The Hindu Business Line : Kulhads, khadi and kambals in Railways

LAST WEEK, I had occasion to travel by rail from North to South and from East to West. I was looking forward to witness the effect of the Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav's innovation of tea and curd being served in kulhads (container pots). Astonishingly, I did not see any in the whole length and breadth of the Indian Railways. At points, I insisted on being served in kulhads, but the bearers did not carry any. They were serving tea in the old ungainly plastic cups. "We can serve you tea in kulhads," said one, "but you will have to pay Rs 10 extra."

Clearly, the kulhads have not been popular with the service staff. They find it difficult to carry a dozen or so of them in their pockets or in their bags.

"The passengers do not like kulhads either," said another. It would appear that the great innovation so much tom-tomed by Mr Lalu Prasad appears to have come a cropper.

When the last Budget was presented, the Railways Minister claimed that the kulhads, apart from adding an Indian touch to the catering services on Indian Railways, would provide large business and employment in the rural sector. Nothing of the kind has happened.

The voluble Lalu Prasad had also promised that the curtains, bed-sheets and blankets used in railway services would be indigenised and greater use would be made of Khadi material. Again, the announcement has come cropper. While at least some passengers expected the introduction of kulhads to have a chance of success, almost everybody was apprehensive about the use of khadi sheets and rough Indian kambals (rugs). As it is, the passengers in the air-conditioned class are troubled by armies of cockroaches that have settled down in the bogies. Passengers in lower classes do not get this advantage!

The use of khadi and kambals in the Railways was supposed to be a major rural employment programme. With kulhads, khadi and kambals too has flopped.

There is a lesson in this for those who maintain that use of old-world technology and archaic gadgets would somehow give a big fillip to this or that sector of the economy or this and that class of society.

Years back, there was an attempt to give preference to the soap-cakes marketed by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) in some projects. The KVIC toilet soaps looked like mud patties. No fragrance and hardly any lather. The strange part of it was that these ungainly soap cakes did not even have the advantage of being cheap compared to the toilet soaps marketed by the organised sector, which were vastly superior in fragrance, colour and lathering.

What explains the higher cost of production of a product by the KVIC that was also inferior? It was explained that modern soap manufacturing involves a process that permits separation of glycerine, which is an expensive chemical.

Does that mean the KVIC soaps could claim the advantage of being glycerine-rich? Not at all. In the indigenous process of mixing soda and oil for manufacturing soap, the glycerine simply goes down the drain. The indigenous technology thus boded no one any good.

On another occasion an attempt was made to boycott footwear manufactured by the modern sector and replacing it by that produced by the village cobblers and their co-operatives. The proposal was vehemently objected to by all activists and organisations looking after the care of the leprosy patients.

"In India," they explained, "the phenomenon of loss of limbs amongst leprosy patients is far more widespread than anywhere else." The reason is that the much poorer leprosy patients in India hardly ever use any footwear. The rubber slippers manufactured in the modern sector are offering for the first time footwear at prices affordable to all.

The proposal was abandoned. It transpired that most of the modern sector footwear manufacturers got their wares from village industries in any case. Whether one purchases the footwear from the modern sector or from the village sector, it really made no difference as far as the employment effect goes.

Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav became an instant hero by championing kulhads, khadi and kambals. He is now realising that it is good neither for the passengers nor for the service staff nor for the Railways. It is not good for the potters or the weavers either. But why did the Minister take this track when the Railways had tried the experiment with kulhads in the days of Mr George Fernandes and given up?.

(The author, who is Founder of the Shetkari Sanghatana, is a Rajya Sabha MP. He can be contacted at sharad@mah.nic.in)

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