We started at 0715 hrs from Sachin Kher’s place. Sachin’s company – Alten Expert Global – is helping Mukesh’s NGO with some of their Karjat projects. We left the expressway at the Khalapur exit – and then went under the expressway towards Karjat. We joined the old Pune Mumbai highway and had a breakfast pit-stop at an Udipi restaurant at the Kalyan / Karjat turn-off. We were at Karjat by 0930 hrs. Had a short chat with the owner of Shelke resort, where Mukesh was staying.

Shelke saab grew up selling karvanda on the Karjat Mumbai local trains. He tried his hand at a lot of small businesses – and did miserably in most of them. He remembers one failure well – he had tried starting a poultry farm on borrowed money. Because of excessive heat, all his poultry had died. The sahukar put pressure on him to return the Rs. 5,000 loan – and in filmy style asked him to send his wife over for a night in case the money could not be returned. Shelke was so distressed after this conversation that he decided to end his life. He got onto his two wheeler and decided to leave the world at 100 kmph. The accident did happen, but our friend ended up being in a hospital in this world itself. He has some very interesting murals on the first floor of the hotel, which narrate his rags to riches story.

One of the Murals

He went on to do some odd jobs – and during one of his errands, he got noticed by folks who were doing some contract work for Reliance. He was taken in by them – and soon was helping Reliance buy land from the adivasi community in the Karjat area. He was soon on a contract himself, where Reliance would pay him a fee for every acre that got purchased. Reliance was a fair paymaster – and the land owners were also well compensated for the land. Shelke saab helped the group buy a few hundred acres of land – and ended up being fairly prosperous himself. He runs a hotel cum resort, about a km from Karjat railway station.

Mukesh, The Maestro at Work

The Maestro’s Assistant

Mukesh has been working in the Raigad / Palghar / Thane belt for many years now, and I have been wanting to visit with him for many years. For those not in the know, Mukesh took a very offbeat track after his MBA – joining BAIF, where he had a long stint working with disadvantaged adivasi communities in this belt. He switched over https://www.aiilsg.org/ in 2006. The acronym stands for All India Institute for Local Self Government. In an era of super specialisation, AIISLG stands out for taking a holistic approach to the communities it works with.

When Mukesh’s team starts work in a village, they look at livelihoods, sustainability, health, nutrition, migration and education. We visited one such village to find out what the approach is. We started by spending time in the Samaj Mandir (Community hall) of the village. Megha, an M.Com graduate, is the Shiksha Mitra associated with the village. There is a government run primary school in the village. Kids usually drop in at the Mandir a couple of hours before school starts and continue their activities in the two hours after school also. Megha is helped by another teacher who visits for a shorter time. The Mandir works like a tuition center of sorts – as Megha helps kids revise tables etc. There is also a library with a few dozen books – and some activity tools. When the children are in school, shikshan mitras spend time on activities with parents and community about health, nutrition and livelihoods.

While speaking with the team later on, I realised that only 30% of kids actually complete their grade 10. One of the key reasons is that the local school stops at grade 4. High school is in a village, which is about 4 km away. This is an hour’s walk one way – so a kid needs to really be quite enthusiastic to undertake these journeys. The Karjat terrain is also hilly, so cycling also turns out to be not too time saving. Even when students do reach, they are not very enthused about absent teachers. No surprise that 70% of students have dropped out at this stage. One idea is to offer students to complete schooling in the Samaj Mandir itself. And if affiliation is a problem, students can do the grade 10 exams through National Institute of Open Schooling. Peer learning is much more effective than conventional teacher led learning.

We then went on to study livelihoods. The land plots are small – and are all in hilly zones surrounded by forests. There is good rainfall, averaging around 4000 mm, but the water drains off pretty fast. The plot sizes are too small for constructing bunds or ponds. The approach taken by the NGO is to develop small orchards for families. In a budget of around Rs. 30-40 K per family, AIISLG organises for saplings of fruit trees like mango, jamun and jackfruit. They also ensure that amla, behara and herda trees are planted alongside. (The fruits of these three trees are the ingredients for triphala.) AIISLG also uses neem cakes near the roots, which act as rodent deterrents. The mixed plantation in the mini orchard ensures income streams through the year. Mixed cropping is more robust than a single species plantation. The orchard can resist pests better as their spread is reduced.

The saplings are supported by bamboo posts. Two vertical posts are dug in a line which is perpendicular to the most prevalent wind direction – west to east. The sapling is at the center of these two posts. After sapling has been covered with loose soil, one stomps around the soil to firm it up. This creates a stable foundation for the root system. To firm up things better, a horizontal bamboo is then tied between the posts around 20 cm above the ground. The sapling stem is tied to this horizontal post. If the sapling is not supported with this arrangement, then the stem creates a hollow where it enters the ground – and water accumulates there. This can damage the roots during the monsoon.

Jackfruit Tree planted by Yours Truly

The plot is fenced in to prevent cattle and goats eating up the saplings. Some of the fences were made from wooden poles and barbed wire. We also saw one which was made entirely from dried biomass. One idea we discussed was to make a living fence. Unfortunately bamboo does not grow linearly, else it would have made an amazing fence. One idea is to use the karvanda shrub as a fence. With its preponderance of thorns, even goats will have a hard time eating its fruit. Unlike the goats, we managed to eat quite a few in the shrubs that were growing wild in the area.

Karvanda Bush

Families also have small vegetable patches inside these plots. These are enclosed in old saris. These saris serve two purposes. They keep out the hens and chickens, which are able to cross the barbed wire barriers. The other is to keep some of the moisture in – so that watering requirement comes down.

Saw sugar beet creepers growing in one of the patches. In the monsoon, creepers with vegetables like cucumbers and gourds are also grown on the plot boundary fences.

Beet Creeper

AIISLG also makes a small pond on the edge of the plot. The size is about 10 ft by 5 ft – and it has a depth of 2-3 ft. This pond is lined with plastic sheet – and is used to store the tanker water, which is supplied every fortnight. My suggestion was to situate the pond at the lower elevation and channel some of the rainwater into the pond to reduce a few tanker trips. One more idea we can experiment with is to recycle the waste plastic to create sheets which can be used as pond liners.

Plastic Pond

I also got an insight into the rationale for vanva – or grass burning. One of the reasons why farmers burn their fields is that it reduces the density of the grass seed – and also kills many of the pests which would otherwise have destroyed their crops. (The side effects of global warming should nor worry these folks too much. Probably, they can ask their city dwelling brothers and sisters to stop burning petrol and diesel as a prerequisite to stop vanva.) Another interesting burning practice is to collect fallen leaves and make a 20 ft by 10 ft by 1 ft bed. This is then burnt just before the start of the monsoon. This intense burning ensures that the ground below the rice sapling nurseries are totally free of pests and grasses. Fun fact: a rice sapling when it is replanted, multiplies 4 times through vegetative propagation. 

We had lunch with the family of one of the shikshan mitras. The menu included nachni bhakri, mahua veggies and dal-rice. Interestingly, families use oil extracted from mahua seed for their cooking. It is used in a subsistence sort of way, so you can’t buy the oil in stores. In a conversation last week with a school friend, I was told that Indian cuisine of a couple of hundred years ago did not actually use too much oil. They instead used oilseeds like mustard, coconut and groundnut in the marination, which would release their own oils in cooking. I discussed this method with Sunanda tai, who handles the cooking department of our household, and she did not seem to be too enthused about this. We could also see each household creating an inventory of wood for use in the rainy season. Wonder if we entrepreneurs can create some cheap biomass pelletizers to be used for cooking. Another observation was that all the plastic gets burnt at the villages, notwithstanding any appeals for ola and sukha kachra by the government. Why does this plastic not get used in chullahs?

The end of lunch was greeted with the start of a good downpour, which ended as we ended our journey with Mukesh. After guzzling down a few cups of tea, we started on our return journey. Was happy to buy some local mangoes, jackfruits, jamuns and karvanda on the road leading to the Pune Mumbai highway. We took the old highway to Lonavla – and enjoyed the greenery en route – with an ice-gola stop being made at Khandala. In my next visit, we will be visiting Palghar, where Mukesh has done such projects a decade ago. Would be good to validate the incomes generated by such projects over the long term.

Note: More details of Mukesh’s work can be found here: https://www.aiilsg.org/pdf/AIILSG_ICEQUI-T%20CSR%20Centre%20Brief%20Profile.pdf