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this podcast is brought to you by India knowledge at Wharton please visit knowledge Wharton upendi D u / India for
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more information India imagine was the theme of the 2008 Wharton India Economic Forum that was
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held in Philadelphia recently the day-long event attracted several leaders including APJ Abdul Kalam former
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President of India as well as CEOs of Indian companies nonprofit groups consulting and private equity firms
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Indian knowledge at Wharton brings you one-on-one conversations with these leaders we're speaking today with Ravi
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kuchi machi who is the founder of the Association for India's development otherwise known as aid
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Ravi thanks very much for joining us thank you can you tell us about the genesis of Aid and how its it's grown
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over the years since you found it in 1991 I was a graduate student at university of milan in 91 and I
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basically thought that it'll be good to have some kind of channels where the
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Indian community in the US could relate to the real India you know rather than only relating to the Bollywood India or
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to the markets in India but also to the rural India where about 70 or 60 to 70 percent of India lives and so that was
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the idea with which you know I sent out an email that led to the starting of this group association for India's
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development essentially it channel eise's the energy and interests of the non-resident Indian community both
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students and professionals and seeks them to learn as well as participate in issues that connect with rural India
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they help out both by raising funds as well as by giving knowledge inputs and by you know volunteering when both their
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time in the US as well as in India and so you started out as one organization now have 50 50 chapters yeah yeah so so
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the organization started College Park but after three years of its sustaining in the University of Maryland
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it started spreading to other University campuses like in Pittsburgh and Princeton and so on
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and over time we had about 40 chapters in the US and it also smalls chapters also sprouted in Australia in UK and and
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so that's how it grew and the other thing was that it moved from a student organization to include also
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professionals and the general inner a community so right now our mix is about 40% students in our chapters and about
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60% are working you know people right now now ironically it was a Bollywood film called Swadesh right directed that
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told the told your story and in fact it was based on a project in which you provided electricity to the tribal
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village of bill gown what what to what do you attribute the success of that project that the film was based on so
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the context of that project is that it's situated in the Nirmala valley and the
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nom de Ville is very famous for this struggle against its last dam the Sardar Sarovar dam which is displacing about
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two lakh people just by its reservoir alone mr. World Bank had begun by funding it
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the World Bank now has recognized the problems with the project and had agreed that the project is faulty and it has
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withdrawn but it is continuing with the with efforts of the Indian government now so it is in that context that we
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thought it was a very good idea to set up an example of an alternate energy where where electricity is
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generated based on village resources and can light up that village so in the case
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of these large dense what happens is the energy of the water is stabbed and then
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it's fed to larger cities in India and those villages which are being displaced
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themselves do not get any electricity from that project so so they do not develop locally and that is one contrast
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you know we also wanted to show so this was a project we collaborated with a group called people school of energy
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which kind of provided the technical help to the project and and the nomina Bachao Andolan which is the people
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movement which was raising the struggle in our group and so the achievement of the project was that it was done
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entirely by ashram Don which is essentially the volunteer labor from the people and it tapped the energy of a
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waterfall so there's about a nine or ten meter waterfall in that village it's a
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beautiful waterfall so we diverted part of that water and and that dropped these
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ten meters and then turn the turbine which produces electricity so do you find that each each these projects
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require sort of a unique and innovative solution I mean you there's certainly
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lots of villages that aren't next to waterfall so you probably had to find other other methods for generating
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energy that's true so this is very applicable in tribal areas or in hilly areas actually it doesn't have to be a
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waterfall but if there is a source of water the hill naturally provides a contour for the water or for it to drop
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so you can make it drop in a pipe even by taking it some distance and then making it drop where the hill is steeper
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so you don't really need a waterfall but you need a source of water and you need
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ups and downs so that the water can be made to fall and that is there in many Hills you know and and and so it has the
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micro hydro projects of this kind have have a wide-ranging applicability and the Indian government is also investing
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money through its nan through its renewable energy you know ministry to look at you know some of these ideas so
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the other kind of things that we are doing in this sector right now is this hay box you know that I wanted to show
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you so this is also something which you know you can just see this box now this is a bamboo box it's entirely made in a
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village by a local artisan who gets paid about a dollar you know for making this
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whole thing and then it is stuffed with straw now straw hay is a good insulator of hit and this entirely line both the
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cap and and and inside so if you put anything hot inside this box it remains out for eight hours so so it's like a
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hot box you know for rural for four villages in India the other thing that it does is that it helps in
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cooking things like rice potatoes and pulses and so on you boil the thing and instead of continuing to cook on the
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fire you put the boiling rice inside this and close it because the hay retains the
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heat in the heat in that heat the rice continues to cook and it finishes cooking here so you save about 60% of
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the fuel by using this and so you save on greenhouse gases and for a village person it since the fuel like the cost
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of fuel or the cost it takes for a village women to collect firewood a typical village woman in India spends
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about two hours every day or every two days collecting the firewood for her family to burn and this saves time on
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that and it says cooking time as well so this is one thing that we are promoting
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right it makes perfect sense that it would work and it seems so simple but tell us a little bit about how you came
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up with this this thought that this would work yeah I see one of the things that I'm excited about this is that it's
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made in a village and sold in a village because we call away if we sell it at 70
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rupees which a village person can afford there are very few technologies now a village can make things for the global
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market you know that's one of the current things that you know countries like China for example be good at doing
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that but this is made and sold in villages so I like that I came up cross this idea on the
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internet basically I was looking for an efficient device to retain heat like hey
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I knew was a good insulator so I was looking for option for for solar heating systems so through solar thermal I mean
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through reflectors you can heat water up but then to keep the water hot you have
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to put it in some insulating vessel which which can be lined with hey it's a
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very low-cost insulator so I was doing a search on that for the internet in on the internet and and came across this
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idea of hey box and apparently the United Kingdom used hey boxes during world war as a way to reduce fuel
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consumption in the country so they had used it during World War and so it's a
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known technology what I realized was that it has a very good application in India
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so immediately we tried to make it locally and then we started giving it as actually selling it to two village
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people and one of the fascinating things that this does to them is that it also keeps food hot for eight hours it not
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only helps in cooking but you keep something hot the right stays hot for eight hours in this they don't have
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microwave ovens you know to heat up things and this is something that they are very excited about because they can
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get hot food any time of the day you know very simple but effective very effective yeah yeah fascinating do you
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see obviously your your organization has grown over time through the participation of of non-resident Indians
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do you see that trend continuing and what do you think is driving it yes so in the u.s. I think it's a passion you
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know people are actually interested both Indians and you know makin sells so like
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for example we have potential Fulbright Scholar who is from the US gerrae who is
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probably going to be visiting and stay up working with us in India for about eight months so what drives these young
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people whether they are Americans or Indians is it's kind of a passion to change you know and to make the world a
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better place for everybody know this somehow there seems to be so much iniquity in the world today that there's
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a large fraction of the world that basic resources are not reaching them and and
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there's a lot of exploitation in the world you know a lot of these people have remained poor because their rights
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have been trampled historically as well as continue to be even today you know trampled and and and somehow you know
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the youth of today wants to you know play a role in changing that and so you see you see it as a generational thing
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specifically both yeah both as a generational thing and maybe also because of the internet that has also
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really helped aid it has given an easier way for us to communicate and reach out
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to each other it's a cost-effective way right like previously like today leadership can
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come from anywhere in a decentralized manner through the internet it can get you know you
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you can make your thoughts hurt so so so I think there's also a part of that you
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know that's helping now let's talk a little bit about some of the new initiatives that you're focusing on as
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well you are keeping an eye on I think the the the Right to Information Act and the National Rural Employment Guarantee
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acts that were passed in the country why why are you stepping up your interest in
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those areas because they fundamentally RTI Act has to be fun new has fundamentally got to do with democracy
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and like the Freedom of Information Act you know in the u.s. now there's a lot
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of corruption in India and the government's accountability to the people is something that we need to work
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on as I was talking today at the conference the feedback you know from the people to the government or to the
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industry even from the poor people is something which is neglected and without a feedback cycle example I was giving
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was like for example the difference between simple and compound interest in compound interest the interest is fed
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back into the capital and generates more capital and so with time a simple interest is a linear growth it grows
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very slowly the fun in a simple interest account but in a compound interest a convict time it grows exponentially it
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was very fast and so it's very important for voices of the people to be heard by the government
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and people cannot give the voices if they do not know what the government is doing and right Information Act
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essentially allows people to question to ask government questions and which they
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have to answer in a timely manner so and it also helps fight corruption through this feedback you know so so we have so
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that's why we're interested and there are examples where if people have not
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gotten passports or ration cards today they can file an RTI application and ask what is the status of their application
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what is the status of other people who have plied on the same way what is the name of the government officer who is
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supposed to clear that but hasn't done so far and instead of asking all these
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questions oftentimes their work gets done they see here's your attrition card
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or here is your passport right so do you see your organization moving more direction of of influencing policy in
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the future as opposed to infinity I think it has moved both in the past and it's also continuing to go in that
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trajectory both influencing policy as well as implementation of good laws like the NRA G is an example the Employment
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Guarantee Act because our government is spending over five billion dollars every
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year of taxpayer money in providing 100 days employment guaranteeing hundred days employment to every rural family in
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India and so of course it's not at all the family actually works and is paid a
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minimum wage but they find the work and they have to give this work to the people now what we find is that there
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are some areas in India some states and some districts where 70% of this money is being is being just take it's not
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reaching the end user you know the internet personal works but it's being siphoned off there are some states and
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some regions where it's actually working very well so and this is something which
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came in 2005 so it's only two years six and seven other two years it's been
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implemented so far and and what our organization is very keenly interested in doing is this new legislature that
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comes in in India to also ensure its effective implementation to give feedback to the government to kind of
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take it to the administrative officials locally as well as to the state representatives the corruption that or
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the faults we find in the implementation of energy Act or the RTI Act and then go
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to courts if necessary and ensure that an accountable process of implementing this progressive legislature happens so
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that we actually not only end up with good laws but also good implementation of those laws where India likes the u.s.
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quite a bit I feel in the u.s. I think it doesn't much better job of implementing its laws but but in India
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the laws are very progressive the implementation is like and what are you and what do you see is the sort of the
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largest hurdles on the horizon for organizations like yours from some of the biggest challenges I think one of
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the biggest challenges is you know a lot of solutions or a lot of work seems to be custom-made
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it's there is no one there's no one one effective thing that addresses in X
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diverse country like India there is no one magic van that you can wave to solve these things so so so it requires people
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who kind of a Mook are committed who spend time there is a learning curve for new people who get involved in these
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kind of things you know either as a pro has chosen fields of their pursuit or as
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volunteers you know there is a learning curve that they have to go so to be effective and it requires staying power
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you know they have to stay and I think that has been one of the that just be not only of our organizations a bit for
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the the human tapping human potential making it stick you not at all these problems to understand their
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complexities and then you know people find what they can do about that Ravi thanks very much for speaking with
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us today thank you for more information please visit knowledge Wharton UPenn dot
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edu slash India