Civil Society News
Bangalore
Murugesamma used to work on the fields in the Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu as an agricultural worker. She earned a daily wage and could at best hope for seasonal employment. But in the past three years her life has changed dramatically. As part of a self-help group (SHG), Murugesamma makes Rs 1,200 from just five hours of rolling out chapattis every alternative day. She has a house on land allotted to her under the Indira Awas Yojna. Her family has its own toilet. The children go to school. Her husband still works as a daily wage earner, but for Murugesamma the uncertainties of being a labourer on someone else's fields are something of the past. Her SHG of 15 women, the Gokularlakshmi Magalir Sangam, has squirreled away enough money to lease one and a half acres to grow bananas. The land has come for Rs 30,000 for the year. They have grown 1,300 banana plants and since they have relied on tissue culture they are reasonably certain about the yield. Each plant cost them Rs 12 and they spent Rs 60,000 on preparing the land. They hope the crop will give them a profit of Rs 3 lakhs, which will be divided among the SHG's members.
"This is light work. Previously I had no idea what it was like to have land and savings. I will use the money for improving my home, educating the children and so on," says Murugesamma.
The turn in Murugesamma's family's fortunes is the result of the efforts of the TVS Group, one of the country's largest two-wheeler manufacturers. The group's philosophy of reaching out to communities around its factories has led it to be a catalyst for development work that changes people's lives in enduring ways.
These activities do nothing for the TVS bottom line, but they do help bring people out of poverty and create a sense of well-being at locations where the company has invested. If TVS gains in any way, it is by reinforcing its image as a trustworthy and caring company that wants to give back to society.
In times when factories can no longer promise jobs, helping people like Murugesamma live a better life cuts hostility at factory locations. Italso reduces the uncomfortable disparities that result from a modern business flourishing in the midst of poverty and collapsing infrastructure.
On occasion TVS has gone beyond factory locations to work in Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Nagapattinam and Kanyakumari. Importantly, TVS refuses to do charity. Its strategy is to assist communities in investing in their own development. So, whether it is an SHG's business or a drain or clean drinking water, people have to make a contribution by way of money and labour. Thousands of families like Murugesamma's have been helped to emerge from poverty. There are no cases of infant mortality in communities where its factories are located. It works with local schools by cleaning them up, helping provide better toilets, particularly for girls, installing computers and building infrastructure. TVS has focussed on taking piped water to clusters of households. It has cemented village roads and helped people deal with the problem of garbage and waste. Villages around the factories in Mysore and Hosur are spick and span. Company doctors do regular rounds and animators from among the village residents get Rs 2,000 a month for disseminating messages of hygiene and a balanced diet. Kitchen gardens have been brought alive.
TVS works through the Srinivasan Services Trust (SST), which was established in 1996 by Venu Srinivasan, chairman of the group. Since 2002, SST's activities are overseen by Ashoke Joshi, a retired secretary to the Government of India. It is his responsibility to stitch together various social initiatives in locations at Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and, most recently, Indonesia. But it is through 389 SHGs in south India that the company's goal of bringing people up and making them self-reliant has been achieved. The SHGs involve 4,277 families whose monthly incomes are now between Rs 800 and Rs 1,800 a month. The SHGs have savings of Rs 1.54 crores and have borrowed Rs 3.23 crores from banks. In Hosur and Mysore the SHGs have savings of Rs 52 lakhs. They have borrowed Rs 1.44 crores from banks. The banks charge 12 per cent and the SHGs in turn charge 12 per cent from the women. The money thus comes with an interest burden of 24 per cent. But despite this there have been no defaults on the loans. In the vicinity of the Hosur factory, 900 women are members of 52 SHGs. They are mostly scheduled castes and normally speaking there would be little hope for them or their families. Now they run businesses in making chapattis and earn at least Rs 1,200 each from five hours of work every alternative day.
The SHGs also make phenol, incense sticks, baskets, soap and rear livestock. But it is in the making of chapattis that they have found a business that is at the core of their emancipation. The TVS factories buy all their chapattis from the SHGs of these scheduled caste women. So do other neighbouring units such as Biocon and Mico SKF. Several caterers have become regular clients. This means a demand for more than 6,000 chapattis a day. The chapattis are made in spotless kitchens on land which the SHGs have bought. The fact that the chapattis are made by scheduled caste women and eaten by everyone at the factories bridges an important caste divide. Normally the women would be untouchables. They dress in clean saris with aprons, caps and masks for the mouth. Each SHG has its own uniform. The chapattis are labelled with coloured dots on the aluminium packing so that if there is a problem with quality accountability can be fixed. The SHGs had to be trained to make chapattis because it is not a part of the local diet, which is ragi. Initially it would take them one hour to make 100 chapattis. Now they can make up to 2,000 chapattis in one hour. The chapatti business has brought liberation in many ways. First of all it means ready money because they serve a captive market in the factories, which need to provide workers meals through the day. It is also a regular income.
Secondly, it has given the women status in the uniforms they wear and the higher level of work they do. In this sense it has rescued them from the bondage of caste. It has also taught them ownership because the SHGs are in reality rapidly expanding micro enterprises. They have a growing base of assets.
Finally, incomes for the women have changed their status in the family. They have become decision makers. Their aspirations for their children are invariably focussed around education. All their children go to school. One of them has a son who has taken admission to an MBA course. Another hopes her son will be an engineer. The women need to work for only five hours every alternative day. There is therefore more time for the family.
At the Mysore factory, Jason Samuel, the general manager, says 30 per cent of his 1,500-strong work force comes from nearby villages. That is a considerable number. But the same is not true of other locations.
Moreover, of the 1,500 at Mysore, only 650 are permanent employees. The rest get temporary work. It remains a need to reach out and make people self-reliant. It is through SHGs that this is best achieved. Improvement of toilets, drainage, roads and schools on the other hand creates an overall sense of well being.
TVS has shown that companies can connect with people in these ways. In Mysore, Jacob Philip, a civil engineer, has designed a community toilet for a cluster of families and is proud of a wetland where birds in large numbers visit. He works with Ravi, the community development officer, and A Chikkaswamy, a retired assistant commissioner of the Karnataka government. Since TVS believes in putting government programmes to good use, Chikkaswamy's liaison work is very important.
At Hosur, P Kamalakkannan is in charge of community development. He has a master's degree in social work. Kamalakkannan is a bundle of energy, out from morning to night networking the SHGs. His four assistants are Don Bosco Mary, Nanjappa, Veerabhadraiya and Manjunath. They are skilled animators. BN Srinivasan, the president of the gram panchayat of Belagondapalli near the Hosur factory, says that requests to TVS for jobs go unanswered. " But when it comes to service to the community without fanfare you can't match TVS," says Srinivasan. "They may not give us jobs, but they do much more for our uplift by providing us healthcare, improving schools, helping us install drainage systems." The Belagondapalli gram panchayat has won the Nirmal Gram Purushkar award for having the cleanest village in the district of Krishnagiri. Srinivasan has also been felicitated by the President of India for implementing the total sanitation project. Ninety per cent of villagers have individual toilets and 10 per cent use community toilets. Both solid and liquid waste management programmes are being implemented Biodegradable waste is converted to compost through vermi composting pits which TVS helped to set up. There is house-to-house collection of garbage. Families pay Rs 10 each a month. Now the panchayat is implementing a project through which sewage water will be sold to farmers and bring in revenue of Rs 7,000 to Rs 8,000 a year. All the sewage has been brought to a single point where in stabilisation ponds and with the use of reeds and trees it is being treated.
The panchayat president says he has depended on SHGs in the area to implement these ideas. It is his ambition to make his village so attractive that people from the nearby urban areas prefer to shift there. "A village should be clean and developed. It is possible to achieve this," he says, seated behind his office table on which there is a picture of him receiving the sanitation award from the President of India. A year ago, the main bus stand at Hosur was like any other: it overflowed with garbage and spent plastic bags. The stench of unclean toilets was strong. Hundreds of buses rumbled in and out each day and for travellers on hot and dusty journeys there seemed to be no respite. With civic amenities collapsing just about everywhere in Hosur, there appeared to be little future for a bus stand hopelessly located at the tri-junction of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. It had users in tens of thousands, but, like most public assets, it belonged to nobody. Just one addition to the bus stand made all the difference. It was a pay-and-use toilet. TVS part financed the construction on public land and put the management of the toilet in the hands of an SHG. The toilet now generates Rs 1 lakh of revenue a month from users, who pay between Rs 1 and Rs 5 for the facilities. Some 3,000 people use it every day. It has running water and is perfectly clean. In addition, SHG members sweep the bus stand through the day. So, what was once a filthy terminal is now free of litter. A spot where men used to urinate in the open has been decorated with pictures of gods and goddesses with the result that no one dares to make a public nuisance any longer.
Women who manage the pay-and-use toilet earn at least Rs 2,200 a month. They didn't have any source of income earlier. Revival of the bus stand has, therefore, improved their lot as well The importance of toilets can't be stressed enough. In villages around TVS factories people no longer defecate in the open. The result is better hygiene and, as a consequence, improved health indicators. There is no infant mortality and there is a lower incidence of stomach disorders. Toilets at schools result in better attendance by girls. At one school, the children asked the principal for access to the toilets at all hours and won this concession. Personal hygiene and solid and liquid waste disposal have resulted in the incidence of skin and waterborne diseases going down from 48 per cent to 19 per cent. Getting toilets right can be a challenge both in terms of design and the use of space. In Mysore, at the village of Dadadahalli, Jacob Philip's toilet for 53 families is a marvel of innovation. The land was gifted by Shivanna, a resident of the village. A circular structure, the toilet is open from the middle with a water tank in the centre of the courtyard. Toilet seats and bathing rooms are all on the periphery of the circle and open onto the courtyard. This could be a model for small-scale public toilets across the country. The open to sky design ensures that there is no smell. The sunshine flooding the entire toilet also disinfects it and keeps it dry. Each family pays Rs 10 a month to use the facility.
Similarly, there are toilets for individual households that the company has helped construct. Some of them come for as little as Rs 2,500 with the government providing Rs 500. TVS helps out families with engineering and design advice. Should a two-wheeler manufacturer be investing company resources in supporting SHGs in making chapattis and building toilets? In the TVS Group no one raises this question. It is a part of the group's corporate culture, says the self-effacing Ashoke Joshi who reports directly to Venu Srinivasan on matters relating to the Srinivasan Services Trust and the group's social commitments. The interest in the community and the employees goes back to TV Sundaram Iyengar, who in 1911 started a bus service which was long remembered for punctuality and cleanliness. He was known for the personal interest he took in the welfare of the people he hired. For Indian industry today, coping with the demands of job reservation and problems of land acquisition, the TVS Group's use of SHGs to spread prosperity and its emphasis on local development where it invests is an example of how businesses can pledge themselves to inclusion and strengthen bottom lines by going beyond them.
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