Kasipadu - An Illustration of Virtual Leadership

Dr Mani Paturi, 59, is a pediatrician who migrated to USA almost 30 years ago. Her husband was an active member of Telugu Literary Cultural Association in Queens, New York. He was also interested in social service both in US and at his native village in India. He came from a village in West Godavari District, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, India. The village, like most of its counterparts in the country, does not have access to good quality healthcare and education. The Paturis used to visit the village once or twice a year and organize medical camps with the help of local relatives and friends. After her husband passed away in 2005, the family was looking for a way to continue the services and planned to create a permanent health center in the village in his memory. When I explained the concept of Virtual leadership to Dr Paturi in 2006, she expressed a keen interest and wanted to know if it can assist her in her mission.

Though her village did not have internet, there was Kasipadu, one of its neighboring villages which had the connectivity, thanks to the Project ASHWINI implemented by Byrraju Foundation. Project ASHWINI provides broad band connectivity to 50 villages with a combination of terrestrial and wireless networks and hence has created a high quality video conference platform on which services related to health, education, livelihood etc are being delivered.

On one fine weekend, Dr Paturi started interacting with Village Kasipadu, a village almost 5000 km away, right from her home environs. The medium used was the most popular video chat on the internet. The village was very glad to interact with her and the local leadership including the elected representative (the Panchayat Sarpanch) extended their co-operation to her. Dr Paturi consulted the infants and the young mothers in the villages for about two hours every week. The Foundation’s health worker in the village and a few volunteers help to spread the message and organize the young mothers and the infants to consult their “US Doctor” every week at the appointed hour. Within a few months, the dedicated Doctor had counseled young mothers in over 12 villages, without moving from her home. This is a small beginning no doubt, but it has given Dr Paturi tremendous professional and personal satisfaction and she hopes to realize her dream of building a health center in her village soon.

Technology today provides various cost-effective channels for real-time interaction (like chat, videoconferencing, Voiceover IP, e-mail, and instant messaging). The key then is to evolve suitable structures and processes so that the diaspora is able to assume a larger role without sacrificing their professional careers and interests and with minimum investment of their time. There is a strong belief that real-time interaction of the diaspora community with the projects/communities/villages in India would have a beneficial impact. The services that could flow through the system include educating school children, primary health care, computer literacy and skills-imparting especially for women. However, the issue of leadership is an unsettled debate with ambiguous views from the diaspora and the nonprofits.

An innovative vehicle of diaspora philanthropy that emphasizes this two-way exchange and, if effectively harnessed, has the potential to solve many issues on the ground in the rural India is Virtual Leadership. Virtual Leadership is defined as assuming full lifecycle responsibility -from concept to implementation- for an initiative or a project addressing specific deliverables in the social sector with modern information technology being used as a tool. Virtual Leadership – the term combines two different but situationally connected concepts; The Leadership, with focus on making things happen and Virtuality, necessitated by the geographical distance and enabled by technology.

Tail piece :

Diaspora philanthropy is but one component of a broader concept of ‘Social remittances’ that includes the transfer of values, attitudes and practices. In the coming days, it is expected that Diaspora giving will switch from material giving – money or financial contributions – to intellectual or in-kind giving, such as research, advice, and teaching. A majority of the Indian diaspora consists of professionals and knowledge workers who could utilize their core competencies for social causes. However, the diaspora’s influence on the implementation of social projects (the weakest link of the chain) is minimal, considering the distance, time and effort required, and the hitherto prohibitive technological costs.

The concept of Virtual Leadership combines three key components: The potential of the Indian diaspora, the power of ICT and a new mechanism which can foster a Southern version of Philanthropy as ‘Doing Good together’ as opposed to the Northern version of Philanthropy as ‘Doing Good to others’. It can be praxis for poor, as it reflects the broad principles behind the public-private partnership (PPP), which is courted by almost every Government across the world. In a way, it becomes a ‘Micro PPP’ –much more effective in its impact because of the factors behind it – the individual commitment, technology and managing for impact.

The above piece is an extract from my work ‘Virtual Leadership – The next wave of Diaspora Philanthropy’ done at CUNY in 2006. But when I read it again recently, it occurred to me that if you replace the term “Diaspora” with “Urban Indian professionals”, it would still ring true and open up a lot of possibilities!

Sempatti - ICT for Quality ?

Sempatti visit was refreshing in many ways. It is the first time I had a chance to interpret the word Agriculture in the context of vegetables, fruits, flowers etc. The local farmers in this village, about 25 km from Dindigul, are more of the middle class households who bet on roses, jasmine, drumstick, brinjal etc. The excellent work done by the team at M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) center at Sempatti in aggregating the whole piece is certainly an example to be emulated. Every question of the farmer is recorded and responded within a definite time period (I noticed that there are more outgoing calls from the center than the incoming ones). They have gathered knowledge about the entire supply chain, market dynamics, and more importantly they know all the Krishi Vigyan Kendra scientists,government officials, traders on a personal basis, outside their official relationships. They have earned the trust of the farmers in the villages around Sempatti over a period of almost 5 years , which is evident when they share their trade secrets which they will not divulge to an “Agri Dept” personnel.

A few years ago , Agri prices went ‘online’ for the first time from Ottanchattiram , the nearby wholesale market. The commodities were listed for both their quantities traded and the last price , modeled on the stock exchanges. When I made some enquiries on the current status of that project, there were no satisfactory replies, but the center has excellent contacts with the large buyers/sellers at the market that they still get their “ real-time price updates” on telephone from the market to be disseminated to the farmers.

Information and Communication technologies (ICT) has been acknowledged as a major element in development-the UN General Assembly recently approved the Tunis agenda and the commitment of the World Summit on the Information Society. Many of the ICT initiatives started with disseminating information, but the impact was not very high as there were no avenues to make use of the information. The kiosk models then attempted transactions and tried for a cost recovery, which was largely unsuccessful. Most of the diagnosed reasons for failure were linked to connectivity and statements like “…if only we had better connectivity…” etc were quite common, even among the experts. But if one observes the success stories of the online world, even in commercial marketplace – Amazon, FaceBook, Twitter etc, it did not require a sophisticated high bandwidth connection at the users’ end. The reasons are therefore primarily linked to the mismatched price-value relationship. Today, broadband is a reality in many villages, but the service offerings have not marched alongside the quality of connectivity.

Low-cost access to information infrastructure is a necessary prerequisite for the successful use of ICT by the poor, but it is not sufficient. The implementation of ICT projects needs to be performed by organizations and individuals who have the appropriate incentives to work with marginalized groups. Furthermore, grassroots intermediaries and the involvement of the community are identified as the main factors that foster local ownership and the availability of content and services that respond to the most pressing needs of the poor. There have been only a few successes in the entire country so far with Healthcare and Education leading the way, but the key lesson has always been to deliver high quality services and then worry about cost recovery. Further, the returns have been excellent whenever the online capability is complemented by the offline relationships. Initiatives like Narayana Hridalaya and HMRI have established path breaking models.

Another critical factor here is the spread of ICT to rural India and there are positive signs on the near horizon. Government of India is currently implementing an ambitious project called the Common Services Centers (CSC) initiative to reach the entire rural India, with each CSC covering 5-6 surrounding villages in a honey-comb structure. The encouraging aspect of Indian ICT experience is that the market forces are also not behind in reaching out to rural India. In fact, India is the fastest-growing wireless market in the world and its growth potential is impressive. The dynamic leader behind the ICT initiatives at MSSRF, Senthil Kumaran recently explained the “Green SIM” card initiative launched in collaboration with one of the leading service providers, which provides five free messages/advices/alerts to farmers on a daily basis tailored to their local cultivational needs.

Tail piece :

Here are two anecdotal pieces which might explain the complexity in ‘designing’ programs and modeling the behavioural pattern of rural customers/people:

1. At Ottanchattiram, one can see another ingenuity at work in grabbing the farm produce from the poor : there are intermediaries who pose themselves as farmers at the marketplace and when the small farmers arrive, they offer a price a little higher than the local prices stating that they would not be able to get a better price for their ‘unmarketable lot size’. The farmers return home satisfied with a marginal profit, but the intermediaries then aggregate several transactions like this to convert them to a ‘marketable lot’ and sell in the real market at a higher price and pocket the difference !

2. In Sempatti, many families prefer to work in cotton textile mills, which are atleast 50-75 km away, even for a wage of about Rs.50 per day. The reason : They are picked up from their homes and dropped back at their doorstep on “modern buses on par with the best – shaded glass, cushion seats, attractive colours, sleek design”. Which owner would do this sir ? they ask. Surely the mill owners know a thing or two about their wards. It is also common to borrow and spend without savings, and when time comes for repayment the male members of the family head towards Tiruppur and slog for a few weeks without nightcap and rest and return with some surplus cash to solve cashflow problems.

Sittanavasal – Neglected, but magnificient

An overwhelming number of popular tourist places in the state of Tamil Nadu have Hindu origin (Think of Madurai, Rameswaram, Tiruchi, Mylapore etc). Almost all the literary works have always had Tamils as Hindu characters (though three of the ‘Aimperunkappiams’ (Five Great Epics) have a great deal of philosophies and characters from Buddhism and Jainism). Very little authoritative studies have reached the general public regarding the innumerable and inevitable clashes amongst various religions in their early days. In fact, one would not be faulted if he/she thinks that this part of the world always had Hinduism at its helm, given the absence of contrarian claims. Among the other major religions, Buddhism seems to have somehow taken an aerial route to SriLanka directly from Andhra Pradesh. Christianity claims are more prevalent in the west coast of India then the East coast. Jainism, however, seems to have a strong relationship with Tamil Nadu for almost 1000 years starting first century B.C. There is a school of thought that claim that the Thirukkural- the primordial work of Tamilians had Jainist origins and some refute this notion , instead categorizing it as a Shaivaite work. Though the great writer Sujatha has written about the debate in ‘Kanaiyazhi’ almost thirty years ago, interested readers can visit the blog of the writer Jeyamohan on this subject (http://www.jeyamohan.in/) for recent views. The jury is still out on that one, but if you would like to visit a place reminiscent of non-Hindu period in Tamil Nadu, you can easily pick the rocks at Sitthannavasal. Abode of Siddhas (Jain monks) is the meaning of the name .

It is a tribute to our attitude towards our history that the sole employee appointed by the Archeological Survey of India as a caretaker of this monument was not even at the ticket counter at 11 am in the morning. He was watching our vehicle from a distance and only after confirming that we actually wanted to visit the place did he amble towards us. You cannot fault him because the rock surface is just by the side of the Pudukkotati-Annavasal main road and one will give it a miss if not watchful, as there are no large signboards worthy of a historic site. There is a hillock which leads to ‘Ezhadippattam’ – the cavern where the Jain monks practiced their meditation and led their ascetic lives. I noticed a ‘No Photography’ sign and asked the caretaker how the stone structure could possibly be damaged by photography. Instead of trying for a reason, he took the easier route : “ You can take your camera , Sir” clearly expecting some ‘Gandhian favour’ in return. We declined the offer and prodded along till we reached the cave which has a very low ceiling, but well lit and spacious. There are a series of stone beds – 3’X10’ slots carved out on the stone floor with an elevated head rest on one side to be used as ‘pillow’, and there are about 17 of them. There is a Brahmi script inscription as well explaining the purpose. But even before the Government could act to protect the monument, one can notice the inevitable love messages left by our romeos and examination numbers inscribed by our pious students all over the structure.

Adjacent to the Stone Bed is the better known cave temple known as Arivar-koil, which houses the unparalleled Sittannavasal paintings (http://www.poetryinstone.in/lang/en). The painting and the remnants of the structure are worth the visit and deserve to be promoted even more. The celebration of life seen through the vivid colours and the comity of different living beings like elephants, buffaloes, men and women, lilies and lotuses certainly makes you yearn for those days. Said to be of the same age as their famous Ajanta cousins, this ceiling work encapsulates the skill, mastery of those faceless artisans. You can also see the carvings of Thirthankaras affirming the Jain origins. In addition, the sanctum sanctorum has been designed to echo the primordial sound, Om….which when uttered reverberates in all directions, but not the normal conversations.

Notwithstanding the advice given by the Government on the photography, if you want to see the pictures of these two places, pl visit
http://www.pudukkottai.org/places/sittannavasal/03sittannavasal.html#the%20Sittannavasal%20Paintings and
www.saigan.com/heritage/.../Sittannavasal%20-%20a%20booklet.pdf

P.S. In writer Sujatha, we probably had the best link between common people and science, a rare combination. Though one of the prolific writers covering a wide range of subjects with intellectual authority, he was rejected by the literary world because of his identification with popular media like magazines and movies. When he passed away this year, the media recalled him more for being a classmate of APJ and for being part of the EVM design team than for his work as a pioneer author. A versatile creative genius, he was clearly a couple of generations ahead. For example, in 1960s, he started writing a column which would appear on the last page of the leading literary monthly magazine Kanaiyazhi, which continued for almost thirty years or so (long before Bajaj Auto did the famous deal with India Today for the last cover page ad). It was a one pager written in his inimitable style of self deprecating humour, where the topics would range from Purananuru to Haiku , Robots to Book reviews and so on . It became very popular and brought in a lot of readers to the otherwise serious magazine. Clearly, the forerunner of today’s blogs ! He, of course, opined that blogs are superficial and an endless ego trip. Many said the same things about his columns in Kanaiyazhi too.

Periyakanganankuppam - Rural ATM for NREGS

On the Chennai-Cuddalore Road, a few kilometers outside the town of Cuddalore, we noticed a small building alongside the road crowded with a lot of women. It turned out to be the first Rural ATM for NREGS in TamilNadu and that was the queue of beneficiaries lined up to collect their wages through the ATM. It was an installation designed by Vortex and IIT Chennai. It is designed more like a cash dispenser with biometric access and a simple vernacular interface and is mainly utilized for cash withdrawals. Since it is still early stages of implementation, there was a gentleman who helped the women with keying in the amount they wanted to withdraw and we could hear women saying “Please get me R.150 for 2 weeks. Last week I did not get paid”.

It was about 4 pm in the evening and there was no electricity, which is not a surprise anymore to the locals, but the gentleman was able to manage the impatient crowd because of the solar backup. The ATM is designed with a photovoltaic cell array and battery backup. It is a fairly workable model which updates the data online and offline modes and has even won an award for the District Collector at the National/Sate level. But like many other installations where solar is involved, it costs as much as the equipment it is supposed to provide back up power to. In this case, it is about Rs.200,000 each. This is probably a key reason for the solar not being able to scale up.

A quick point on the solar energy and India. A few years ago, when we tried to implement solar back-ups for community based water plants and computer centers attached to Govt schools in Andhra Pradesh, provoked by a question from R.Gopalakrishnan of Tatas, we faced a similar dilemma, in spite of working with arguably the best team in the country for solar solutions. A little research shows that the price of solar cells has been following almost a downward spiral for more than two decades (with 8 years as average cost-halving time), but it has still not reached the Tipping Point, mainly because of the technology and the material used. Even the National Solar Energy Mission projects a tariff parity with coal in the year 2030 !! Hence, solar appears to be a viable energy solution , only when the other modes are either not feasible or unavailable. Villages electrified by solar energy in Sunderbans is a classic example. With decentralisaion of power generation, one day there is bound to be multitude of small systems designed for domestic and commercial use, like the gensets and battery sets one sees today. It is in these areas where India has to get aggressive with US, Europe and Japan(they have almost the entire Photo voltaic market today) for technology transfer, access to new research etc, as part of the Climate change conventions and treaties. China incidentally has become the largest producer of solar products, with a 25% market share, in less than ten years. India of course has a miniscule share at the moment.

Coming back to the Rural ATM, the recent RBI regulation permitting cash withdrawals at POS terminals (Point of Sale (POS) terminals are the ‘swiping’ machines you encounter at shops and restaurants) for amounts till Rs.1000 is going to have an interesting impact on the ATM market. RBI data says that the country will soon have almost 500,000 POS terminals as against about 50,000 ATMs. POS is obviously cheaper and better (can work on telephone line, limited power requirement etc) for cash withdrawals, which is probably the primary need for the ATMs from the customers’ point of view. There is no reason why the entire postal system, railways and other systems with daily interaction with the masses cannot have the ‘cash boxes’ soon and it can certainly make the NREGS cash distribution more effective in a single stroke.

Tail piece: Unfortunately, the NREGS is following the footsteps of SHGs in terms of measuring success in amount of rupees disbursed and no of Job cards issued, instead of actual accomplishment of public structures built.

Karambayam - And Quiet flows the New River

As one enters the Karambayam village, a small habitat in Thanjavur District, through the narrow roads with coconut trees on one side and a few open farms on the other side, the expectation rises to an extent. If banking can traverse through such remote roads and move towards the doorstep, it is certainly a welcome move in a country where less than 40% people in rural areas access the banking services.

“Pudhu Aaru” with the bright orange colours of Kshetriya Grameen Financial Services (KGFS) has unmistakable signs of its origin and denotes the new route taken by the IFMR team (Pudhu Aaru – New River). Since it was almost lunch time, women were in a hurry to conclude the transactions for that day. An affable young person was explaining the payment details due on that day, to a small group which was listening with rapt attention. Some of the members were carrying their ID cards (Fino Card), which is a clear winner because it is easily the best looking one among all the other cards like voter IDs, PAN card etc. (We will have to wait for Nandan Nilekani’s card/design for a while, though he says he would only design the unique nos). Yes … It is pouring PAN cards in this village of 3000 population. Why ? In the model followed by KGFS to bring ‘financial management’ to remote rural areas, savings are done via Money Market Mutual Funds (MMMFs) ( a quiet innovation) and the current rules necessitate PAN cards for the investors. And so, the KGFS team is quite enthusiastically facilitating the same, as it helps them in their KYC norms as well.

The ‘Wealth managers’- young, rural graduates, the front end relationship team will be trained in the nuances of wealth management and their targets will be to manage the overall financial health of rural families, limiting the variability of the funds at disposal rather than chasing loan/disbursement targets. As Dr Nachiket Mor, the mentor and inspiration behind the KGFS team, explained “Finance as Noise Cancellation Model” with his usual enthusiasm later in Chennai, one cannot but admire the first steps on the ground. It certainly works within the current regulatory environment and can only become better with better regulations.

KGFS is neither a co-operative bank nor a NBFC in classic mould, but it does deliver both services, itself being a Section 25 company. It is an interesting model, but has its limitations on the typical fine print options where the banks normally make their margins – interest rate calculations, charges for transactions, idle cash etc. Manageability of operating costs to have a reasonable return on capital and customer stickiness are going to be the key factors for replication. Operationally, the security and transportation of physical cash at the village might be an issue in future (Imagine the impact of an incident like cash mishandling/loss on the credibility of a new financial model among the customers. In rural settings, with temple hundis being under frequent attacks, one cannot be always sure, in spite of use of safes, insurance etc.). By design, there would be multiple transaction costs for KGFS – conversion of MMMFs, securitization charges (in future), cash management etc. But given that they are agnostic to the profile of the borrower (They are not specifically targeting poor households. Since KGFS operates only in villages where there are no other banks, it is bound to classify the entire village as without access to banking), the strategy of multiple products combining savings, loans, insurance targeted at the same family/household may payoff, as KGFS would be in a better position to assess the risks based on the gold mine of data. However, there could be a case for tie-ups with local post-offices, NREGA implementation agencies etc where KGFS can use its platform’s excess capacity for a fee.

Further, access to finance is a means to an end and not an end by itself in the journey of progress. So lets say KGFS is successful, and reaches out to 100% of the households in a village, then it is only an inductive reasoning rather than causative one, which leads us to believe that the economic progress would have happened. Given the mushrooming cases of simple yet logical step of SHGs lending to farmers at higher rates than their own borrowings from banks, real asset creation has to be matched at some point with financial asset growth/access. Cash-in-the-hands-of-poor schemes like Brazil and Mexico are probably evolution in developmental policies, but what will cash buy in a rural remote village, if there is no reliable service provider ? For example, Electricity ? Pure drinking water ?

Kallanai - for UNESCO Heritage ??

Most of the Tamilians have grown up on a nutritious diet about the greatness and more importantly the “accomplishments and antiquity” of their kings, their religion etc. But in general, it appears that adequate enquiries have not been made to purport them with scientific evidence. Kallanai – ‘Dam built with Stones’ is a classic example.

Kallanai is always linked to the Chola King Karikal Valavan , thanks to the text books and one is a little disappointed that there is nothing except a nice statue near the present day Kallanai as a record of his exploits. Said to belong to 2nd Century AD, this oldest functioning water structure is certainly a marvel and in my view should have had the UNESCO heritage tag ahead of the trinity of Thanjavur/Darasuram/Gangai Konda Cholapuram temples atleast on account of its chronology. A quick visit to the UNESCO website reveals that a man-made structure like Kallanai would have certainly qualified, but there is a catch.

First the stories as we know : The king built this dam with hewn stones to divert the waterflow to avoid loss of crops due to floods in the downstream Cauvery. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have historical records researched well enough to know in detail about the dam, its builder and the structure or the date. References are abundant in literature but UNESCO (and may be even GoI ) may not consider it as a historical evidence. Many of the references available in the internet also use terms like ‘Said to be...’, ‘ believed as ..’ etc citing other sources, eventually becoming a circular reference.

In this context, it is remarkable to know that a PhD thesis has become a key source of analysis and that too emanating from an IIT. Chitra Krishnan has done a remarkable job of modeling the workings of the anicut. “….By combining such varied sources as a farmer’s family archive, letters from British engineers, her own field measurements, and scale-model research, she succeeded in reconstructing this artifact that then tells stories about Indian agricultural history as well as hydraulic innovations”. Her main argument is that the structure was built with a lot of knowledge about the flow of water, taking advantage of its natural flow, imaginative use of slopes to control sedimentation etc, but the later day administrators have destroyed it because of lack of understanding.

After the British arrived, they had to intervene as the original structure could not deliver its utility (due to vagaries of time, uneven maintenance). Sir Arthur Cotton (who later went on to design the famous Godavari barrages) who was just 20 years old when he arrived at Kallanai to study the water structures, took part in the design modifications later in 1839. There are three additional strucures today covering Cauvery, Vennar and Kollidam that one cannot even see the ‘original kallanai’. A helpful engineer at the site informed us that it is still the same structure at the Foundation and the other structures have been built around it and even pointed to its ‘right’ direction. But there are a few that argue that the Kallanai referred in literature and the present structure are two different things. I wonder why we cannot conduct an underwater study to know the facts and publish it for the benefit of all of us. In absence of concrete evidence, one cannot hope to get pass the rigorous evaluation process of UNESCO. The process is very clear with the State initiating the application process and making a claim, followed by a panel of experts ascertaining its validity based on the evidence presented. As an aside, the application for the temples of Darasuram and Gangai Konda Cholapuram to be included was made only in 2004, even though the UN resolution, to which India was also a signatory, was passed in 1972.

Karaikkal & Tranqebar - History and Mythology

One can see a combination of mythology and history at work within a few miles from each other in the south eastern coast of India. At Karaikkal, (which is part of Pondicherry and also has a well planned township) there is a temple for Karaikkal Ammaiyar alias Punithavathy. The story depicted on the walls of the temple dedicated to her clearly states the names of her parents, her groom and their profession etc but is largely silent on the dates or the current day evidences. She led the Bhakti movement prior to the arrival of Adi Sankara or the other Nayanmars. The myth is that she converted herself into a skeletal form and trekked to Kailash on her head. It is also said that Sundarar, a later day Nayanar refused to enter a village she passed by, as he did not want to disrespect her by setting his foot where her head has treaded. She has a pride of place among the 63 Nayanmars being the sole lady devotee (though there are other ladies in the list, they are either wives/mothers of other Nayanmars) and was the only one who had the fortune of being referred as “Ammaiye ! (mother)” by God himself. She is also credited to have authored many innovative lyrical forms and poems in praise of the Lord. The origin of her story dates her what is considered as the dark ages of ancient Tamils (around 5th century AD) , but there is still an annual festival called Mango festival where hordes of mangoes are brought in by the devotees, recalling that she was blessed with a divine mango from the God, as if it happened yesterday.

Tranqebar, which has a unique place in the history of Tamil Nadu, if not India itself is about 15 km from Karaikkal. This small port town is where the first protestant preacher Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, landed in the early part of18th century at the age of 24, when Aurangazeb was still ruling Delhi, thanks to a real estate deal between Danish East India Company (Yes….they also had one) and Raja of Thanjavur in 1620. Having experienced firsthand that he cannot survive in TamilNadu without the language (many people opine that it is true even today!), he proceeded not only to learn the language, but also managed to be the first printer/publisher in TamilNadu of the biblical material including the first New Testament in 1715. It must have taken a lot of courage and conviction to sail across the oceans and then proceed to execute the plans, all before the age of 36 when he died. Very interestingly, around the same time Veerama munivar –(born as Constanzo Besci of Italy, he landed in Madurai in 1711) a Roman Catholic missionary- was working in TamilNadu probably composing the immortal ‘Thembavani’ (written on Jesus , it is considered as one of the Tamil classics). Imagine if these two Europeans had met and debated about their respective faiths in Tamil !! Aurangazeb would have loved to join such a debate in the tamil bastion of Madurai, if only he knew the language !!!

There is a Danish Fort still on the coast of Tranqebar and a few remnants of the erstwhile harbour. In true Tamil tradition, there is a statue for him alright, but there is not much awareness about the original mission. There are a host of Churches and schools in that small area near the beach which continue the educational services even today. Friday Holiday policy of the keepers meant that we needed to skip visiting the Fort, as it was locked. Hope it is kept open on Sundays, the only reason that could justify a Friday holiday ! When the search for the Buddhist Chudamani Vihara (of Kalki's 'Ponniyin Selvan' fame) took us to Nagapattinam which is about an hour drive , the same Friday factor was at play. Enquiries about the remains of the Buddhist vihara elicited understanding and sympathetic nods for our enthusiasm, but the locals preferred to admit that they heard the story for the first time from us. Due to paucity of time, we had to move on , but not before locating the local museum which informed that they are also closed on Fridays.

Kollumangudi - Pointers to the future

It was almost 9 pm on a rainy night at we entered the Desicrew's Rural BPO delivery center at Kollumangudi, near the town of Mayiladuthurai. With helpful directions from the staff, we could wade through the rains and the darkness to reach the center. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the Crew members were young women from nearby villages/town and in spite of the professionalism expected out of BPOs, they were probably sending out messages for the future. It is a well organized center with separate bays for different processes and one could not see an airconditioner reflecting probably the low cost, spartan model espoused by Desicrew. Attempts have certainly been made to elevate the quality of delivery and today it even has an online process supporting customers on realtime basis. Interaction with young minds always stimulates the thinking and when one spotted an MBA and two engineers among a sample of 15 people, one does ponder about the shape of things to come in the future.

Rural BPOs are in the news again after HDFC’s decision to acquire a 26% stake in one of them. It has been in the making for a few years now with some exceptional success stories including the one I was associated with – GramIT. We had an interesting mix of models being presented at the first national Rural BPO conference hosted last year at Hyderabad. It included a few kiosks doubling up as rural BPOs, centers running from homes, centers with ISO/Six sigma project certifications, centers run by Government, all women centers etc. With Kiran Karnik, former chairman of Nasscom, providing the keynote address and a list of eminent speakers from corporates of the likes of Tatas,CISCO,Wipro,HSBC,HDFC, it provided a platform to exchange views and chart out future strategies. Some of the predictions made during the conference are unfolding right now and 2009 and 2010 are going to be two watershed areas in their evolution.

Parallels are being drawn between the rural BPOs now and the IT sector in the late 80s/early 90s in terms of potential to alter the employment landscape, lack of infrastructure, customer skepticism, lack of availability of trained manpower, wage arbitrage etc. While there could be some lessons, in my view, the crucial difference is about the integration of domestic IT/BPO market. The IT sector had an almost exclusive focus on the export market till recent times, which had a significant impact on the margins for years to come. Because of current excess supply in the BPO segment and the focus on domestic customers and Governments, the rural BPOs are going to be under pressure for their margins almost from their birth stages. This would be a key factor during the scaling up process and they would do well to focus on their core strengths, which is unleashing the human potential. In the short term, cost will be the differentiator, but they can quickly build their IPs around their geographies. It is not about generating local data bases which can be sold to some MNCs, but creating a knowledge driven system which integrates the local political system, economy and relationships. For example, their skills have to evolve to aid or deliver what organizations like Census department or NREGA team or the local engineering/medical colleges might need. Knowledge about the local village and its ecosystem itself is a vital ingredient. In the continuum between the information kiosk and a commercial BPO delivering to an export market, the players should be cognizant of this space as well.

Consider the economics for potential of Rural BPOs in terms of employment and revenues :

A center of about 50-75 seats can be set up to cater to the available labour pool for every 20 villages. This will create about 4 million rural employment at an average wage of over Rs.4000 per month for the entire year and impact about 20 million rural people directly.
To put this in perspective, compare this to NREGS : Average 45 days of employment @ Rs.80/day (ok.. it is now Rs.100/day) created in the last three years for 20 million households. Only 4 million households have managed the mandatory 100 days. Amount spent was over Rs.40,000 crores ! Even the entire BPO industry's employment is hovering around 4 million mark after two decades.

Is there a market ?
The total PBT of Corporate India is reported at US$142 bn for 2007-08. If we can estimate that the profit margin will be atleast 15%, then the expenditure on processes like Customer care, HR, Finance which can be outsourced will be atleast US$40 bn (5% of total expenditure). Of this total pie, even if we assume a tiny market share, say 2.5%, for the rural BPOs, it is still over US$ 1 bn.

So, what can the Government do ?
Allocate a major portion of Rural Development Budget and work out another subsidy for attracting corporate investment ? No. It can easily use a portion of its NREGA budget (5.8% to be precise of budgeted Rs.39,100c r) and convert that into equity/mezzanine finance. Since Rural BPO has been proven as a commercial model, it will attract both debt and equity from the investors and with a leverage of 1:3 or 1:4, we can do this across the country. And to kick start the whole process, it can mandate that every department will outsource atleast 1% of its work to rural BPOs, which itself will be more than the domestic corporate demand. This is not going back to ‘reservation’ days, but leveraging Government’s reach and capacity in a new way, as there will be a saving of 25%-30% for every rupee outsourced.

On the other hand, it may not be appropriate to derive the budget from NREGS, as the focus of the scheme is different from the labour pool likely to be relevant for the Rural BPOs. But it is the same geography we are talking about. There was an announcement in the previous year’s budget about National Skills Development Corporation with an equity of Rs. 1 cr from Government of India and a corpus of Rs.1000 cr. This project could easily become a launch vehicle for the NSDC, as it also envisaged raising funds to the tune of Rs.15,000 cr from the market.

N Panjampatti - Symptomatic

Our desire to visit the scene of action led us to N Panjampatti, which is one of the villages in Tamil Nadu where Gandhigram Trust has implemented several programs. Throughout the visit, our query on the reason for the N in the name of the village did not elicit any reply. The name is quite misleading as we could not see any signs of ‘panjam’ (famine) there. On the contrary, it looked almost like a large, busy township with a few NGOs and SHGs visible almost everywhere (Official population : 6530, No of households : 1554).

The kind gentleman from the Gandigram Trust took us to visit the SHG groups, but at the end of half a day, a sense of disappointment could not be avoided.

In the first center , there were about six women who were making papercups in a machine that operated on electric power. They stated that they could make about 250 cups a day which implies a revenue of Rs.100 per day @ 40 paise per cup. They were to be paid Rs.50 per day for their labour and even without adding other costs, it certainly did not look promising to sustain.

There was another group making school bags , but did not get the bulk order from the local schools, probably their main market. Here the ladies were paid Rs.25 as allowance and they said the surplus will go to federation which will again be ploughed back into the SHG to justify the lower wages. And not unlike their Dravidian parties, this group has already split twice and all of them are claiming the same original name of Mullai.

We were informed that the community took upon the sanitation (ofcourse through SHG) issue and they even got a President or Chief Minister award for the same. It was a public toilet complex with a tank for storing water and provisions for washing/drying clothes like the stone platform, clothesline etc. The group has made enough money @ One Rupee per person, to even extend the area with a new compound wall. Closer observation made us realize that the popularity of the place was more for the uninterrupted water supply and the comfort for washing the clothes of the entire family, rather than any particular interest in the sanitation. Adjacent to this complex at a distance of 300 m is another one which was lying closed and we were told that it was run by Panchayat and hence it was so!

The most interesting and enterprising example came when we were taken to a “Flower mill” operated by a group of four women(it also has the same dependency on electricity from the State). Among the items that were ground in that flour mill were the usual chilli powder, idli/dosa batter, but the hot seller was the One Rupee rice made available through PDS. The rice was mixed with millet and converted into cattle fodder which was then ‘exported’ to and other places at Rs.8 per kg. Long Live the PDS and the penchant for One Rupee items.

Here it is important to note the role played by the ecosystem of bankers, well intended NGOs like Gandhigram Trust (and may be some of the middlemen too) in ‘Facilitation’ of bank loans to all the above mentioned SHG groups. The scheme works neatly. One Lakh as grant and Two Lakh as Loan and everyone is happy. I guess the repayment days are far away in horizon ! One is not against the SHGs flourishing, but unfortunately the achievements of SHG are being measured in terms of loans disbursed and no of groups than the outcome or the impact.

Gandhigram - Symbolic Start

It was a coincidence that the first stop during my recent roadtrip in rural TamilNadu was at an organization founded in 1947 symbolizing the start of new India’s journey. I was surprised to know that there were two individuals behind this private initiative, as the general impression is that the Gandhigram was an institution started by the Central Government. It took the daughter of a powerful business family (though widowed young at 12, she was encouraged by her husband’s wishes to study further and re-marry) and a Shanktiniketan product to start Gandhigram. Dr T S Soundram, who went on to qualify as a medical practitioner from Delhi and later served as a deputy minister of education in the Union Cabinet headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, was certainly made of compassion for the underprivileged. She then married Dr G Ramachandran, a pioneering gentleman freedom fighter with farsighted outlook (whom Gandhiji cited as a key reason for his endorsement of Travancore movement) and even had the marriage blessed by Gandhi himself. The Gandhigram started on an inspired note when a landlord donated a vast track of land, which gathered momentum and eventually 125 acres of land was donated by the villagers. It is located near Dindigul on the NH-7 betwen Dindigul and Madurai. Gandhigram soon expanded into a gamut of activities ranging from running hospitals to educating widows to orphanages to Agriculture.

With this backdrop, no doubt it has grown into a model where bus loads of tourists visit almost every week from all over the country to learn from. Because of the parentage and the team of dedicated people who are involved, it has retained a prominent place in the minds of Government and NGOs for social service. Today, it is the first stop for a pilot for any of the projects conceived by agencies like CAPART, NABARD, RUTAG,KVIC etc. Almost all major political leaders have graced the institution and its work. The excellent work done/being done in the areas of health and education have tansformed many rural lives. But if one looks at the scale of economic impact of the development models, none is visible other than riding the SHG wave like many other less distinguished entities. Given the headstart, it is bound to raise expectations, but perhaps the focus was not on economic issues for a long time, given the non-existent access to healthcare and education in the early 50s and 60s.

Like many other players in the social sector, there is no financial information available on their website, but the annual report thankfully has the balance sheet and income and expenditure statement (which is again a rarity in the sector). The sustainability is not in doubt with almost 50% of income being generated from its own services coupled with a wide variety of assets, endowment funds, investments etc, but in absence of breakups, 50% expenditure in Institutional salaries (other than program expenditure) and almost 40% of assets in Fixed Deposits and Bank accounts do not augur well for efficacy. May be the proximity to Government and the multiple cross holding structure among the various entities like university, trust, society etc all in the name of Gandhigram have acted as dampeners. Though the Secretary of the Trust, a committed elderly gentleman who was a former civil servant, was proud to state that Dr APJ Abdul Kalam visited them on the third day after his tenure as President of India was over, I would have been glad if he had narrated a few achievements of the institution with the same pride and tone.

The Broken Tusk - THE Stylus

A word about the contents before we begin. Rural India, Economics, Technology, History, Religion and Philosophy have been the key factors that have shaped my outlook so far. So you are likely to be subjected to all of the above, not necessarily in that order. There is no guarantee that one or more will not be mixed up in the same story either. So, it is “Reader Beware” from now on.
Let me start with the first story, which is the reason for the title, by borrowing it from that master story teller, Rajaji.
Time : Sometime in BC or a few millennium ago or in some aeon
Lead actors : Ved Vyas, the main author/arranger of Mahabharata and Lord Ganapati
Act/Scene : The story of Mahabharata is about to begin and Vyas is on the look out for someone to write down his own blog of 100,000 poems/verses.
“
Brahma extolled Vyasa and said: "O sage, invoke Ganapati and beg him to be your amanuensis." Having said these words he disappeared. The sage Vyasa meditated on Ganapati who appeared before him. Vyasa received him with due respect and sought his aid.
"Lord Ganapati, I shall dictate the story of the Mahabharata and I pray you to be graciously pleased to write it down."
Ganapati replied: "Very well. I shall do as you wish. But my pen must not stop while I am writing. So you must dictate without pause or hesitation. I can only write on this condition?'
Vyasa agreed, guarding himself, however, with a counter stipulation: "Be it so, but you must first grasp the meaning of what I dictate before you write it down."
Ganapati smiled and agreed to the condition. Then the sage began to sing the story of the Mahabharata. He would occasionally compose some complex stanzas which would make Ganapati pause a while to get at the meaning and Vyasa would avail himself of this interval to compose many stanzas in his mind. 'Thus the Mahabharata came to be written by Ganapati to the dictation of Vyasa.
“

In the process of capturing the verses of the Mahabharata, it is believed that his pen had broken due to the speed, and in the urgency of taking down the immortal words flowing from Ved Vyas, Ganapati snapped off his tusk as a replacement quill ! The broken tusk thus became The Broken Tusk – which represents a writing instrument or a tool that facilitates learning. It does symbolize Discrimination – ability to distinguish what is real and what is unreal. The tusk also denotes the universe i.e. the Maya, according to Mudgala Purana, standing for the creation and durability.

This blog will therefore capture the stories about ideas, people and places first hand and like the Ganesha’s stylus, it would not stake claim to the stories (they belong to Ved Vyas and the real people), but would facilitate recording and retelling of the same. And hopefully I will keep that part of the deal where the understanding precedes the writing. Any errors and acts of omission and commission would henceforth lie with the tool and not the author.

If you are wondering that the posts in this blog start with the name of the places, yes that is by design, as the travel always triggers a lot of molecules in my system to observe and synthesise. The geography also ensures that the ideas are not abstract, even though there would be a few degrees of freedom lost because of implementation efficiencies. Given my limited experience in the hinterland and non-existent one in writing, there are bound to be issues. I have already discovered that being editor and the author at the same time is very demanding and there are always going to be alpha and beta errors. The length and the frequency of the posts are not defined and like my current favourite author Nassim Taleb, it is one of the preconditions of the author to the editor. So, sit back and enjoy the chronicles and if you find something good or bad, pl do drop in a word.