiring a lot about starting an enterprise to us on daily basis. People are deriving hope from us. Bihar Development Trust is a good investment opportunity for people who have social inclination and not looking for astronomical return. Stock market has crashed and returns expectation is lower now. We are seeking corpus donation from people who wish to give back some thing to Bihar. We are seeking loans from people who own some companies and can give inter organisation loans. We are seeking monetary donation from people who wish to contribute for Bihar Development through us.
We would like to clarify that our plans for this year may include Bhagalpur, Patna, Munger, Banka, Jamui etc. We plan to expand to all district in Bihar in a gradual manner while doing significant work in each district. Our area of activities will include Microfinance, Tusser Silk weavers livelihood and their financial inclusion, Micro insurance of LIC, dairy, agarbatti stick manufacturing, health camps etc.
Our dream is to create 20 billion dollar enterprise in Bihar.
Kindly visit www.bihardev.pbwiki.com for all kind of information about Bihar Development Trust.
Regards
Ravi Chandra
--
Dr Ravi Chandra
Managing Trustee
Bihar Development Trust
Ph-9470017752
bihardev@gmail.com
www.bihardev.org.in
www.bihardev.pbwiki.com
http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=34946028
http://picasaweb.google.com/rchandra1231/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bihardevelopmenttrust
Bihar Development Trust is an idea to adapt GRAMEEN and AMUL model to Bihar context and in different services and commodities supported by most efficient technologies.We have dreamt of building a US$20 billion enterprise in Bihar by 2020. The areas of opportunities are very common ideas like microfinance, handloom and handicrafts, fruits and vegetable, Agricultural commodities, health care and education, power and BPO(animation,graphics etc),carbon trading and tourism etc. We believe in executing things in Bihar which many big companies finds unable to do it.
Greetings!!!
We are happy to share the growth of Bihar Development Trust with you. Without your support and good wishes, we may not have survived two years. Over the last two years, we have lots of problems and tribulations but some how we keep surviving. Generally, it is said that first 1000 days for a organisation is crucial for its long term survival. We have crossed 700 days of our existence and hope to cross the 1000 days milestone with glory.
Over the last two years, we have not done any charismatic changes on the ground. We have given loans to 750 women borrowers who do not have access to credit from formal system. These women are returning loans which is commendable and needs to be celebrated in Bihar. We are trying to help 30 weavers to earn their livelihood through market orders. To help them in retaining their traditional weaving and giving them enough work so that they need not to migrate. We have much more to do for them. We are planning financial inclusion for our silk weavers. We have been forming producer company in which weavers have been made shareholder. We have worked in september providing food and clothes to flood affected people in Kharik Block. Recently, Bihar Chief Minister visited the same Kazikoraiyya village where we have distributed food and clothes and promised solution for these flood affected villages.
Our achivement is not that we may have provided some services to women , silk weavers or flood relief. If we have not been there, some other agency would have been doing that and many more are doing. We have been able to demonstrate to some extent that middle class educated youth can turn entrepreneur in Bihar by virtue of its professional education. There will be difficulties but if you dont have the guts to face the problems, you should not turn entrepreneur.
Our biggest battle is to get Loans in Bihar. Banks officials have simple abandoned to lend to entrepreneurs in Bihar. They simply say that we dont give loans in Bihar. If you dont give loans, then why are you having branches in Bihar. Just to suck out money from Bihar and give it to some project in Gujarat or Maharashtra or other states. Entrepreneurs in Bihar are as much creditworthy as outside. We are presenting ourselves as a serious credit worthy organisation. Only thing is that we do not have much collateral to offer. Our Networth will be 15 lakhs but we need crores of loan. We have fixed assets worth Rs.15 lakhs. Our debt equity ratio is 2.15:1. Our balance sheet size will be 80 lakhs for FY 2008-2009. This battle is still being fought upon.
Bihar is looking like a positive investment destination. People are enquiring a lot about starting an enterprise to us on daily basis. People are deriving hope from us. Bihar Development Trust is a good investment opportunity for people who have social inclination and not looking for astronomical return. Stock market has crashed and returns expectation is lower now. We are seeking corpus donation from people who wish to give back some thing to Bihar. We are seeking loans from people who own some companies and can give inter organisation loans. We are seeking monetary donation from people who wish to contribute for Bihar Development through us.
We would like to clarify that our plans for this year may include Bhagalpur, Patna, Munger, Banka, Jamui etc. We plan to expand to all district in Bihar in a gradual manner while doing significant work in each district. Our area of activities will include Microfinance, Tusser Silk weavers livelihood and their financial inclusion, Micro insurance of LIC, dairy, agarbatti stick manufacturing, health camps etc.
Our dream is to create 20 billion dollar enterprise in Bihar.
Kindly visit www.bihardev.pbwiki.com for all kind of information about Bihar Development Trust.
Regards
Ravi Chandra
--
Dr Ravi Chandra
Managing Trustee
Bihar Development Trust
Ph-9470017752
bihardev@gmail.com
www.bihardev.org.in
www.bihardev.pbwiki.com
http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=34946028
http://picasaweb.google.com/rchandra1231/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bihardevelopmenttrust
Bihar Development Trust is an idea to adapt GRAMEEN and AMUL model to Bihar context and in different services and commodities supported by most efficient technologies.We have dreamt of building a US$20 billion enterprise in Bihar by 2020. The areas of opportunities are very common ideas like microfinance, handloom and handicrafts, fruits and vegetable, Agricultural commodities, health care and education, power and BPO(animation,graphics etc),carbon trading and tourism etc. We believe in executing things in Bihar which many big companies finds unable to do it.
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