India trip 2004
www.infrasys.biz
JANUARY 22- 26 � MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA
Mumbai is Mumbai. Thousands of multi storied flats surrounded by 8-foot high slums with brown sheets or blue plastic roofs. The latter house the rural poor who arrive here to seek their fortunes. A clear case of transfer of poverty... from the rural to the urban.
There is some talk of making Mumbai "health tourist" spot. How this is to be achieved when half the city defecates in the open is beyond me!!
The slogan of the BJP is " India Shining" and that of the Congress party is "who will take care of 80% of India who are poor?" Both are correct in their own way. India is like a football team in which there are 3 star players and the rest have never kicked the ball.
I do not mean to pick on Mumbai... all our major cities are the same. Nonetheless the city (Mumbai) is vibrant and friendly. Yes, very friendly and safe. I left Mumbai for Bangalore by Udyan Express on the morning of the 26th - Republic day
JANUARY 28- 31 - SUTTUR and surrounding Villages in KARNATAKA
I arrived in Suttur after a night in Bangalore. I travelled by car with my cousin Rajaram who had some business in Mysore.
Suttur is the site of the first infraSys project initiated last year. In collaboration with the KVK located in Suttur, 12 farmers have been selected for producing vermicompost. Of the twelve, 8 will use the compost on their
own lands and 3 of the 12 are women.
The installations are in various stages of completion/production and they should all be in full production and generating income of about Rs1,000.00 per month per unit/farmer by May '04.
It was absolutely wonderful to see the installation and the composting in progress and meet the farmers who are working with infraSys. Kudos must go to the staff of JSS KVK.
infraSys has also hired one Shri. Chinnaswami , who is a small local
farmer familiar with vermicomposting and is known to the partnering
composting farmers... I guess that makes him infraSys' first
employee!
I am also negotiating for infraSys to market 15-20% of the compost to
urban market for a higher profit margin for generating additional
investment capital for other rural investment projects. Also name
familiarity.
FUTURE PROJECTS in Suttur area.
1. Continuing the collaboration with KVK, I met with 5 remarkable women
of a Self Help Group who are, in a cooperative mode, growing tube
rose on leased land. They have legal access to water from an adjacent canal and do not have the ability (to pay) for the diesel pumps necessary to bring the water to the field.
They wished to buy pedal/ treadle pumps - one per member. infraSys
has convinced them to buy just one pump (maybe two) and
make the SHG own the pumps, which can then be rented out to members.
infraSys will finance these pumps.
2. KVK will identify 5 to 10 farmers to partner with infraSys to grow vegetables using Drum Kit drip-irrigation.
3. On an experimental/trial basis Ms.Urs of KVK will recruit local women/ SHG (she thinks that teen aged girls will be best for this) who will attempt to make an American Style Quilt using all locally available materials and pedal sewing machines. infraSys will test market these in urban India (Air Conditioned Bedrooms). All expenses for this shall be borne by inftaSys.
4. There is also more interest in additional vermicomposting units amongst the farmers. More are likely to be initiated in 2004.
I write this for those unfamiliar with infraSys ... only to clarify matters... all these are investments ... yes, investments on a commercial basis. Each investment is made with a signed contract with a promise to return the capital with some revenue.
The idea is that the next (and the next) project can then be funded by the first and so on and so on and each operator or borrower feels that he or she
has achieved this on his or her own and feel pride of ownership. This is the underlying business philosophy of infraSys. NEXT TOP
