The champions’ visit about livelihoods started off with brief introduction by Dr.Neelam Maheshwari , who introduced us about small Entrepreneurs. They are not only helped financially but are also trained regarding marketing skills & quality maintenance. Programs like Navodyami encourage small entrepreneurs to make it big.

Our first site visit was to SKRDS near Navnagar , which is an organisation empowering women mainly housewives in tailoring (mainly stitching skills). They receive training for a month which is not charged & then later recruited in the production unit. People hailing from nearby places are also provided with free stay and food facilities during the training period. Interaction with employees revealed they were quite satisfied with their jobs as it empowers them to support their families financially. The trainees also have chance to get trained for beauty treatment options. The shirts are provided to the market mainly by SIRI organisation.

Our next visit was to VARSHA home foods placed in Hulkoti near Gadag. Their speciality is Vrasha Kardant. Kardant is a famous sweet delicacy from Gokak. The owners, Mrs. VARSHA & Mr.Sanjeev Raddi took it as a challenge to make kardant as tasty as that available from Gokak. They have successful in this venture and doing justice to the product and which most of us felt was tastier than the original Gokak Kardant. They have also consistently maintained the excellent quality of the product (owing to the best quality of raw materials used in the making). This is mainly marketed by the distributors in Bangalore, Tumkur & nearby places. They started their venture with lot of hardships & hardly any financial backing and have succeeded in getting the product for four fruitful years now. Around 1,500 kgs of kardant is made per month & 128kilos at a time. Presently their working place is same as their residence & they do plan to extend so that they are able to meet the increasing demand for the product. Kudos to their perseverance & strong willed efforts.

After a delicious lunch at farmer’s hostel, our next visit was to Shudha Ganga project started by Aqua Safi partnered with SKRDS. Mr Satvik Sarwadae a young enthusiastic engineer briefed us on Aqua safi which is an Indian counterpart of US based H2O for harmony. Aqua safi mainly aims to provide pure and safe drinking water to rural people at an affordable price.   Needless to elaborate on the state of consumable water in the rural areas of our country, the efforts made by Aqua safi tied up with NGOs is more than commendable. The unit works on the principle of reverse osmosis which removes dissolved salts (including fluoride levels which is very high in & around these districts), and softens water. The unit costs about 3 lakhs for installation & has a capacity of refining 1000litrs/hour working for 8 hrs in a day. The waste water (30%) can be used for gardening / cleaning but not for agricultural purposes. The villagers are charged a nominal of 20paisa / litre & can access water at fixed timings in the day. They can procure water in cans provided. The villagers need to register to get the benefit regularly and non frequent users will be charged slightly higher only encourage them use it regularly. The system to be installed needs a fixed source like a lake/ bore well for constant use. The maintenance is completely taken care by aquasafi, 1st year being free of cost & subsequently being charged 60,000 annually. The unit of 1000litre capacity can cater to the needs of 250 families in a village. A report of the efficiency of the unit is maintained and the quality of output water is regularly sent for testing. The most impressive part of Aqua safi is that it tries to reach out to villages which are difficult access.

We concluded our wonderful day expressing our views & suggestions regarding our visits. For SKRDS we expressed our concern regarding the possible postural problems which the employees may encounter in the long run & the need to take preventive measures. We also emphasised the on increasing the outlets for their products so that more people can be benefitted. About Varsha Kardant , all of us were impressed by their hard work & never let go attitude. Surprisingly their product is not available in & around hubli Dharwad. We opined that they need to expand so that they can cater to the remaining 98% of state of which is not covered. They also need to improvise on marketing skills so that they need not have to turn down offers when there is more demand during festival season. Regarding Aqua safi we did not have much to suggest except for our admiration. We felt that a smaller version possibly could cater to the needs of small localities like slum areas in urban areas as well. Mr Satvik responded that this has already been taken up as a pilot project in a place in Mumbai.

Overall the day kick started well and we all were amazed, happy and full of appreciations for the efforts at different sites. The effort to bridge the gap between producer and consumer is almost made up and we only had to add few suggestions and modifications. It was a true inspiration for all of us to make sustainable strong valid efforts.