NETWORK · 2012-11-09 · Quarterly Publication of IRMA July-September 2011 Volume: 15 No. 3...

Quarterly Publication of IRMA July-September 2011 Volume: 15 No. 3

NETWORK

Prof. Y. K. Alagh (Chairman, IRMA) receives Agricultural Leadership award on behalf of IRMA on 14 September, 2011. More news in page 29

Institute of Rural ManagementPost Box No. 60, Anand – 388 001, Gujarat, IndiaPhone : (02692) 260177, 260181, 260186, 260391, 260264, 261502Fax : (02692) 260188Gram : IRMAE-mail : [email protected] : http://www.irma.ac.in

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Independence Day15 August at IRMA is not just the celebration of the Independence Day, but also serves as a stage to uncover the talent the new batch has brought with itself. This year too the IRMA community was waiting for this event to have glimpse of what PRM 32 has in store for them. And as per the tradition, PRM 32 rose to the occasion and delivered an outstanding performance. The theme this year was “Incredible India” celebrating the diversity of our country in terms of dances, costumes festivals and the ever exuberating Bollywood. The evening started with lamp lighting by the director followed by a classical performance on AR Rehman’s vande matram. The whole theme was divided into three segments namely: Indian Festivals, Bollywood & Folk Dances. The whole auditorium was enthralled by the Holi and Ganesh Chaturthi performances on the stage while the medley of popular bollywood songs kept the audience on their dancing toes. It was the folk dance performances that actually provided the much needed colour and energy to the theme. The Rajasthani dance performance looked spectacular with its colourful costumes reminiscing us of the real Rajasthan while the Bhangra performance was like a cherry on the cake making everyone dance to the tunes of the world famous Punjabi folk music. The evening also saw the theatrical skills of PRM 32 with two plays being enacted both focussing on the youth and the present political scenario of the country. Apart from the new batch, the IRMA club also came up with very entertaining performances thus inviting thunderous applause from the audience. A special mention should be made of the Decoration team which worked day and night to give the venue a beautiful ambience. In all, it was an evening worth remembering.

Editorial Committee

Agricultural Leadership Award 2011Agricultural Leadership Award established by National Agricultural Magazine – Agriculture Today – went to IRMA in its fourth round of competition. The letter, conveying the news of the award, stated: “the decision was arrived keeping in view the transformational role that IRMA has played in rural development through academic, research and developmental initiatives at the national level”. The competition was organized as two tier screening system. There was screening by sub-committees for different categories of award. There were 17 such categories. IRMA received the award in the category of Development Leadership. The final decision was made by National Committee which was headed by Prof. M. S. Swaminathan, and 15 nationally eminent persons served on the committee. Agriculture Leadership Awards were started in 2008 to recognize the leadership roles played by individuals and institutions, which are positively impacting the lives of farmers and rural masses. The Leadership Award under development category for 2008 went to NABARD, 2009 jointly to NDDB and Agriculture Insurance Company and 2010 to NIRD. In a glittering function held on 14 Sept at Taj Palace, New Delhi the award was received by IRMA chairman Prof. Y. K. Alagh.

The Institute of Rural Management Anand was founded in 1979. The need for such an institution was articulated, conceptualized and piloted by Dr. Verghese

Kurien. IRMA has pioneered the discipline of Rural Management. The Post-Graduate Programme in Rural Management (PRM) is its flagship programme. IRMA has Fellow Programme in Rural Management (FPRM) as well. The purpose of the programmes is to create professional managers to work with organisations and partner with people for equitable socio-economic development of rural India. At IRMA the participants go through a tough curriculum which has the unique feature of placing them with development organisations in rural areas in three separate segments during the two year programme. This is a phase of ‘active learning’ and the young minds are moulded and imbibe the ethos of IRMA during this period. Hence the phrase “once an IRMAn always an IRMAn”. As in any teaching and research institution, an academically strong Faculty is the backbone of IRMA. The Faculty engages in teaching and training to create a generation of professional managers committed to IRMA’s mission. The research and consultancy at IRMA is geared towards understanding the rural context and finding solutions to the problems faced by the organisations that serve the rural sector.In recent times the concept of ‘rural’ has changed in terms of the nature of economic activities and associated issues. The inequalities in education and health have increased, regional imbalances have grown, issues relating to exclusion of tribal and other segments, environment and governance remain a challenge. Moreover, the classic break of the rural and urban has disappeared. Given this changing context and the greater integration of the rural-urban within the global context, the challenges faced by IRMA are many. We need to expand the scale and scope of our programmes, research and consulting to respond to this new context. IRMA needs to position its flagship programme as a “world class programme in Rural Management” working for the relevant rural organizations. It also needs to find realistic and effective ways to fulfill the needs of stakeholder organizations that created it. In order to do this IRMA endeavours to create an academic ambience that is performance driven, just, and enabling academic excellence. With the help our Faculty, staff, alumni and participants we hope to scale new heights and establish IRMA as a ‘knowledge institution’ in the area of rural management and development.

Jeemol UnniDirector, IRMA

Prof. Jeemol Unni took charge as the director of IRMA with effect from 06 September 2011. She joined IRMA as RBI Chair Professor on 3rd August 2009. Network conveys best wishes in her new duty! Network is pleased to carry her message for IRMA community in this issue.

Message from New Director

Editorial

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of NETWORK, IRMA.

Recently, an important milestone in IRMA history quietly passed: IRMA library completed 25 years of existence on 22 March 2011. During one of the grandest function in IRMA history on that date in the year 1987 witnessed the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi opening the doors of the present Ravi Mathai library. An IRMA employee who witnessed the function said: “The memories Rajiv Gandhi (a hope for India at that time) moving in the campus are still afresh in my mind. Nothing has happened in last 25 years that would take away that memory from me”.

This forgetfulness about a key milestone reminded me about two academic works: ‘Do I have a right to forget?’ and ‘The politics of memory’. The first work is about how relationships in society are rewired after the acknowledgement of historical injustice. Second work is how post-colonial societies consciously suppress milestones that remind about colonial era. Forgetting about opening of a library could be characteristic of how the role of library is redefined in quarter of a century in an academic institution.

In post-modern era with the increasing appreciation of tacit knowledge, printed matter has often become hindrance to learning than facilitator. Besides, the holy triangle of teacher-book-student is ruptured with the information revolution, particularly that of world wide web and other electronic formats. This has challenged the spatial limitation of the concept of library, and library has been given a symbolic role. In other words, a symbol does not require another symbol for remembering it!

A professional manager becomes ‘knowledge personified’, rather than knowledge to be something acquired and applied in day-to-day problem solving contexts. Network itself is a medium where sharing of experiences and events of IRMAns indicate the view of ‘transcending the library’.

Sony Pellissery

(Editor)

ContentsThumps up for cooperative autonomy in high courts- Sattwick Dey Biswas .................................... 2

Rural finance: post-reform concerns and issues for research -H.S. Shylendra .............................................. 7

Livelihoods microfinance: "Microfinance crisis: Responses" .................................... 13-14

Alumni SpeakDown the memory lane......- Avantika Garg & Shilpa Bhaskar ................ 16

Participants SpeakSome of the features I found interesting and worth thinking- Sandeepa Nayak ........................................... 19

Organizational traineeship segment 2011: a brief recap- Nikita Bankoti and Saurabh Sharma ............22

IRMA NEWS ...............................................24

Network is a quarterly publication of IRMA aiming to generate

communication among alumni, well-wishers and present participants of IRMA. Send the materials for

consideration of publicaion in Network to : [email protected]

Editorial CommitteeSony Pellissery (Editor)Susamma T (Secretary)

([email protected])Nikita Bankoti, PRM 31 (Member)Saurabh Sharma, PRM 31 (Member)Parneet K Kahlon, PRM 32 (Member)Shubham N Tomar, PRM 32 (Member)

1NETWORK July-September 2011 Vol. 15 •No. 3


THUMPS UP FOR COOPERATIVE AUTONOMY IN HIGH COURTS

Sattwick Dey Biswas1

IntroductionAutonomy is the right to self-governance. A cooperative is a voluntary autonomous association of persons or societies, functioning in the conformity with the conformity principles for the economic and social betterment of its member.1 Autonomy of a cooperative society arises from the freedom of association inherent in a free society and in India through our constitution’s Article 19 (1) (c) (Right to form association). The very freedom arises from our belief on autonomy of individual. Individual’s autonomy empowers individuals to be free to associate with others with his free will. Cooperative movements in India, like in many developing countries were initiated by state therefore members are like children on a see-saw under the supervision of parents i.e. state.2 Two cases of recent court judgments are discussed to understand how Courts of India have upheld the Principles of Cooperatives in their judgments. These cases are very latest ones, the first case was decided by Supreme Court of India on 2nd September, 2011 and the second case was decided by High Court of Kerala on 1st September, 2011.

Case of Andhra Pradesh The case was at: The Supreme Court of India

Decided On: 02.09.2011 Appellants: A.P. Dairy Development Corporation Federation

Vs.

Respondent: B. Narasimha Reddy and Ors.

Hon’ble Judges: P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan, JJ.

The case in brief is that Andra Pradesh State Legislature enacted a new law named “Andhra Pradesh Mutually Aided Cooperative Societies Act 1995” without repealing old law on cooperatives that is “Andhra Pradesh Cooperative Societies Act 1964” where process of migration was permitted from one law to another. The 1995 act is designed in such a way that the government Registrar can’t interfere into internal affairs of cooperatives.

2006 Amendment Act of “Andhra Pradesh Mutually Aided Cooperative Societies Act 1995” states: (a) All dairy cooperatives that were

working as on that day under the 1995 Act would stand transferred to the 1964 Act;

(b) All dairy cooperatives would be treated as if they have always been under the 1964 Act;

(c) All dairy cooperatives would be treated as if they never existed under the 1995 Act; and

1. Sattwick is Research Assistant at the Institute of Rural Management, Anand. Email id: [email protected]

3NETWORK July-September 2011 Vol. 15 •No. 3 33

(d) Henceforth, no dairy cooperative would be registered under the 1995 Act.

The dairy cooperatives and Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) filed writ petitions in the High Court challenging the constitutional validity of the 2006 Amendment Act and statutory validity of appointment of persons-in-charge by executive orders, the High Court was pleased to grant intern relief suspended the executive order.

On 1-5-07, Hon’ble Court declared that provisions of 2006 amendment act as a violation of Article 14 (Equality before law), and Article 19 (1) (c) (Right to form Association) of the constitution. Being aggrieved at and dissatisfied with the above judgment the state appeal to Supreme Court to quash the said judgment.

The apex court hold that cooperative by its nature is a form of voluntary association where individual unites for mutual benefit in production and distribution of upon the principles of equity, reason and common good. Formation of the unions under Article 19(1)(c) is a voluntary act, thus, unwarranted/impermissible statutory intervention is not desired. The Act as stated by Hon’ble Judges, P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan, JJ. In their ruling state, “does not merely regulate the administration of the affairs of the Society, what it does is to alter the composition of the Society itself. The result of this change in composition is that the members, who voluntarily formed the Association, are now compelled to act in that Association with other members who have imposed as members by the Act and

in whose admission to membership they had no say. Such alteration in the composition of the Association itself clearly interferes with the right to continue to function as members of the Association which was voluntarily formed by the original founders. Any law, by which members are introduced in the voluntary Association without any opinion being given to the members to keep them out, or any law which takes away the membership of those who have voluntarily joined it, will be a law violating the right to form an association.” The right to from association will be infringed by forced inclusion of a person unwanted by the incumbent members. Therefore by statutory intervention, the state is not permitted to change the fundamental character of association or alter the composition of association itself. Any significant encroachment upon associational freedom is registered under a statute the provision of the statute govern it. In case it has an option/ choice to be registered under a particular statute, if there is more than one statute operating in the field, the state can’t force the association to get itself registered under a statute for which it has not applied. Introducing an element of compulsion would violate Article 19 (1) (c) of the constitution.

The judgment goes on by saying, “The affairs of the co-operatives are to be regulated by the provisions of the Act 1995 and by the bye-laws made by the individual co-operative society. The Act 1995 provide for multiplicity of organisations and the statutory authorities have no right to classify the co-operative societies, while under the Act 1964 the Registrar can refuse because of non-viability, conflict of area of jurisdiction or for some class of co-

4NETWORK July-September 2011 Vol. 15 •No. 3 4

operative. Under the Act 1964, it is the Registrar who has to approve the staffing pattern, service conditions, salaries etc. and his approval is required for taking someone from the Government on deputation, while under the Act 1995 the staff is accountable only to the society. Deputation etc. is possible only if a co-operative so desires.” Therefore both the Act clearly empower cooperatives own body to decide issues related to their own interest leaving state to oversee regulatory part to some extent. However, in line of 4th Principal of International Cooperative Alliance, “Autonomy and Independence” is in the hands of members of cooperative and cooperative only.On “Autonomy and Independence,” the Hon’ble judges said, “Principles of co-operation as incorporated in Section 3 and given effect to in the other provisions of the Act 1995 permit better democratic functioning of the society than under the Act 1964. Whereas the Act 1995 provides for State regulation to the barest minimum, the Act 1964 provides for extensive State control and regulation of cooperative societies which is inconsistent with the national policy with regard to cooperative societies evolved in consultation…” Therefore for what so ever the state’s decision to enforce its will on cooperative is a violation of its previous stand and against the national model law recommended by the Planning Commission of India.Though the legislation has right to amend or repeal any Act but to force the members of the cooperative to act under compulsion/direction of state rather on their own will would be violative of the very basic Principle of Cooperation when it process a cooperative registered

under the 1995 Act to work under 1964 Act. Thus in this valued opinion of Apex Court the Act would be vitiated act only by non-application of mind but also by irrelevant and extraneous considerations.Case of Kerala

The case was at: The High Court of Kerala Decided On: 01-09-11Appellants: Thomas K.F. Vs.

1. Kerala Co. Operative Milk Marketting

2. Director of Dairy Development 3. State of Kerala.

Hon’ble Judges: Justice P.N.RavindranKCMMF (Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation) Ltd. was regis-tered under Kerala Co-operative Soci-eties Act 1969 (KCS) on 21-02-1980 and is the apex society of three Regional Cooperative Milk Producer Unions in state. About 2800 Primary Dairy Co-operative Societies with 800,000 dairy farmers are affiliated to them. The ad-ministration management and control of the Cooperative is vested in its Board of Directors (BOD) constituted as per its bye- laws. In the year 2009, the Cooperative noti-fied reduction in procurement of milk by affiliated RCMP unions in state due to economic reasons. The BOD of the Cooperative on 16-11-09 constituted a committee for that purpose. The com-mittee headed by Dr. N.R. Unnithan in their report found “The actual cost of pro-duction is far in excess of the procurement price (Rs.18,63) fixed for cow milk (Fat3.5% and SNF 8.5%) in the stats-now,” and rec-


ommended to raise the selling price of milk at least by Rs. 5 per litre. After approval the BOD forwarded it to government with a request to take appropriate deci-sion on the findings in the report. The government replied holding the report unofficial. The Board after considering various aspects at length resolved to in-crease the SP (selling price) of milk by Rs. 5/- per liter with effect from 11-05-11. The Registrar of Dairy Cooperatives (Director of Dairy Development, also known as Registrar) dissented to it on the ground of non-approval of the gov-ernment.

It is contended by the petitions at Ker-ala High Court that the Registrar or government don’t have the jurisdiction or authority to interfere with decision taken by the Cooperative as it is em-powered to determine the same. On the other hand the contention made by the state is that Cooperative can only rec-ommend an increase in support price but it can be only increased only with concurrence/ approval of the govern-ment. The Registrar is empowered un-der the provisions of the act and the rules to interfere with the decision tak-en by Cooperative. Moreover the gov-ernment has the legislative competence to enact a law relating to price control under Entry 34 of List III of VII sched-ule to the constitution. It can issue ex-ecutive instruction under Art 162 of the constitution to regulate SP of milk. The question arose for determination was whether Cooperative required prior approval of government to increase SP of milk. The Cooperative was formed pursuant to a tripartite entered into between State government, National Dairy Development Board and Indian Dairy Corporation. In that agreement

‘it is inter alia’ stipulated that state undertakes “not to take any action to restrict the power of cooperative insti-tution to act in accordance with sound economic and financial practices , to fix their price of product etc. “ The bye-laws of the Cooperative empowers the Board to decide the pricing structure for dairy and allied products. Addition-ally, the court said, “In the instant case, the Dairy farmers in Kerala unfortunately were denied both - their legitimate right to fix the price and adopt appropriate market-ing strategies - to realize the price. The net result is that the milk producer, who belongs to the poorest of the poor in the community is forced to sell his/her produce suffering a loss of around eight rupees per liter of milk compared to the actual cost he/she incurs.” Rule 180 of KCS stipulates that no so-ciety shall do way act which is not ex-pressly provided for by the bye-laws of such society without previous express sanction of registration. The bye-laws empowering the board to decide on the procurement / sell to be paid for dairy products do not stipulate the previous sanction of the registrar. As election to the legislative assembly had been noti-fied Cooperative decides to seek con-currence of EC and not the approval of government. Rule 170 empower Registrar to rescind a resolution of Cooperative if it appears ultra vires the objects of Cooperative or against the provision or Act, Rules or bye-laws. The court said, “The interval between the successive revisions and the magnitude is often decided by the Government, an anomaly to the very concept of cooperative movement in the country.” The court in another place have said, “In my opinion the Govern-ment or the Registrar of Dairy Coop-


erative cannot regulate and control the working of a society in the exercise of the power conferred on them under the proviso to section 9 of the Act without taking into account the adverse eco-nomic impact that any regulatory mea-sure adopted by the Government or Registrar of Dairy Co-operatives will have on the members of the society which in instant case is the Federation and Consequently on the members of the Primary Dairy Cooperative Societ-ies, approximately 8,00,000 in number.” Here invocation of power does not arise. U/S(Under section)-9 of the act, the government and the Registrar can regulate and control the working of Co-operative for the economic and social betterment of the members and general public. S-66, 66A of the Act are in tune with the S-9 of the act. The materials on the record disclose that about 800,000 dairy farmers are not able to realize even the actual cost of production in existing price regime. The state has not enacted any price control laws so far or issues any executive order with Art 162 of Constitution. As held by apex court an un-announced law can not govern the rights of parties.

Therefore Hon’ble Court on 01-09-11 was pleased to quash the impugn or-der and declare that the state govern-ment and the Registrar have no right or authority to interfere with the decision taken by the cooperative to increase SP of milk.

ConclusionRecent financial crisis has challenged the tendency to jump into the band-wagon of neoliberal orthodoxy. Co-operatives aspire for economic justice in times of such crisis. Hence, the au-tonomy of cooperative is a must not merely for the sake of compliance with cooperative ideology but more because cooperative action will not bear fruit until cooperative are free from external influence, including the state. As stated by Justice P.N.Ravindran, “…the suc-cessive revisions and the magnitude is often decided by the Government, an anomaly to the very concept of coop-erative movement in the country.” Co-operative and state, both should work together by respecting full autonomy of the cooperative if they in right earnest as regard to cooperative development.

Editor invites short comments (about 500 words) or long pieces (about 1200 words) commenting on the status of cooperative autonomy in India and across the world. Selected pieces could be published in the next issue of Network. Send the items to [email protected]

1 P. E. Weeraman, “The effect of Cooperative law on the Autonomy of Cooperatives in South-East Asia,” Inter-national Cooperative Alliance, 1973

2 O. R. Krishnaswami, “Fundamentals of Cooperation,” S. Chnad & Company Ltd, New Delhi, 1987


RURAL FINANCE: POST-REFORM CONCERNS AND ISSUES FOR RESEARCH

H.S. Shylendra1

Introduction Creation of a wide network of rural financial institutions (RFIs) was one of the major achievements of the post-independence State policy. The task of building the formal financial system in rural areas was facilitated by the adoption of the social and developmental banking policy framework encompassing a variety of policy measures. On the institutional side, the framework included a proactive expansion of commercial banks in rural areas under the concept of Lead Bank Scheme, strengthening the network of credit co-operatives, and establishment of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development Bank (NABARD) and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs). On the policy and services side, the framework went with the prescription of priority sector lending, equity and refinance support to RFIs, and regulated interest rate structure to ensure access to affordable credit. Such a policy resulted in both widening and deepening the access of rural households to formal sources of finance. This in turn contributed to fostering agricultural and rural development and curtailment of the role of informal sources of finance.The financial liberalization launched in 1990s in the wake of structural adjustment and economic reforms has brought about considerable changes in the policy approach to rural and

agricultural lending. The thrust is on financial health of the RFIs through efficient operations and performance enabled through deregulation and adoption of prudential banking norms in tune with the global practices. RFIs have been given freedom with regard to their branch expansion and interest rate determination besides reducing preemption of their investable funds by way of lower liquidity reserve ratios. Allowing RRBs to work as regular banks apart, dilution of state equity and entry of private banks are other steps taken under the reforms. A major rationale advocated for reforms was to expose RFIs to a competitive environment and sustain themselves through more efficient operations and innovative strategies. The neo-classical economics provided the basic theoretical underpinning for such a policy rationale (Pischke J D Von et al 1983). The argument was that the State through its excessive role and intervention in rural financial markets has brought about considerable inefficiencies resulting in the underperformance of RFIs as seen in the poor coverage of rural households, growing non-viability of rural lending, and weak financial position of rural banks and cooperatives. The direct intervention of the State in rural financial markets, cap on interest rates, and quantitative sectoral allocation of credit were argued to be the reasons for such an underperformance. These

1. Professor, Institute of Rural Management, Anand. Email id: [email protected]


arguments have been supplemented by the ideas of new institutional school which has identified market failure arising out of growing risk and uncertainty, information asymmetry, and moral hazard in rural lending as the cause of poor performance and weak financial health of RFIs (Basu, Priya and N Verma 2004). The institutional school argued for policies to overcome market failure through suitable institutional reforms. Innovations in institutional forms and products and services facilitated through conducive regulatory framework are identified as the necessary conditions for improving the performance of RFIs under the changing environment.

Post-Reform Response of RFIsThere have been diverse range of responses in the areas of rural finance to rationalize the reform process. The RFIs including the cooperatives are expected to adopt prudential norms even covering agricultural lending to enhance their risk bearing abilities. In terms of interest rates, banks and cooperatives have been given freedom to charge interest rates as per business norms and market conditions. In terms of credit allocation, the priority sector lending continues with sub-sector targets. However, certain newer areas or activities are included under the priority category to broaden the original focus.At the institutional level there have been several initiatives under reforms. While the three major institutional forms viz., commercial banks, RRBs and co-operatives continue to operate, there have been some changes in their structure and role. For example, RRBs

which were created to exclusively serve weaker sections like small and marginal farmers and agricultural labourers have now been allowed to function as normal banks without any focus on such a target group. Further, along with recapitalization many RRBs have been amalgamated to create viable units of them. About the commercial banks, there is now a liberal approach towards expansion of their rural branches, and a few private commercial banks have also made an entry. Alternative forms of institutions have been created or allowed to cater to the financial service needs of the rural households especially the poor. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other forms of microfinance institutions (MFIs) have emerged which use group based approach to provide financial services to the poor. Linkage of informal groups with formal institutions also has been attempted in a significant way under the self help group (SHG) and bank linkage programme (SBLP). Introduction of agency based provision of services through use of business correspondents/facilitators is another innovative mechanism adopted to increase the coverage of the poor by reducing the transaction costs. About cooperatives, two initiatives worth identifying are the enactment of self-reliant cooperative acts by several state governments to create a more autonomous member based institutions and the announcement of the financial revival package for the credit cooperatives.

Introduction of new products or services by RFIs is another area of response. One which is worth mentioning is the introduction of kisan credit cards


(KCC) by all RFIs to bring flexibility and hassle free access to credit by farmers. The National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) which replaced an earlier crop insurance scheme is another example of product innovation. NAIS aims to provide insurance services to the farmers in a viable and a more decentralised way. Some of the other innovations having links to agricultural lending include weather-based insurance, introduction of commodity futures and derivatives, and contract farming.

Incidentally, there have been several initiatives made to reverse the negative fallouts of the reform process as well as help farmers come out of the prevailing chronic agrarian distress scenario. The initiative to double the flow of agricultural credit starting from 2004-05 in view of the severe decline observed in the flow of credit to farm sector is one such measure. Introduction of security-free lending up to one lakh rupees to tenants and lease famers is another measure to increase financial inclusion. Another major intervention in this regard is the implementation of the agricultural debt waiver and relief scheme in 2008 by Government of India covering nearly 37 million farmers to mitigate the consequences arising out of growing indebtedness and agrarian crisis. In order to reduce the growing cost of borrowing, GOI and several state governments have introduced interest subvention schemes wherein part of the interest paid on agricultural loans by farmers is being reimbursed. Simultaneously, loans for debt swaps have been introduced to formalize the debt from informal sources. Further, a few states have tightened their money

lending laws to curtail usurious practices of the informal sources.

The Post-Reform Impact: Some Emerging Evidence The assessment of the impact of reforms per se and the initiatives / innovations introduced thereof have thrown up a mixed picture. While the monetary authorities seem to be generally satisfied with the impact of the reforms especially in improving the financial health of the RFIs, there have been concerns raised both by official and independent agencies over many negative consequences wrought by reforms in the rural financial system. The positive gains of reforms as identified by some of the studies include the improved profitability of the RFIs and introduction of several innovations like KCC, microfinance, debt swaps, weather-based insurance and price discovery mechanisms helping in the delivery of better services to farmers and rural poor. However, alternative assessments have highlighted several highly undesirable fallouts of these changes.One such assessment by a group of scholars clearly argues that the financial liberalization has decimated the carefully built rural financial system (Ramachandran V.K. and M. Swaminathan 2005). These scholars have questioned the very theoretical and policy basis of the reforms, and have inferred that the changed political economy under reforms is bound to result is consequences like neglect of agricultural lending and raise in real interest rates. Empirically, they have found that as a result of the reforms there is a severe constriction of formal


credit network and a decline in rural and agricultural lending leading to aggravation of agrarian distress and revival of the informal sources of credit. The process has led to other serious problems like creation of institutional vacuum, credit starvation and disintermediation by RFIs. Moreover, reforms have generally resulted in an increase in interest rates on rural lending, a reverse of what was visualized before reforms because of increased competition (Singh 2005). The relevance of some of the innovations having links to rural finance delivery be it microfinance or commodity derivates and futures or securitisation has been questioned because of their potential to weaken the position of the farmers. As a way forward, while these alternative assessments argue for reversal of the reform measures and adoption of a proactive state policy to strengthen the network of RFIs as was done under social banking policy, those supporting the reform process are arguing for creation of conducive regulatory framework to reinforce the competitive environment and institutional reform process underway so as to enable the RFIs to come up with innovative solutions for the problem of agricultural and rural credit. The Expert Group on Agricultural Indebtedness (GOI 2007) which inquired into the problem of agricultural indebtedness identified, among others, institutional vacuum created as the major challenge and advocated institutional alternatives and novel instruments as possible solution to the problem.The issues brought out above calls for a critical assessment of the nature of the policy responses in the post-

reform period and the outcomes seen thereof. Before we can pose questions for research in this field, it would be worthwhile to look at some of the emerging evidence in different areas (Shylendra 2011). Policy Level Initiatives and the Working of RFIs: About the impact in this regard the available evidence suggests continued challenges like constriction of rural lending by formal agencies, inequality in the flow of institutional credit but also indicate to certain positive outcomes on increasing demand for agricultural attained through schemes like interest subvention, debt relief and doubling of agricultural credit (NABARD 2009). However, many of the other policy initiatives be it the new priority sector lending policy or the deregulation of interest rates need to be studied for overall assessment of the impact. The reforms have brought out about many changes in the structure of the RFIs. The RFI like commercial banks, RRBs and co-operatives have undergone reform driven changes. The working of co-operatives shows that they continues to suffer from challenges like uneven spread, declining share of their lending, inadequate coverage of farmers, poor lending practices, and mounting overdues. Though co-operatives have also adopted innovations like KCC and SHGs, a further understanding is needed to know about their impact. About RRBs, though they have ensured wider coverage of rural areas, but exclusion of the poor and higher cost of lending appears to be the challenges to enhance their role. Innovations in Products and Services: The evidence on KCC indicate that though there has been an impressive growth in the issue of KCC, several


lacunae are coming in the way of KCC emerging as a really innovative and a flexible instrument capable of streamlining credit flow to farmers. There are variations across regions and land-size categories in the coverage of KCC. Rigid norms and procedural hassles have made KCC a highly restrictive facility and considerable proportion are found using it more as one time loan than as a flexible cash credit facility. Again due to rigid norms, KCC has not been able to reduce the credit gap and the dependence on other sources of credit. However, wherever KCC has created a better access, many positive changes could be seen in terms of reduced cost of borrowing and increased use of inputs. Crop Insurance and Innovations for Risk Mitigation: It is now clear that agricultural insurance in India is still in an experimental phase. Even the new scheme NAIS is faced with problems like inadequate coverage, inadequate compensation, delay in the settlement, and lack of proper information. There is still a long way to go before an effective risk mitigation measures for farmers can be put in place for wider adoption. The warehouse receipt financing in its present form needs to be more innovative to be beneficial for the farmers.

Microfinance: Microfinance has emerged both as an innovative and an alternative mechanism of delivering financial services to the poor. In India the growth of microfinance has been rapid particularly during the post-reforms period during which the formal sector has shown a strong tendency of excluding the poor and other small borrowers. The response by way microfinance hence can be

seen both as a measure to overcome the conventional failure of formal institutions as well as to mitigate the negative consequences of the reform policy on the poor. The microfinance method through the group approach tries overcoming the constraints faced by the poor in accessing services from the formal agencies. Given it fast growth, microfinance has raised hopes of widening the outreach of formal sources to the poor. However, available evidence suggests that microfinance is faced several inherent limitations like high cost of operations, lack of universal access to financial services, and inability to help in large scale poverty alleviation. There is a skewed spread of microfinance interventions geographically and a large section of the poor still remain excluded.

Issues for ResearchThe overview of the policy changes and the emerging evidence bring out the relevance of exploring clearly the post-reform response of the RFIs and the outcomes thereof. Specifically, the following key issues may be identified for further exploration by researchers in the field. 1) What are the major policy reforms initiated in relation to RFIs? What is the true nature of these policies and their potential to affect the working of rural financial markets? 2) What are the measures initiated to overcome some of the negative consequences of reforms like exclusion of poor and small borrowers, increasing cost of borrowing and growing influence of informal sources? How far these measures have helped reverse the negative consequences ? 3) What is the evolving institutional structure


in rural areas to meet the emerging credit needs? What are the merits and demerits of institutional changes for ensuring affordable and hassle free access to financial services by the rural households in general and small and marginal farmers in particular? 4) What are the innovative product and services developed by the RFIs to meet the diverse financial service needs of rural households? In what way these innovations have proved beneficial ? How far some of the controversial innovations like commodity futures and derivatives have delivered for the farmers? 5) What is the impact of these reforms and innovations on the farm economy? How far these measures have contributed for either aggravating or mitigating the agrarian crisis?

ReferencesBasu, Priya and Niraj Verma (2004)

`Improving Access to Rural Finance in India: An Overview’, Paper presented at the Workshop on Improving Access to Rural Finance organised by the World Bank at New Delhi during February 13-14, 2004.

GOI (2007) Report of the Expert Group on Agricultural Indebtedness, Minstry of Finance, New Delhi.

NABARD (2009) Report on the Doubling of Agriculture Credit Programme: A Study in Selected States, Mumbai: NABARD,

Pishcke J d Von, Dale W Adams and Gordon Donald (1983) Rural Financial Markets in Developing Countries: Their Use and Abuse, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Ramachandran V.K. and M. Swaminathan (eds) (2005) Financial Liberalisation and Rural Credit in India, New Delhi: Tulika Books.

Shylendra H.S (Forthcoming 2011) ‘Innovations in Agricultural Credit Market: Rationalisation of policy Response’, Rapporteur Report, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics.

Singh, Surjit (2005) Agricultural Credit in the Post-Reform Period: Some Concerns, Working Paper-145, Jaipur: Institute of Development Studies.

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1. Associate Professor, Institute of Rural Management, Anand


In response to the publication of ‘Micro-finance crisis’ in the last issue of Network, there was a flood of letters to the editor. We reproduce Editors’ choices from them here:

In the context of the ongoing crisis in the microfinance sector and the Andhra Pradesh debacle a lot of debate is been going around regarding the viability of the model. The debate is also focussing for some other alternate models which are sustainable. In response to the arti-cle by Prof. Shylendra titled ‘Micro-Fi-nance Crisis: A Political Economy Per-spective’, I would like to reflect based on my OTS experience with Srijan.

Livelihood Microfinance model, as practiced by NGOs like Srijan (work-ing in M.P. & Rajasthan), are rarely discussed as viable models. They are mainly engaged in promoting self-help groups (SHGs) and their federations at a cluster level, and linking SHGs with banks.

In this model instead of direct lending to the SHGs and their members first of all the SHGs are encouraged to have savings in the form of small amounts of around Rs. 10 per week per member and this is carried out till a sufficient saving base of the SHG is being gener-ated, by the time this base is created the members continue to inter-lend the small SHG savings amongst them-selves. Here the focus is on capacity building rather than just pumping out money, which is the case of the other microfinance institutions. A step by step view of the process to understand the approach in context of the NGO

LIVELIHOODS MICROFINANCE: AN ANSWER TO CRISIS IN MICROFINANCE SECTOR?

Kapil Malviya (PRM31)

Srijan is as follows:1. Social mobilisation and SHG

formation: Any livelihood inter-vention by Srijan at any of the location begins with social mobi-lisation i.e. getting the communi-ty together for a cause which can be livelihood generation activities like Dairying, Horticulture, Wa-tershed management etc. This is mainly done by forming SHGs (Self Help Groups) in which women of the community are brought forward to form groups of 10-12. This has many advan-tages first of all it gives them a platform to share their views for-mally, and also an opportunity to receive benefits which otherwise are not receivable to individu-als, and these benefits can be in the form of different livelihood activities. These SHGs help these women to mobilize small savings on a weekly basis to develop an asset base of their own and in turn a creditworthy profile.

2. Asset Provision (linking SHG with income generation): After the formation of SHGs the next step is to link these with some income generation activities like dairying, horticulture, new busi-ness initiatives etc.

3. Cluster formation (organisation of SHG): Once the SHGs are formed and linked to some income gen-


eration activities they are organ-ised into groups and clusters are formed out of them which further combine to shape up the federa-tion at the top most level as a for-mal legal entity.

4. Input and Output Linkages: Once the formal legal entity is formed it is then provided the required technical and professional support to start activities on a large scale.

This process has following advantages:• First of all it develops a habit of

saving amongst the members.• It makes them especially the

women members aware of the fi-nancial transaction processes.

• It makes them realize the impor-tance of credit worthiness thus developing a sense of responsibil-ity in the loan repayment which is very necessary for the sustain-ability of the model.

• The ownership of the SHG fund also develops a high sense of re-sponsibility in using the fund which is mostly done for various liveli-hoods initiatives like dairying, small scale enterprise development etc and these initiatives are carried out seriously to generate profit which ultimately results in more savings for the SHGs thus forming a con-structive cycle.

Microfinance firms fill a financing gap left by banks in reaching the vulnerable poor and are expected to charge less than moneylenders. However microfinance annual interest charges actually range from 30% to 90% - such high interest charges are due to high transaction costs and risks of small lending to the poor. There appears to be no significant way to reduce these transaction costs and risk. Welfare oriented microfinance reduces the interest charged to the poor as donors who create the microfinance fund expect no return or marginal returns. In India banks offer concessional rates to microfinance firms as it is

POTENTIAL EXPLOITATION OF VULNERABLE POOR BY PUBLICLY HELD MICROFINANCE FIRMS*

Ganesh N Prabhu (PRM 8)

counted as a priority sector. While urban microfinance typically operates under competition, rural microfinance is typically a local monopoly. Microfinance firms that operate as local monopolies can profitably exploit the vulnerable poor by charging high interest rates and penalties as long as their interest rates are lower than that of local moneylenders. As they grow, microfinance firms are now seeking to go public with the IPO route used to access public funds at a market cost of capital. These IPOs based expansions are assumed to result in more efficiency as scale results in savings on IT and reduces cost of market

* An extended version of this note was presented at the Academy of Management Meeting held August 12-16, 2011 at San Antonio, USA.

Ganesh N Prabhu (PRM8) is Professor of Strategy at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.


access to investors. However their IPO investors will expect market levels of returns which is unsustainable without charging even higher interest rates. No drop in interest rates to clients can be expected as client service costs and client default risk do not fall with scale. The large IPO based microfinance firm offers no significant way to reduce transaction cost/risk. These firms may moreover eliminate other alternative lending options in that market and then charge more from poor clients with no alternatives. They are also likely to eliminate welfare microfinance by offering higher salaries to move experienced field workers to their larger firm and then exploit the local monopoly nature of rural microfinance. Overtime rural clients are likely to be charged more to stay in business as their urban interest rates may not be competitive enough to cover costs in urban microfinance. I therefore argue that microfinance firms that go for an

IPO will increase interest rates over time to retain acceptable profit levels demanded by their shareholders. They will do so as they face increased lending risk with growth and also face increased operating costs with growth. They will therefore avoid lending to the poorest of the poor over time as their portfolio risk of including them will be higher. They will also aggressively take over clients from other competitors to grow fast or aggressively eliminate their microfinance competitors through coercive means. Subsequently these large microfinance firms will increase coercive modes of loan recovery, create high social stress for their poor clients and force a majority of them into debt traps. Policy should therefore be directed towards supporting welfare microfinance in rural areas and monitoring and in controlling the coercive and potentially criminal behavior of large profit motivated publicly held microfinance firms.

SANGAM 2011A famous US general once said, “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”Emulating the very idea, IRMA organised the annual inter-block mime acting competition called SANGAM on 21st august at the SAC. The event not only gave PRM32 participants a chance to portray their creative abilities but also enabled them to experience a healthy Inter-block rivalry for the first time.The participants acted on different thought provoking themes that ranged from women issues to college life romance, thus touching upon a variety of subjects, making the competition a visual treat. The actors exuded great energy and enthusiasm and succeeded in their endeavour to communicate their message to the audience without the use of words. The venue resembled a street play arena and the actors performed amidst noisy cheers and beatings of the drums.The top three positions in the competition were bagged by the following blocks:• Block F came first with their theme of ‘Godhra killings and hindu-muslim unity’.• Block D came Second with their theme of ‘seven cardinal sins’• Block E came third with their theme of ‘depletion of natural resources’.

ALUMNI Speak


DOWN THE MEMORY LANE......

Avantika Garg1 & Shilpa Bhaskar2

Mira Shah of PRM-2 opens her mind to two current participants at IRMA

AG & SB: What attracted you towards IRMA?

MS: The intrigue in the concept of ru-ral management was inviting enough wherein though I was not sure about what it was or what it would lead to but nevertheless was excited to take up the challenge.

AG & SB: Can you tell us about your family background?

MS: We are Kashmiris by origin though have been brought up in Delhi. Cur-rently we are based in Washington DC as my husband works in the South-Asia division of the World Bank. He got ad-mission in the first batch of IRMA but went on to join IIM-A. I have a college going daughter studying the US.

AG & SB: What was your educational background before IRMA?

MS: I did my BA (Honours) in Eco-nomics from University of Delhi and then joined JNU for masters in Eco-nomics. I was through my first year in the Masters programme when luckily IRMA happened for me and I decided to leave MA and join here.

AG & SB: Could you tell us about your days at IRMA?

MS: Our batch had only 45 participants out of which 41 graduated, probably

one of the smallest batches till date. We were only 7 girls, of whom, 02 were statisticians, 1 was a commerce gradu-ate, 3 were science graduates and I was the only economics graduate.We had two rural fieldworks which was the best part about the course and spanned for a month each with a gap of two semesters. They provided an excellent learning opportunity with a taste of the rustic lifestyle. In fact we as a batch were reminiscing those mo-ments as we met here for the reunion. My first fieldwork segment of one month was in a village in Madhya Pradesh. I was surprised or actually fascinated by the impoverished caste-dictated village which was primarily dependent on the vagaries of the mon-soons and this germinated inquisitive-ness in me to explore and study such pressing issues in greater detail. It was a very tough context for women belong-ing to certain castes which later helped me appreciate the development space from a gendered lens. My second field-work segment which fell two semesters later was in Bhatinda district of Punjab, which was at that time, the most back-ward district in Punjab. Both these ex-periences were unique yet shared some commonalities.

AG & SB: What did you pursue after graduating from IRMA?

MS: I undertook my first job with NDDB in their planning and monitor-

1 PRM 31, Email id: [email protected] PRM 31, email id: [email protected]

ALUMNI Speak


ing division in Delhi. I worked there for five years after which I moved to the NGO sector under the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP). I was recruited in their central office as P.E. Marketing and though I joined one department, I ended up wearing many hats ranging from marketing, monitoring, gender sensitivity to com-munication and extension strategies. This proved to be the most exciting time for me, as I was working in a very flexible context which involved innovation, design and experiment and the freedom and space to fail and learn from my experiences. By this time, I had gained significant experi-ence in the rural context and decided to move to the district level to be posted as the team leader in Bharuch district in Gujarat. Conventionally, it would be seen as a career moving in the reverse direction as we generally progress from smaller scale to bigger scale of operations but I decided to move backwards and it proved to be an apt decision for me.

After having worked with AKRSP for 5 years, I decided to take a short break and meanwhile pursued a course in Gender & Development from Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at Sus-sex. It provided a platform for shar-ing my past experiences and projects which ended up becoming the next phase of my professional life though I had thought otherwise. I started as a freelance consultant in the develop-ment domain and we have developed significant new models of participatory development in AKRSP in the context of natural resource management.

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to develop a whole new spectrum of participatory approaches in a wider context mainly health, ed-ucation, nutrition, multi-stage conflict, post disaster violence, policy research design and participatory poverty as-sessments were carried at a national level.

AG & SB: Would you like to end with an advice or a special refelec-tion?

MS: In our time, we were taught a course called ‘Interpersonal Sensitiv-ity’ as an optional in IInd year. It was organized in Surat and 3 facilita-tors including a faculty member used to accompany us. It was a fantabu-lous experience as everyone returned back as a different person. It not only helped understanding others’ behav-iour but also enhanced our self per-ception and confidence. It’s about how we project ourselves, how we intend to behave and the manner in which we are interpreted by others. It comes in tremendous use in work life while handling people and negotiating situ-ational complexities. I feel that every IRMAn should be exposed and intro-duced to this course module in their quest for becoming effective managers of rural India.

AG & SB: We would like to thank you for sparing your time and shar-ing your precious experiences of IRMA as we trailed down the memory lane.

ALUMNI Speak


IRMA ALUMNI MEET IN MUMBAI

Subhasis Rauniar (PRM29)

IRMA alumni based in Mumbai met on the 30th of July to reminisce the sweet memories and re-live them with their kind. Having scores of IRMANs with us, each one of who had walked the same lawns (not literally though as it would had entailed a fine!), sat on the same benches and sipped tea and cof-fee in the same mess, was indeed an ex-hilarating feeling. We had people from batches ranging from PRM2 to the cur-rent graduated batch PRM 31, and the enthusiasm across was indeed viral. People started thronging in since early evening, but the credit of earliest com-ers definitely goes to the organisers themselves, who did a splendid job in making the meet a possibility. After a short form that the alumni had to fill up, people started mingling in with each other and quite a few of them even started to feast on the snacks and the drinks for the evening. The high-light of the evening was the disc and the DJ that were hired to enliven the environment. Once substantial number of people had arrived the meet for-mally started with the “All Batch ppt” with the background score of the mov-ie ‘Lakshya’, that I guess everybody would be knowing by heart till now. Even after watching it umpteen num-bers of times, it always makes a chill run through the spine when we watch it again. That’s the beauty and elegance of it. It was followed by the ‘Manthan‘ song without which any IRMANs meet definitely misses something. Thereaf-ter, the alumni started catching up with each other. There were many people who saw each other after a pretty long time in spite of being in the same city,

long stories which were told and heard, many laughs and smiles that were ex-changed. The plan was to have a DJ play the music and we grooving to it till late, but unfortunately that disc was not available to us till that but again who needs a disc to have fun that too when the community of IRMANs had gathered. The younger batches were very en-thusiastic in meeting up with the sen-iors and that enthusiasm had seemed to flow across all. No doubt everyone had different reasons for coming to the meet, some wanted to meet their fellow batch-mates, some to interact with the seniors and some for the juniors, but when all gathered together, fun was all the was ultimately visible and found everywhere at that place. And when dinner started there were friends vying for that extra piece of sweet in some-body else’s plate, people who brought drinks saying it was for their friends and drank it all alone! The gathering at the meet indeed gave a feel of IRMA sans the lawns and the mess. With so many IRMANs have been gathered at a place, the tinge of IRMA is bound to have been felt. And this great feeling that came was not possible without the efforts that were put in by Prashant Banerjee, Ritu Ke-jriwal, Anshuman Singh, Abhishek Sinha and many others that I may have missed out. This note would definitely not have been complete with an appre-ciation to their efforts.Cheers to IRMA and cheers to the spirit of IRMANs!

Participants Speak


IntroductionI went to Lok Biradari Prakalp under Maharogi Sewa Samiti (MSS), founded by revered Gandhian late Baba Amte, who is also a Raman Magsaysay award-ee, in Maharashtra for my OTS during June-July 2011. I got an opportunity to encounter the places and the people who are not really famous and leading a care free life! Strangely the place has been notoriously famous for Maoism in the political map of this country, but not for the malnourished mother and child or unemployed, illiterate, gullible mass, beleaguered youth. Some fea-tures I found different, interesting, and worth-pondering which I would like to share which may create some inter-est to activists, independent researcher, policy maker, or anyone who seeks the improvement in prevailing condition of the people there.

Forest and CultivationFor all purposes the people here depend on jungle. They slash trees to cultivate the land, which was a kind of ‘settled agriculture’, wasn’t practiced earlier. In these days they have devised a new kind of cutting the trees and getting the place ready to plough, by just harming the trunk of the tree from all sides, not letting the tree fall completely which may draw some penalty from forest guards, so as a result of which the tree dies after few months completely due to constriction in passage of nutrients in the body of plants. Apart from culti-vation purposes, they also cut the trees

and burn, but those ones which they consider as useless or harmful. Even they don’t use the plant parts of these for any purpose. People from some plac-es of Nabarangpur district of Orissa, mostly scheduled caste Bengali used to come and reside here as natives of this area and destroy the forest day by day gradually. While the trees are in dwin-dling condition, these activities would definitely affect the flora in that region. In this place some few forest lands were cleared of grasses and trees and were marked to be owned by somebody for cultivation purposes as it was the com-mon practice since times to slash the forest and plough i.e. slash and burn cultivation. But the problem here is the land was neither ploughed by anyone nor made free so that some other can plough there and it could be utilized! But for years some chunk of land has been reserved like this and are not uti-lized by anyone, neither it allows to plough nor the jungles to grow! People are keen in cultivating vegeta-bles, cereals and other crops, but owing to unavailability of water most of the time of a year, they can’t make it. They have to depend on rain water always and in absence of rain, it’s quite imag-inable the condition of barren hilly land and helpless farmer. There are three riv-ers, flowing nearby and met each other near Bhamragarh and form ‘Sangam’, which still poses challenge to tap its wa-ter to use in dry days. It’s also disheart-ening to hear, that despite the place is filled with diverse range of flora, it

SOME OF THE FEATURES I FOUND INTERESTING AND WORTH THINKING

Sandeepa Nayak1

1. Doctoral Student, Institute of Rural Management, Anand. Email id: [email protected]

Participants Speak


still could not appease clouds to come and be generous enough to shower for a while, many a times. The rocky land is also making the task harder for the Government but worth considering. The animals in jungle are too not spared from the wrath of man. They are being disturbed due to illegitimate occupancy of the mighty man on one hand while on the other; the frequent gunfire be-tween the naxals and police drove them from their original habitat and forced them to invade into human settlements. This resulted in encounter of man and wild beasts like, bear, leopard, snakes etc and most cases in Amte’s den (hos-pital), are found to be attacked by bear and the wound is so severe that hardly believable if not seen in own eyes. And you would be amazed to know, the bear is purely vegetarian and it never attacks to eat an animal. It becomes ag-gressive in order to defend itself as a consequence of which either has to be wounded. The fight becomes so intense that either the bear dies or the man has to lose its eyes coupled with serious in-juries. So it’s now left to think whether to continue war there between naxals and police, and if it discontinues, then is there any mechanism to get assured of any solution to naxal problem there or improvement in conditions of people? Despite of such war-like scenarios, I was surprised to notice Pharma-com-panies’ strong presence in the area with an aim to collect the plants and parts of plants, often, without the notice of Government. There is no fear of naxals when private market agents enter into profit making activities!

Naxalism and its realitiesNaxalism started here during 80s way after the Amtes came by 1973. No doubt the lives of common people have been

disturbed since they become victim of both the parties on war, i.e. Police de-ployed by Govt. and the Naxals. If they become the supporter of either of them, then the other won’t spare. This is the ugliest occurrence happening here, peo-ple who don’t support Govt. are put be-hind bar under number of charges and those who support police their dead body would be found within 24 hours of suspect and for 48 hours. Nobody, including the media, go there to see or even the family members won’t go to recover the dead body. I myself encoun-tered one such incident within the pe-riphery of 7 kms to my place, where I was staying for my summer internship. The wage has become non-exploit-ative unlike what was prevailing ear-lier, when businessmen of tendu leaves which was used in preparing bidi (one of the high revenue-generators for Govt.), used to get their work done with minimum possible expenditure from here at the expense of tribal labors. Thus with low cost, the businessmen usually were drawing high profit. Business men have changed their pricing mechanisms due to fear of the Naxals. It was one of the few positive signs. In these days the atrocities faced by women, innocent vil-lagers has come down certainly, but the false and illegitimate prisoning of the villagers in the pretext of naxalism or supporter of naxalism or not providing any information has gone up unbeliev-ably in these days.People are disturbed due to the torture of both the police and the maovadis. Naxals, who used to go for strike ow-ing to the murder of the any member of the group, be it, in false encounter or true one. The communication and transportation suffers a lot, even some-times ceases down completely. While the police would attack with forces comprising of 100s of trained person-nel always keeping watching eye on the

Participants Speak


area. Every time one comes to market, will notice the forces on duty, which is disturbing to encounter each turn of weekly haat. The irony is the policeman would get 25 lakhs if died while fight-ing the naxals, while the local untrained youths, under mastermind educated leaders, if died then they would be de-famed as naxals. The cause is same for both- to protect their land and people from atrocities and make it safe haven; the age, the nativity- all everything is same, in both cases, but the uniform only differs. While one dies the death of ‘Shahid’ and the other is of ‘Naxal’. I felt the pain that the people here are really manipulated and influenced in the name of ‘being shahid’, while few earn defamation as ‘maovadis’ and it’s worth pondering whether the popula-tion of aborigines is decreasing day by day or not; because the death is the only constant here, be it from troop of police or naxals, in both cases the indigenous people are mostly the victims as forces are recruited from these people. Now it’s irrelevant to seek any supporter from the families of police who are not of tribal origin or local group of peo-ple, who used to condemn vehemently the naxal supporter or sympathizer or alike as it’s evident that the indigenous people were the worst sufferer since ages and has been suffering, but the cause, type, intensity has been changed though in due course of time. Eventu-ally, it would be easier for the Govern-ment to lend, lease, or sell the land, mines, forests, everything there. So the day is not far when we, who go to those places to embrace the divine serenity, to explore the enigmatic splendor of the nature, may not find any reason to go next time. Even those who do petty businesses there, their livelihoods may come under threat, subject of concern indeed!

Differential tribal status Another interesting fact was some group of people who fulfill the criteria of getting ST status by Government of Madhya Pradesh while not in the state of Maharashtra! These peoples are called as Watankaar (anciently called ‘Watandaar’; Watankaars are the group of people who have been ordered by the then king of this area, to make or-naments and other products for king only and settle there forever, then these worker class of people started boast-ing off themselves that they have given ‘Watan’ by king.) in this place while their relatives are called Ghadwa in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh who are entitled to avail all facilities of ST. Since Govt. of Maharashtra has granted all facilities for lodging and boarding for Madia gond tribe in these areas, but there are number of tribes which are ei-ther not registered under ST status or considered to be NT(nomadic tribe), whose economic conditions are also not good enough and which is not get-ting any visible facilities for their uplift-ment. Now when Government and pri-vate agencies are flaunting of “inclusive growth” as agenda to attract urban/ru-ral consumers, keeping the voices from this land unheard through force or sim-ply by ignoring, and media is not brave enough to cover these area, even if they are more interested in making cough and cold of politicians, choking of sew-age in metro as hot topic, while number of talents are withering in this heavenly gutter due to poor economic condi-tion and ignorance from Government despite these people have reportedly written or spoken to local MLA number of times for resolving it, but seems all went in vain. I am sure this differential treating of same tribal group across the states will continue to remain an impor-tant policy issue for long time.

Participants Speak


ORGANIZATIONAL TRAINEESHIP SEGMENT 2011: A BRIEF RECAP

Nikita Bankoti1 and Saurabh Sharma2

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtues, but we rather have those because we have learned to act rightly through practice. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”Akin to the aforesaid thoughts shared by Aristotle, the significance of practice and training for success has been highlighted by a number of thinkers and practitioners across the world. The eight week long Organizational Traineeship Segment was initiated at IRMA based upon similar idea so that participants’ exposure to rural organisations is strengthened and they are able to understand organization’s structure and dynamics, and assess the challenges that such organisations face. It is also an opportunity for the participants to gain first-hand knowledge regarding working in a professional environment. Manish Chaurasiya (PRM31) who worked with the American Indian Foundation very aptly puts it, “It was like working without the pressures of a regular job. We were so closely associated with the organization that learning was just a small part of the whole experience. I am confident that this experience will help me a lot when I join a real job after IRMA.” OTS 2011: A quick glanceOrganizational Traineeship segment 2011 was conducted from 30th May to 22nd July, 2011. A huge number of projects were offered and in the end the participants from PRM31 visited 46 organizations for 68 individual and

group projects across the length and breadth of the country. Different kinds of organizations such as Co-operatives, NGOs, Corporates and Government institutions participated in OTS 2011. PRM participants were provided the opportunities to work in different sectors and with diverse communities. For instance, Apurv Gupta and Aditya Gole visited Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh and worked with local hill tribal population under the organization Ecosphere. While sharing their wonderful learning experience, they recall, “It was an out of the world experience as we lived with the local community adopting their life style and understanding the constraints faced by them. We also got to associate with many international development workers who were working with the local tribal community there. In addition to this, the process of acclimatizing to the difficult hilly terrain was a challenge in itself.” Diverse horizons, diverse experiencesOTS 2011 was notable in terms of the variety of organizations which offered internships to the participants that enabled them to explore diverse spheres of rural management. The organizations were diverse not only in terms of the activities pursued but also the administrative structure and managerial practices followed in these organizations. Thus, there were corporate organizations such as Ernst and Young, Tata Consultancy Services, ITC and RBS which are working in the social sector. Similarly Non-Government Organizations such as Action Aid,

1 PRM 31, email id: [email protected] PRM 31, email id: [email protected]

Participants Speak


New Delhi, Bihar Development Trust, Patna, and Development Alternatives, New Delhi participated and offered internships in diverse sectors such as Health, Livelihoods, Education and Agriculture. Research organizations such as The Energy & Resource Institute, New Delhi, Cereal System Initiative South Asia and International Water Management Institute also participated in the OTS 2011. Such opportunities ensure invaluable learning to students on the subject of the functioning of different type of organizations as the experiences are shared by the participants in the presentations after returning to IRMA. As Pushpendra Saharan (PRM31), who got an opportunity to understand the functioning of Punjab State Electricity Board under the research project offered by IWMI shares his experience, “It was an eye opener as I closely observed the nuances of a bureaucratic structure and how it affects the functioning of an organization. It enabled me to learn from the interactions with the higher-ups in state Government’s bureaucratic hierarchy.” This diversity was apparent in the kinds of offered projects also which varied from the social sector as well as the business sector. The sundry competencies of IRMA participants were in full display as organizations offered projects ranging from market research to livelihood solutions. A lot of participants worked with the marginalized segments of community, for instance, Sandeep Ramteke worked with the farmers struggle in the Vidharbha region of Maharashtra and Md. Shabbir Haider worked to provide education solutions to slum children in New Delhi. Such a first-hand experience helps the participants to make an informed decision regarding their career choices as Krishna Raj Pandey (SERP Hyderabad) shares, “My OTS with SERP was a good experience

with regard to getting a feel of what it was like working in the development sector. Certain truths and realities about the sector hit me like lightning and I came to realise the genesis of the “Sector Vs Non – Sector” debate that is one of the favourites at IRMA. In all, I hope those two months will go a long way in helping me make a careful decision about choosing a career in the development sector.”The Way ForwardIt can be inferred from the comments of various participants that OTS was an enriching experience. For the future, the number of organizations visiting IRMA for different kinds of internships is bound to increase which will further the scope of learning in these two months. To conclude, we share the thoughts of Avantika Garg, participant from PRM31 who visited TERI, New Delhi for her OTS “The Organizational Training Segment (OTS) provides a great learning opportunity while opening newer avenues in the domain of rural management. It gives a diverse set of perspectives into the organizational systems by gaining a practical exposure in a professional environment. This helps to expand our knowledge horizons and sharpen managerial skills required at a workplace. The organizational entity can be understood from an internal perspective while appreciating its inter-linkages with its external environment. This helps to appreciate the mechanisms working within the organizational boundaries while observed through our theoretical knowledge. Overall, it blends with our course curriculum helping us to appreciate our learning at the institute.” Similar thoughts were echoed by all the participants who returned to IRMA after OTS, enriched with knowledge and first hand experiences. It can be said that OTS 2011 was quite successful in its objective and helped in teaching the participants in more than one way.


IRMA NEWS

FACULTY PUBLICATIONS

Journal/ Book Chapter

Misra H.K, (2011), “ICT Mediated Value Chain for Managing Weavers? Livelihoods: A Case of Jaipur Rugs Company”, Cases on SMEs and Open Innovation: Applications and Investigations, (Edited by Hakikur Rahman and Isabel Ramos), Hershey, USA: IGI Global Publishing.

Pellissery, S. (2011) “A critical governance issue for inclusive growth: is ‘citizen centric’ participation possible?” International Journal of Social and Economic Research 1 (1) pp. 4-22.

Pellissery, S. & Jalan, S. K. (2011) “Towards transformative social protection: a gendered analysis of the Employment Guarantee Act of India (MGNREGA)” Gender & Development 19 (2) pp. 283-294.

Pellissery, S. & Barrientos, A. (2011) “The road to global citizenship?” ZiF-Mitteilungen Vol. 3. Pp. 17-28.

Yadav, Vanita, Adya, M., Sridhar, V. & Nath, D. (July 2011). Flexibility in Offshoring: Paradoxical Concepts of Control, Communication and Facilitation. In Felix Tan (Ed.), International Enterprises and Global Information Technologies: Advancing Management Practices, USA: IGI Global.

REVIEWS

Misra, H.K. (September 2011, ACM Computing Review), “Network service description and discovery for high-performance ubiquitous and pervasive grids” Duan Q., ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS), 6 (1): 1-17, 2011, Review # CR139440.

Yadav, Vanita (July 2010, IECJ Review). “Jensen Pharma: A Governance Role Play”, Blind Review for the IMA Educational Case Journal (IECJ), Institute of Management Accountants, USA.

Yadav, Vanita (July 2010, Case Review). “Mastek – Riding the Third Wave”, Case Review on Corporate Strategy for Pearson Publications.

Yadav, Vanita (July 2010, Case Review), “Tulsi Tanti – Suzlon’s Green Warrior”, Case Review on Corporate Strategy for Pearson Publications.

Yadav, Vanita (Aug 2011, SIG Global Development Review), “Micro-enterprise Development: The Role of an Effective IT Intervention”, Blind Review for SIG Global Development Workshop in Detroit, USA, 4 August 2011.


Seminars/Conferences/Workshops

Prof. Harekrishna Misra presented a paper on “Value Chain Based Measurement and Acceptance Modelling”, during the 5th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2011), Tallinn, Estonia, 26 - 29 September, 2011.

Prof. Pratik Modi presented a paper titled “Marketing Orientation in Nonprofit Organization: Innovativeness, resource scarcity, and performance” at the Academy of Marketing Conference 2011, hosted by the University of Liverpool, 4-7 July 2011. This paper won the Best Research Paper Award (sponsored by Journal of Strategic Marketing – Routledge) in the competitive intelligence analysis & strategy track of the Academy of Marketing Conference.

Prof. Pratik Modi presented a paper titled “A Confirmatory Scale for Measuring the Market Orientation of Nonprofit Organizations” at the Academy of Marketing Conference 2011, hosted by the University of Liverpool, 4-7 July 2011.

Prof. Sony Pellissery gave a presentation on ‘Bowling alone while they starve together: The paradoxes of the concept of social capital in contexts of extreme inequality’ at Oslo University College, Norway on 17, August, 2011

OTHER ENGAGEMENTS

Prof. H. K. Misra participated and spoke on “Life Long Learning: Role of ICT and Development” during the Round Table Conference held at Bihar Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development, Patna, August, 29, 2011, Patna.

Prof. Pratik Modi was invited to deliver guest lectures on research methodology and BoP marketing at the Instituto Superior De Contabilidade E Administracao De Coimbra (ISCAC) , Portugal, July 11-16, 2011.

_____ was invited as a resource person in the Doctoral Summer School, Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, June 6-11, 2011.

_____ was invited to deliver a talk on “The Underpinnings of Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology on Your Research” in NMIMS, Bangalore, September 05, 2011.

Prof. Sony Pellissery inaugurated the Nature Club of NVPAS college, Vidyanagar and gave a speech on ‘Green economy’ on 27 August 2011.

Prof. Sony Pellissery served on the selection committee for the post of Manager in the area of Environment Management of National Dairy Development Board, Anand.


MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES (MDPs) “Project Management for Development Organizations” coordinated by Prof. Hitesh

Bhatt during July 18-21, 2011 was attended by 29 professionals from NGOs, academic institutes, dairy cooperatives, and government organizations.

“Improving Managerial Skills of Drinking Water and Environmental Sanitation Functionaries” coordinated by Prof. Pramod K. Singh during July 25-30, 2011 was attended by 35 Drinking Water and Environmental Sanitation Functionaries all over India.

“Improving Managerial Skills of Drinking Water and Environmental Sanitation Functionaries” coordinated by Prof. Pramod K. Singh during August 8-13, 2011 was attended by 21 Drinking Water and Environmental Sanitation Functionaries all over India.

“Rural Development through Dairy Co-operatives in India” coordinated by Prof. Ila Patel during September 5-6, 2011 was attended by 11 students of Waseda University, Japan.

“Performance Management System” coordinated by Prof. Madhavi Mehta during September 19-22, 2011 was attended by 23 professionals from government agencies, government departments, dairy cooperatives, and academic institute.

“Governance and Management of Producer Organizations” coordinated by Profs. KV Raju & Harekrishna Misra during September 19-24, 2011 was attended by 22 professionals from government agencies, NGOs, and producer organizations.

“Participatory Management and Governance of Drinking Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation” coordinated by Prof. Pramod K. Singh during September 19-24, 2011 was attended by 22 Drinking Water and Environmental Sanitation Functionaries all over India.

OFF-CAMPUS MDPs Two workshops on “Enhancement of Performance at Workplace” conducted for the Doctors and Administrators of Sree Krishna Hospital, Karamsad were conducted by Prof. Hitesh V Bhatt during July 13-14 & August 25-26, 2011.

PRMPublications/Conference/Competitions

• Rural Marketing Association of India (RMAI) organizes the competition of Summer Projects in Rural Marketing every year since 2006. Abhinav Kumar and Mahima Singh of PRM31 sent their project of their OTS work for this competition. Their project was titled “Establishment of cluster model for marketing of CIG products made by NDCC beneficiaries”. The main objective of the project was to identify sustainable Common Interest Group (CIG) activities for Nutrition Cum Day Care Centres (NDCCs) and establish a cluster model so that products made can have a better market coverage and the centres won’t end up eating each others’ market share. The cluster model approach helps to ensure that all the centres within a cluster will be making different kinds of products i.e. mutually exclusive CIG activities. This would be the first step to make NDCCs self sustainable and help pregnant and lactating women to earn without putting much time and labour. The project report got short listed


among the top ten projects. After the project was presented in New Delhi, the project won the second prize in the competition. The award was handed over in a glittering function in New Delhi on Sept 28th.

• Ankit Saxena (PRM31) won Samavesh 2011, a national level HR Paper Presentation competition at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. His paper presented a comparative study of the Labour Market Dynamics and Labour Satisfaction of 2 villages of the state of Sikkim, namely- Rhenock and Samlik Marchak.

• Ankit Saxena (PRM31) was the runner-up at Ashwamedha 2011 for his White paper on Operations at Xaviers Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar. The paper was a feasibility study to set up an IT shared service centre among the NGOs/VOs and Funding Agencies of India.

FPRM

PublicationsDey, K. (2011) “Venture Capital Industries: Are these Turning Odd into Even”, Indian

Management 50 (10), pp. 64-67.Satyendra Nath Mishra. (2011) “REDCO Limited: Will Sustainable Energy be

Sustainable Business?”, Asian Journal of Management Cases, 8(2), pp.127-142.

Conference/ Workshop/Cases Dey, K., D. Maitra, and S. Roy (2011) “Price Discovery and Market Efficiency

Revisited: Anecdotes from Indian Pepper Futures Markets”, paper presented at the Society of Interdisciplinary Business Research (SIBR) conference, more details see the link, http://www.ssrn.com/link/2011-SIBR-Conf.html.

Roy, Partha Sarathi, attended the 3rd EMES International Research Conference on Social Enterprise and presented his paper “Scaling up in Social Entrepreneurship: A Paradox or a dilemma?” The conference was hosted at Roskilde University, Denmark from 4-7 July, 2011.

Suresh B.P and S.R.Asokan (2011) Health Insurance to the Base of the Pyramid, published by Ivey publishing, Richard Ivey School of Business, Ontario, 9B11A015, Canada, July.

Dey, K., D. Maitra, and S. Roy (2011) “Price Discovery and Market Efficiency Revisited: Anecdotes from Indian Pepper Futures Markets”, paper presented at the Society of Interdisciplinary Business Research (SIBR) conference, more details see the link, http://www.ssrn.com/link/2011-SIBR-Conf.html.

FPRM Doctoral Colloquium Keerti Prajapati, “Entrepreneurial Network, Self Efficacy, Personality Traits,

Demographic Attributes and Micro Enterprise Performance in Rural Artisan Clusters” on July 12.

Kushankur Dey, “ Which will happen & Is it Risk? Financial Risk Management Revisited” on August 08.

Shashibala Rai, “Role of Facilitating Conditions, Self-Efficacy, Intention to Behave and Pre-existing Practices on Behaviour Change in Public Health related Social Marketing Programmes” on August 10.


VISITORS TO IRMAOn 27 September IRMA was honored with the visit of H.E. Rev. (Mr.) Harris Sithembile Majeke, High Commissioner of South Africa to India. During the quarter of July-September 2011 IRMA was also visited by Shri Siddique Ahmed, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Cooperation and Border Areas, government of Assam. He was accompanied by two senior bureaucrats from the state of Assam. Apart from these dignitaries, a large number of students (340 students accompanied by respective faculty members of their college) visited IRMA as part of their exposure. IRMA was also happy to provide exposure to eight member team from KMF, Bangalore, and a group of 37 officers from BSF Academy Tekanpur, Gwalior, MP.

Human Resource DevelopmentAs part of the Human Resource Development, the IRMA Administration has deputed/organized two programs for its non-teaching employees. A programme on ‘Motivation & Interpersonal Skills’ by BK Jagrutiben of Prajapita Brahmakumaris, Vidyanagar. This programme was attended by 43 employees. Another workshop on ‘Service Tax’ by Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA), Ahmedabad was organized on September 28.

Obituary

Srinivasa Mallela(PRM 1982-1984)

Mallela was from the third batch. He was known to be a great friend and a unifying factor in the batch. He was ever cheerful and very popular amongst faculty and students. He was one of the few in our batch who were keen bridge players and during those days there would be many a tournament organized between faculty and students. On passing, he joined NDDB, apddcf and for a while looked after the Mumbai market for the vihara brand. He also worked with Duncan tea for a while. After being detected of kidney ailment, he stopped working. He was on thrice a week dialysis. He was staying with his brothers family. They were a happy joint family something unusual these days. His wife is a graduate in horticulture and works with the state govt. His son Rishi is 13 hrs old. Recently they celebrated the thread ceremony of the kid.

Mallela refused any financial assistance from the distress fund. We did contribute some money initially for his treatment, but after selling some agricultural land they had, he was keen to return all the money. He was always a great host and happy to be amongst people. Mr Mallela died on July 20, 2011. May his soul rest in peace.


Independence Day15 August at IRMA is not just the celebration of the Independence Day, but also serves as a stage to uncover the talent the new batch has brought with itself. This year too the IRMA community was waiting for this event to have glimpse of what PRM 32 has in store for them. And as per the tradition, PRM 32 rose to the occasion and delivered an outstanding performance. The theme this year was “Incredible India” celebrating the diversity of our country in terms of dances, costumes festivals and the ever exuberating Bollywood. The evening started with lamp lighting by the director followed by a classical performance on AR Rehman’s vande matram. The whole theme was divided into three segments namely: Indian Festivals, Bollywood & Folk Dances. The whole auditorium was enthralled by the Holi and Ganesh Chaturthi performances on the stage while the medley of popular bollywood songs kept the audience on their dancing toes. It was the folk dance performances that actually provided the much needed colour and energy to the theme. The Rajasthani dance performance looked spectacular with its colourful costumes reminiscing us of the real Rajasthan while the Bhangra performance was like a cherry on the cake making everyone dance to the tunes of the world famous Punjabi folk music. The evening also saw the theatrical skills of PRM 32 with two plays being enacted both focussing on the youth and the present political scenario of the country. Apart from the new batch, the IRMA club also came up with very entertaining performances thus inviting thunderous applause from the audience. A special mention should be made of the Decoration team which worked day and night to give the venue a beautiful ambience. In all, it was an evening worth remembering.

Editorial Committee

Agricultural Leadership Award 2011Agricultural Leadership Award established by National Agricultural Magazine – Agriculture Today – went to IRMA in its fourth round of competition. The letter, conveying the news of the award, stated: “the decision was arrived keeping in view the transformational role that IRMA has played in rural development through academic, research and developmental initiatives at the national level”. The competition was organized as two tier screening system. There was screening by sub-committees for different categories of award. There were 17 such categories. IRMA received the award in the category of Development Leadership. The final decision was made by National Committee which was headed by Prof. M. S. Swaminathan, and 15 nationally eminent persons served on the committee. Agriculture Leadership Awards were started in 2008 to recognize the leadership roles played by individuals and institutions, which are positively impacting the lives of farmers and rural masses. The Leadership Award under development category for 2008 went to NABARD, 2009 jointly to NDDB and Agriculture Insurance Company and 2010 to NIRD. In a glittering function held on 14 Sept at Taj Palace, New Delhi the award was received by IRMA chairman Prof. Y. K. Alagh.

The Institute of Rural Management Anand was founded in 1979. The need for such an institution was articulated, conceptualized and piloted by Dr. Verghese

Kurien. IRMA has pioneered the discipline of Rural Management. The Post-Graduate Programme in Rural Management (PRM) is its flagship programme. IRMA has Fellow Programme in Rural Management (FPRM) as well. The purpose of the programmes is to create professional managers to work with organisations and partner with people for equitable socio-economic development of rural India. At IRMA the participants go through a tough curriculum which has the unique feature of placing them with development organisations in rural areas in three separate segments during the two year programme. This is a phase of ‘active learning’ and the young minds are moulded and imbibe the ethos of IRMA during this period. Hence the phrase “once an IRMAn always an IRMAn”. As in any teaching and research institution, an academically strong Faculty is the backbone of IRMA. The Faculty engages in teaching and training to create a generation of professional managers committed to IRMA’s mission. The research and consultancy at IRMA is geared towards understanding the rural context and finding solutions to the problems faced by the organisations that serve the rural sector.In recent times the concept of ‘rural’ has changed in terms of the nature of economic activities and associated issues. The inequalities in education and health have increased, regional imbalances have grown, issues relating to exclusion of tribal and other segments, environment and governance remain a challenge. Moreover, the classic break of the rural and urban has disappeared. Given this changing context and the greater integration of the rural-urban within the global context, the challenges faced by IRMA are many. We need to expand the scale and scope of our programmes, research and consulting to respond to this new context. IRMA needs to position its flagship programme as a “world class programme in Rural Management” working for the relevant rural organizations. It also needs to find realistic and effective ways to fulfill the needs of stakeholder organizations that created it. In order to do this IRMA endeavours to create an academic ambience that is performance driven, just, and enabling academic excellence. With the help our Faculty, staff, alumni and participants we hope to scale new heights and establish IRMA as a ‘knowledge institution’ in the area of rural management and development.

Jeemol UnniDirector, IRMA

Prof. Jeemol Unni took charge as the director of IRMA with effect from 06 September 2011. She joined IRMA as RBI Chair Professor on 3rd August 2009. Network conveys best wishes in her new duty! Network is pleased to carry her message for IRMA community in this issue.

Message from New Director

Quarterly Publication of IRMA July-September 2011 Volume: 15 No. 3

NETWORK

Prof. Y. K. Alagh (Chairman, IRMA) receives Agricultural Leadership award on behalf of IRMA on 14 September, 2011. More news in page 29

Institute of Rural ManagementPost Box No. 60, Anand – 388 001, Gujarat, IndiaPhone : (02692) 260177, 260181, 260186, 260391, 260264, 261502Fax : (02692) 260188Gram : IRMAE-mail : [email protected] : http://www.irma.ac.in

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NETWORK · 2012-11-09 · Quarterly Publication of IRMA July-September 2011 Volume: 15 No. 3...

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