It was a smartly-turned out batch of trainees that the CM, Sheila Dikshit, met yesterday, at Savda Ghevra re-settlement colony. Seeing them, it was hard to believe that these confident youngsters were, until just three weeks ago, just another bunch of aimless guys and girls who would surely not be part of the ‘India Shining’ story.

Hats off to the team from our partner -Dr Reddy’s Foundation(DRF)- for their efforts to transform the lives of these 100-odd people. By April, these kids would have specialised in either Customer Care, Retail, Sales, Hospitality or Auto Repair, and be geared up to enter India’s booming service sector. As the CM walked around the classes, the first signs of this promising future were already evident. Confidence, optimism and good cheer were in evidence rather than cynicism and bitterness.

Among the large group of ‘basti’ residents who had gathered to meet the CM were the parents of these youngsters. For them, it would’ve been immensely gratifying to see the change, especially when some of them went up on stage and took a pledge to make their family, community and country proud.

For us, at Growth-for-All, this has been a proud and satisfying moment.

It signifies that our first ‘pilot’ project at Savda Ghevra has started off well. Our entire model for integrated development hinges on working with the best external partners for each aspect. In that respect, our close working relationship with DRF, and our ability to facilitate and support their work, were on test. The first signs are that we’ve passed this test.

This bodes well for the future. Please wish us good luck!

On September 19th, we walked into the CM, Sheila Dikshit’s residence( thanks to a meeting fixed by my friend, Kanika Mathur, and her mother, Mrs Rajni Mathur) to describe the Growth-for-All model, and seek her advice for using this in Delhi. We hardly thought things would move so fast. But, the CMO quickly arranged for us to meet various stake-holders and before we knew it, we were in Savda Ghevra.

( As an aside, I must add that all our interactions with the CMO have been so dynamic that it goes contrary to popular perceptions that governments move slowly. Just about everyone-Principal Secretary to CM, Mr P.K Tripathi; Addnl Secretary to CM, Mrs Alka Diwan; Jt Secretary, Mr Kulanand Joshi; SuperintendentBhagidari, Mr Manoj Jain-has completely welcoming and responsive)

Its been an hectic, but energizing period for the team at Growth-for-All. We’ve spent the past few months creating the building blocks that will give shape to our ‘movement’ that helps achieve inclusive’ growth & faster socio-economic development through an integrated, scaleable model.

Thanks to the CM’s Office, we’ve had the opportunity to launch our first pilot project at Savda Ghevra, the large re-settlement colony in North-West Delhi. Several week-ends and holidays were spent at Savda Ghevra, and it soon became apparent that this would be truly a test-case for the Growth-for-All model, which believes that each poor neighborhood or local community needs to have multiple ‘inputs’ dove-tailed simultaneously: livelihood, health, education, women’s empowerment, and whatever else is required.

With most Savda Ghevra families desperately looking for livelihood, this became the first focus for Growth-for-All. We quickly introduced Dr Reddy’s Foundation (DRF)to the community, and their livelihood program for the first batch of youth got underway. Three months from now, 100-150 youngsters will find jobs in hospitality, retail, sales, customer service, and auto repair. Repeat batches will then begin. A big ‘thank you’ to the dedicated, committed team at DRF-Amit Sharma, Sunil Sharma, and Gaurav- who’ve spent countless hours and road-miles with us, giving shape to this.

Meanwhile, I was joined by two exciting people as full-time members of the team- Shakti Callikan, and Mathew Mathai. My 3-month-long search for the ideal team-mates had ended, with Shakti and Mathew coming on-board, in February.

Our collective energies are now deployed in exploring a range of micro-enterprise options for the residents of Savda Ghevra, especially women. These include – carpet weaving, food products, assembly of kitchen appliances, running sales kiosks, offering community services, BPO services, and lots more.While livelihood programs get underway, detailed blueprints have been drawn up for upping the ante on health services - additional doctor(s) and clinic(s), specialized health camps and consultation, an ambulance service. In education, innovative education formats for school drop-outs, and adult illiterates are being explored.
While basic, and tangible areas like livelihood, health and education are vital priority, the socio-cultural environment cannot be ignored. Hence, Music & Sports - as a means of recreation & enjoyments, as well as away of building self-confidence and camaraderie. My friend, Hemu Javeri, flew down from Mumbai one week-end, to commit his support for a Music academy where 100 or more young girls will be provided formal training in music. The really-talented ones will be given special, individual coaching, as well as scholarships.

Watch out for more updates from Savda Ghevra as these programs get rolled out. And also, from Alwar district where our second- rural- project gets underway soon.
 

Ever wondered how different life in a big, glitzy city like Delhi or Mumbai would be if:
• no one in the family had a regular job, and one constantly wondered where the next meal would come from?
• the only hope of earning a possible daily wage lay in commuting 3 hours each way?
• the family just had a plot of land- 12 sq.m – and no ‘pucca’ house?
• there was no running water anywhere in the colony, and one had to fight a crowd to get to one of the Jal Board tankers that wandered in nearby?
• no proper toilets existed, and public places were the only option?
• one part-time doctor( 9 am-1 pm) catered to the needs of 7000 families? And due to the mad rush, the doctor spent precisely 20 seconds with you.

• no convenient hospital existed nearby in case of emergency or deliveries?
I discovered that this is how the 7000 families of Savda Ghevra lead their lives. As apparently does 50% of Delhi’s population.

Commonwealth Games, the Metro, a new airport, Gurgaon Expressway, new malls…. all these are part of Delhi’s exciting transformation that’s currently underway. Progress on these projects, their launch( and the opening glitches!) are stuff that newspaper headlines and party conversations are made of.
But the other side of this magnificent urban development is something that rarely makes headlines. The Savda Ghevra story is part of that ‘other side’.

 
For these families(‘below-poverty-line’ migrants originally from Eastern   Uttar Pradesh  , West Bengal, Bihar , Assam & Gujarat.), hasty and unplanned re-location has led to every kind of imaginable problem- lack of livelihoods, basic water & sanitation, adequate education and primary health services.
Savda Ghevra is symptomatic of the problems being created by rapid urbanization and migration. As Deepa Bajaj of NGO, Child Survival India(CSI) says, “As per the estimates of Economic Survey of Delhi (2000), the combined  population of  such resettlement and slum areas  is 72.5 lakhs ,which is  more than half of the total population of Delhi . Since  late nineties & 2000 ,the Delhi government has relocated a lot of slums from main city  to the rural outskirts of the city”. 

I first heard about Jaipur Rugs Co from the ‘Rural Business Hubs’ team at CII. But, when I finally made the trip to Jaipur and met them, it blew my mind.

N.K Chaudhary, M.D, Jaipur Rugs, is one of the most unassuming and modest persons I have met. But, his dreams for rural artisans have been anything but small.

From modest beginnings in the late-90s, his ‘Jaipur Rugs Company’ has built its entire business model around having village artisans work as entrepreneurs. Today, 25000 artisans- mainly women- engage in weaving or reeling as a home-based occupation. Jaipur Rugs Co provides ‘door service’ to these artisans by delivering raw materials, providing training and quality checks, arranging financing for looms, and picking up the semi-finished carpets and rugs.
The scale and efficiency of this outsourced manufacturing model is astounding, and clearly a win-win arrangement for the company as well as artisans. Weavers across eight states( Gujarat, Rajasthan, UP, Bihar, Jharkand, Orissa, West Bengal and Nagaland) earn 80/- to 100/- per day. Before Jaipur Rugs Co came into the picture, they could typically earn just about 30/- with middlemen pocketing most of the margins.

With his belief that “enabling is more important than charity”, N.K Chaudhary is committed to adding 5000 looms and engaging 30,000 more artisans in the near future.
An important outcome of my trip was that we got his agreement to try out the same model with urban poor, by working with us in Delhi.

Overarching visions, massive scale, and rapid execution have been the hallmarks of India’s 21st century corporate giants. None typifies this better than ICICI Bank, whose transformation into India’s leading consumer bank and mega financial institution will remain a case study for times to come.
So, it isn’t surprising to see the same spirit underlying a brand new institution that is being spearheaded by Nachiket Mor, and which aims to bring about a paradigm shift in the social sector.
By putting together a slightly-complex structure of organizations( ICICI Foundation, IFMR Trust, Network Enterprises Fund, CSO Partners, etc), Nachiket and his team are aiming to create an enduring focus on sustainable development, via the ‘for-profit’ route. Their firm belief is that sustainable development cannot be achieved via recurring grants to NGOs or others, but only through a combination of low-cost products; debt and equity funding; and tools, know-how and market linkages.
At the heart of this strategy is their current effort to develop complete solutions for as many as 14 different verticals like Crafts, Dairy and Foods to fascinatingly interesting ones like Rural Tourism, and Rural BPO. By working as ‘market-makers’( i.e. creating linkages between supply chain and market demand) in each sector, they hope to massively impact livelihoods and enterprise development in each of these areas.
While many of these verticals are still work-in-progress, it was great to see the progress in the established ones like Foods, where the team’s efforts are enabling fruit farmers in Himachal’s Bhuira village to scale up their operations by accessing more markets for their jams, marmalades, preserves, and chutneys.
There’s truly a serious effort on here to bring a paradigm shift in the social sector. If anyone can make it happen, this team can.

During my interactions with various people trying to innovate in the social sector, I’ve met lots of interesting people. High energy levels, minds buzzing with ideas, and passion seem to be the common denominator. Satya( V. Satyanarayana) and Dyan( Dyan Belliapa) fit this description aptly.
Alumnus of School of Planning, Ahmedabad, Satya and Dyan have decided to give up a mainstream career in order to focus on low-cost housing. Their firm, Aarusha Homes, hopes to be a facilitator-cum-consultant that aggregates housing demand among the poor, and also help low-income groups in many other ways.
Despite meeting him early morning on a cold winter day, Satya was bubbling with ideas for what can be done to provide innovative housing solutions to the residents of re-settlement colonies in Delhi who have just 12 sq.m each.

Going forward, I am quite sure that we’ll have a lot to do with Satya and Dyan.

Vineet Rai( of Intellecap & Aavishkar) is one of the most interesting people I have met in the social sector. His fertile mind has been responsible for a Social VC Fund( Aavishkar), a leading Microfinance consulting firm( Intellecap), and now a unique franchising model to take microfinance to every nook and cranny of the country( Intellecash).
Simply put, Intellecash is ‘micro-finance in a box”!
Through a franchising model, Intellecash offers to help local entrepreneurs set up a micro-finance business. What it offers in ‘a box’ is tools, training, processes, and hand-holding. When I met Vineet, his team- led by Chris Mitchell- was living inside Holambi Kalan( North-West Delhi), in order to hand-hold the Delhi-based microfinance institution, Aajeevika, which has engaged Intellecash.

Apart from Delhi, this franchising model is underway in Maharashtra, HP and Mizoram.
The Intellecash hypothesis is that micro-finance has yet not focused on the really-poor states of North & East India. To be able to do so rapidly, only a leveraged model like franchising can deliver.
While the jury is out on the eventual success of this ambitious plan, Intellecash is busy identifying interested entrepreneurs who may be keen to take the franchising option to run micro-finance ventures in their local markets.
Given my firm belief in leveraged, outsourced models to drive reach in a vast country like India, I would place my bets on the Intellecash strategy.

Since early-2007, when I started spending time with NGOs, and in the field, I’ve been repeatedly told that micro-finance won’t fly in an urban setting. Many reasons have been proffered – that SHGs can’t be formed due to group heterogeneity, that peer pressure is not strong enough to guarantee repayments, etc.
So, when Vineet Rai( CEO of Intellecap & Aavishkar) introduced me to Aajeevika, which works at Holambi Kalan and Bawana, in Delhi, it was nice to see this myth being broken.
At Holambi, a resettlement colony in North-West Delhi, Aajeevika has over 1500 ‘loan-members’, across 150 ‘centers’. This approach bypasses the traditional rural SHG model completely, and has a zero incubation period. Prospective members are administered a ‘Group Recognition Test’ to determine whether group dynamics within the ‘center’will work out fine. Starting with loan sizes of Rs 1500/- to 2000/-, these gradually increase to sums upwards of Rs 5000/-.
I had the opportunity to spend time with several ‘centers’.

Each ‘center’ has a fixed, weekly time for its meeting, and members adopt all its rituals, including punctuality and an ‘oath’( where they re-affirm their commitment to each other, and to repay any loans taken).

At one of these ‘centers’( “AHP2018”), Center Manager Madhuri discussed loans that various members wanted;  Rajvanti wanted Rs 8000/- for building her house, Malti for her vegetable shop expenses.

  One interesting encounter was with Kunti Devi who wanted Rs 5000/- to buy a machine for her husband’s welding shop. I had the chance to talk to her husband, Dileep Sharma, as well, and ask him about his feelings regarding his wife’s use of microfinance to fund his business. It was nice to see him being completely open about this.

MFIs like Aajeevika completely recognize that members will often use these loans for non-productive or consumption-linked purposes. For instance, Rajvanti had earlier taken a loan for building a house, but used it meet expenses relating to her son’s illness.

All in all, it was nice to see one more myth being broken. Innovations and progress in the social sector will require us to demolish many more myths ruthlessly.

I spent two interesting days visiting the villages around Udaipur, and especially the Ubeswar area. My local host, Dr O.S.Rathore( former Principal of Agriculture College, Udaipur), took me to village Bujdha, which has a population of 4500, of whom over 1000 are tribals.
The highlight of this trip was my meeting with a gentleman called Vardi Chand, who has created a remarkable business around Vermi-compost and organic farming.
Until a few years ago, Vardi Chand was a salaried employee earning Rs 3000/- p.m. Today, he has transformed into a new-age businessman producing 20 tonnes of organic manure each month, and selling them via internet, to customers spread across the country. Besides this, he raises and sells organically-produced wheat and vegetables to hotels who value this.
It was fascinating to see how Vardi Chand, with some help from his son, actually runs a website www.organicfarmingindia.com out of this small village. By using this site for e-commerce, he converts the dung produced by his 40 cows into marketable organic manure, that earns him over Rs 4 lakhs p.a..

Can there be a better example of bridging the digital divide?
The internet truly symbolizes the global, connected world. Likewise, the current fad for organic foods could be dismissed as the fancy of the rich. What on earth could either of these two symbols have to do with poor farmers in India who have more-pressing, survival issues to address. The deteriorating state of the poor Indian farmer, and the globalising world have often been considered by observers to be opposing trends.
But, does it have to be that way? Can the two trends work with, and support each other, rather than be antagonistic?
The Vardi Chand example shows that the Digital Divide can indeed be bridged. As organic food sales($40 billion in 2006, and currently account for 1–2% of total food sales worldwide) grow rapidly, in both developed and developing markets, it is likely that farmers in India can draw inspiration from him, and reach out to national and global markets.