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P. Devarajan

Valsad district (Gujarat)

"Potla bandhi na, Gujarat javanu che (With a bundle on our heads we used to leave for Gujarat's cities)," said 25-year-old Dhavdu Bhai, an Adivasi farmer based in Nilosi village, Kaprada taluka of Vasad. For years Adivasi men and women in Dang, Kaprada and Vansda talukas of Valsad district harvested paddy in parcels of land, celebrated Diwali before packing off to distant Gujarat towns such as Vapi, Surat and Valsad to earn about Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 per month, if at all.

Most times they left the old and children along with the cattle in the villages in no one's particular care. By June, they would be back to working their lands during the rainy months. It did not do them any good. Today, no Adivasi leaves his home in search of a job with a bundle on his or her head. Migration has stopped and thanks to the Adivasi Development initiative put in place since 1994-95. With funds from Kreditanstalt fur Weideraufbau (KfW), Germany, Dhruva, an NGO promoted by BAIF Development Research Foundation, Pune, worked out a comprehensive pattern of living based on the "Wadi", which in Gujarati describes a small orchard spread over two acres.

The Wadi can hold any fruit tree which the soil and climate allow and in the three talukas of Vansda, Kaprada and Dang every acre of wadi is planted with 20 mango and 40 cashew trees. "Other development interventions including water conservation and women's health are built round Wadi concept," explains Dr Hasmukh B. Kharecha, Executive Officer, Dhruva.

Till 1997, Dhavdu Bhai and his family made the routine trudge to Valsad town. Then the man, in a pant and a torn shirt, started working on an acre of wadi land planting 20 mangos and 40 cashew plants as the programme gives one acre of land for each tribal family having less than five acres apart from 600 forestry plants forming the boundaries. In the monsoon, Dhavdu Bhai grows paddy and nagli (millet) with vegetables such as brinjal and tomato being sown after harvest. In 2003, Dhavdu Bhai earned Rs 800 from mangos, Rs 3,600 from cashew and Rs 1,500 from rice. His wadi is on a slope with watermelon and other creepers let loose on his clean, brick and tile roofed hut. "Abhi sukhi hain (Now I am happy)," he admitted in part Hindi and part Gujarati, while offering us cut cucumbers with each at least a foot long and some four inches thick.

Arjun and Sita own three acres of land and have planted 20 mango and 40 cashew trees in their wadi. One could see the gleam of relief in the eyes of the family as they admitted to a sharp rise in earnings over the last seven years. Out of tomatoes, the family earned this year Rs 12,000. "Subsidies over the years have immunised them from making any effort. Now we are trying to detoxicate them," said Dr Kharecha.

An important part of the programme is the processing units buying mango and cashew from the farmers and a marketing unit assuring outward reach into Gujarat's towns and also into Mumbai. All the products are sold under the brand name Brindavan. In Karjun village is located one of the many cashew-processing centres, which processed some 20 tonnes of raw cashew nuts this year.

Landless adivasi women and men work at the facility and in the neat and open aired hall, some 20 to 25 women process cashew in a scientific manner. Records are maintained in Gujarati for all to see. Raw cashew is sun-dried in summer and stored. Then they are steamed to help soften the shell and kernel. The nuts are cut, woodfire dried at 60 to 70 degree C, peeled and finally graded. The shell yields oil and the centre is thinking of shortly setting up a unit for cashew oil.

An adivasi women gets Rs 6/7 per kg per day for peeling, Rs 4/6 per kg for cutting and Rs 50 per day for grading. At a meeting of the centre, which is run as a co-operative, Jipri Behn, a landless, talked of the women setting up an SHG to pool savings and today the lady in a brightly dressed red saree is keen on a loan to buy an acre of land to become a landowner. "There is no surplus land in Karjun village and I am looking at a spot outside," she says.

In Karjun village and surrounding areas, an acre of unirrigated land costs Rs 50,000 while an acre of irrigated land to set up a wadi quotes at Rs 75,000 to Rs 1 lakh an acre. Jipri Behn nor the many women we met on our rounds, never dreamt of a virtuous turn of events in their lifetime allowing for owning land, the most precious and passionate commodity for a rural citizen. Today Jipri Behn is not overly concerned with the cost of funds as they cost way below the market rate of 60 per cent.

The critical partners in development are: KfW, a Development Bank of Germany providing financial support of Rs 55 crore for 10 years effective 1995-96; Dhruva the principal implementing agency supported by BAIF Development Research Foundation, Pune; Village Ayojan Samities (People's organisations) doing the ground execution; Nabard responsible for co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation. The KfW funding has two components with free grants forming 75 per cent of the corpus and credit the rest. KfW offers funds free to Nabard, which levies an interest charge of 9 per cent on the credit component passed on to Dhruva. In turn, Dhruva passes on the funds to Village Ayojan Samities at 12 per cent.

Villagers can access funds for laying pipelines, equipment and other items at interest rates ranging between 15 per cent and 18 per cent with loan recovery put at 98 per cent.

Villages taking out loans have to be part and parcel of the Wadi adventure. After seven years, the villagers are made to run the show on their own with Dhruva standing by to provide some help. "Seven years are sufficient for the wadi programme and its adjuncts to be managed by the adviasis. Spoon-feeding is not encouraged," says Dr Kharecha.

The interest earned are brought back into the system with the 9 per cent charged by Nabard being deposited into the Adivasi Development Fund Account operated by the refinance body in mutual consent with KfW.

Of course, the cost of the credit component could get reduced if interest rates can be brought down. Some Rs 34 crore out of the first grant of Rs 55 crore has been utilised as of September 30, 2002. As on date some 13,000 adivasis have been assisted and an area of 11,897 acres of private land have been covered. The statistics does not sufficiently explain the change in the terms and conditions of living with girls and boys going to school, in reasonably good health and stark dry lands wearing a green skin. Most importantly, poor adivasis can think of owning a reasonably safe future.

(To be concluded)

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