Social challenge awards of Rs twenty  crore: A Gandhian legacy

The fact that there is not a single challenge award at the national level illustrates the logic of inertia and indifference that the state has towards the unsolved problems of common people.  Not to speak about the problems that are emerging as a consequence of development. The  country has not learned to say, “enough, no more”, to the problems that we have been living with.  Way back in 1929,  Gandhiji was faced with a similar problem.  He realized that if khadi had to become an alternative to the mill-made clothes from England, then charkha had to become more efficient.  He offered an award of Rs.1 Lac [7700 pounds, more than Rs. twenty   Crore today] to anyone who could come out with a new design of charkha.  The conditions that the future design should meet were specified.   Isn’t it a time that hundreds of crores that government intends to spend on Dandhi memorial or thousands of crores other such extravaganza are utilized for developing solutions to the problems that poor people face, be it the manhole workers, paddy transplanters or other problems that I will enumerate next.

There is no dearth of millionaires and billionaires in the country.  How is it that the conscience of none pricks them to offer crores or even lakhs as award to solve problems with which we have been living with for millennia, centuries or decades.  I am highly hopeful that some such mechanisms will soon evolve in the country so that region-specific, country- specific and some of the global problems are addressed by motivating potential innovators and inventors to come out with frugal, affordable and to the extent possible sustainable solutions.  NIF may not be able to afford such attractive prizes but will soon announce challenge awards for some of the problems that we have witnessed during our shodh yatras all over the country.

Let me illustrate some of these problems. All of us eat rice without thinking about the drudgery that the women have to go through while transplanting paddy.  We must develop or augment already developed manual transplanters, for example by Photo Singh, Baghpat,  UP and battery or motor driven transplanters  which women workers could afford to own and provide services.  In Bastar, women use stones to crush mahuah seeds to extract kernel and press it using wooden logs to extract oil.  Large variety of forest products today go out of forests as unprocessed raw material ensuring thereby continued poverty of tribals. We have to develop low cost, low energy requiring grinder, pulverizer, dryer, fractional distillation apparatus, human powered UV treatment unit [such as developed by Dr. Jain in Bilaspur] for ensuring in-situ value addition.  There is no way naxalite problem can be solved in the long term without providing viable and affordable opportunities to the forest dwelling communities to add value and become drivers of transparent , accountable and frugal supply chain.  The norms of FDA requiring 1000 Sq.mtr of a space with five separate rooms may not be required for making many of the high quality ayurvedic medicines.  Increase in the growth of AYUSH [Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy] has to go hand-in-hand with distributed, decentralized, high quality manufacturing units.  In many of the high poverty regions, numerous crops and their local varieties are grown, each one of which may have unique food processing potential, already known to local women in many cases. Neither national nor state level gene banks have characterized the germplasm for their nutraceutical or food processing potential. I could add dozens of more challenges but the message is simple.  We need public spirited philanthropists, entrepreneurs, politicians and officials to come forward and say, “enough, no more” to the problems.  I will look forward to hear from such people soon.

Anil K Gupta