STUDENTS INITIATIVE FOR INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT

A rural development initiative taken by the students of Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

AIM
o Develop the targeted village by evolving a demand driven initiative based model by synergizing the efforts of multiple stakeholders, specifically, villagers, NGOs, Government, Industry and Academia in the field of rural development. Sensitize students of IIT Roorkee with rural ethos and develop a sense of social responsibility amongst them. To be a Model Student Group for India, Source of inspiration for various institutions to work for Rural Development.

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ABOUT SIIRD
SIIRD stands for Students Initiative for Integrated Rural Development. This project was started in January 2006 when a group of B.Tech students of IIT Roorkee approached Prof. Vinay K Nangia (Chair Professor, Government of India Knowledge Economy Project, Head, Department of Management Studies, and Coordinator, Uttarakhand Development Cell, IIT Roorkee) to work in the field of Rural Development. The project then evolved into Students Initiative for Integrated Rural Development. SIIRDs first step towards Rural Development was to identify a model village. Factors such as physical connectivity, terrain and availability of basic infrastructure, diversity in social make up of population representative of the culture of Uttarakhand, were borne in mind while exploring the villages for a location ideally suited for a functional model on the ground to show-case the best practices of public-private-partnership collaboration. The SIIRD team carried out baseline surveys of more than 15 villages in 3 districts of Uttarakhand and identified Charba, a village in Sahaspur District of Dehradun as the model village. Various demand driven initiatives have been taken up by the students for the betterment of the villagers and development of the Charba, a brief report of which is appended.

DEMAND DRIVEN INTIATIVES

1. Information & Communication Technology (ICT) awareness Initiative
Objective To create awareness about the use and benefits of Information & Communication Technology and develop a healthy relation with the villagers. Methodology Meetings of villagers were convened and the uses and benefits of Information & Communication Technology were demonstrated. Door to Door demonstrations were also done. Practical hands-on exposure of computer and Internet was given to villagers The villagers were also provided an opportunity to experience the use of computer and Internet. These demonstrations helped SIIRD team to identify champions (villagers who were supportive and willing to help carry our initiatives forward).

Large scale demonstration of ICT benefits

Team members addressing large gathering

Achievements The team identified 15-20 champions in the village who help the team during visits. About three-fourth of the village has been covered by door to door demonstrations and the team has spread its presence in the village. Training of Trainers program: All the Computer Centre trainers of Charba have undergone training imparted by IIT Roorkee students in 3 training programs. Softwares like Microsoft office, basic flash, basic photoshop, elementary C, Tally, etc. were taught to them.

Training session by SIIRD team member

SIIRD Team members with champions

2. Entrepreneurship initiative
Objective: To find the suitable entrepreneurs in Charba village for running the Soochna Kutir (JANADHAR) to ensure awareness and usage of Information & Communication Technology in Charba. e-Governance: Janadhar is the e-Governance initiative of the government of Uttarakhand. It was started in March 2005. The initiative was taken up with funding from the UNDP and technical guidance by the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (IIT). The main objective of the e-Governance inititiatve is to deliver information of public interest and services related to various government departments at the doorsteps of the citizens of Uttarakhand by setting up citizen-centric information kiosks (Soochna Kutirs) for e-Governance in the state.
Janadhar

Achievements Suitable entrepreneurs were identified for running the Information Kiosks (Soochna Kutir) to ensure the awareness and usage of benefits of Information & Communication in Charba. 8 Suchna Kutirs (Information Kiosks) were studied in Naintal by 5 students. 3 Soochna Kutir (Information Kiosks) were set up and inaugurated in Charba under the UNDP funded e-Governance project by Prof. H.K. Verma, Deputy Director, IIT Roorkee. Training of the personnel manning the Soochna Kutirs (Information Kiosk) was done in UNDP office, IIT Roorkee.

3. Primary School ICT Education Initiative

Objective: To provide basic computer education to the students of primary schools of village Charba and make this education system sustainable. Methodology: Identifying Primary stakeholders (students, parents, teachers, team members) and obtaining their views on computer education Preparing course materials in Hindi for teaching in primary schools in consultation with the teachers in conformity to the private school course structure. Integration of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) with SIIRD thereby ensuring sustained government support to the primary school ICT education initiative.

SIIRD team member interacting with students

Team member discussing course material with primary school teacher

Team member helping a student

Team members installing computers.

Achievements 16 Computers donated by Institute Computer Centre, IIT Roorkee were initially installed in primary schools of Charba and were later transferred to the SSA, Dehradun office. 15 Computers donated by INFOSYS installed in 3 primary schools of Charba. Course structure (in Hindi and English) prepared. Details & database of all 4 Primary schools. ICT education imparted to students of primary schools by SIIRD team. Met Mrs. Geeta Nautiyal, District Education Officer, Dehradun District and obtained approval for integration of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) with the primary school ICT education initiative About 10 Videos made which to serve as selflearning tool kit illustrating the usage of simple software like notepad, calculator, etc.

4. Girls Education Initiative

Objective: To train the girls of Charba in ICT and make them champions so that they may in turn impart training to other villagers and thus make this education system sustainable. Methodology: To train the girls from the village so that they could further train the students in the village. The focus is on training the girls of age group 12-15 years.

SIIRD team & Charba girl teaching students

SIIRD team member teaching girls of Charba

Achievements: Training given by IIT R girls - 14 Charba girls were trained in ICT at IIT Training given by combined efforts of IIT R girls and Charba: - 20 students were trained at house of Mr. Baljeet Singh (Champion) 15th May 2009. - 36 students were trained in Primary School no. 3 on 16th May 2009. 5 new girls were trained from Charba by IITR girls from 8th to 10th August, 2009. 5 girls were trained at Charba during the month of January 2010.

5. Agriculture Initiative

Objective: To give improve the agriculture status by increasing the rate of production in agriculture using scientific tools and research. Methodology: Integrate multiple stakeholders (like Krishi Vigyan Kendra, IFFCO etc.) in this initiative To focus on a specific group of about 12-15 farmers who would be champions in agricultural initiative. Expertise of Professors and students of Biotechnology department will play crucial role in this initiative. Achievements: Basic survey of agricultural practices in the village Charba. Identified 5 potential farmers for the target group of this initiative.

6. Employability Initiative
Objective: To improve the employability of the unemployed or under-employed people of the Charba village by skill development or getting their existing skills tested and certified. Methodology: Creating a platform for villagers & industry to reduce the gap between them. Designing of training module & training the villagers to impart necessary employment skills. Recruitment of the trained villagers.

Training session for villagers in Haridwar

Achievements: In consideration of the industrial demands, motivational training of 5 villagers was done in Haridwar. Most of the trainees showed a positive result and were able to find better employment oppurtunities.

IIT Roorkee faculty member in training session

7. Health Initiative
Objective: To improve the health status of village by the help of Health Institutes in nearby areas, mainly by organizing Health camps and to connect them with doctors in village by teleconferencing. Achievements: General health pattern of the village was identified through intense surveys. Collaboration with Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi for organizing general health camp in Charba on 2nd October 2010 Health Camp was led by Dr. Kishore Arya (General Secretary, Resident Doctors Association, Lady Hardinge Medical College). It was a ten member team comprising of specialists in Psychology, Dermatology, Gynecology, Ophthalmology.

SIIRD team talking in a clinic in Charba

387 patients were given treatment in the camp Impressed by teams determination and the quality of work the CMO Sahaspur, Dr. Viraj Shah agreed to provide the subsequent treatment to villagers

SIIRD COLLABORATES WITH ACARA INSTITUTE

Acara Institute is a USorganization which works universities to help develop entrepreneurship programs and businesses by conducting Challenges.

based with social social Acara

The SIIRD team members participated in Acara Challenge 2010 and devised Bplans addressing the problems in the adopted village Charba.
SIIRD team member with UMN students at CHARBA

One of the SIIRD team collaborated with University of Minnesota called BioServe won Acara Challenge 2010. Acara sent the team BioServe comprising students of UMN to work upon their business model along with SIIRD team which aimed at installing plastic biogas plants in Charba. Another Acara Challenge team among finalists called My Rain worked on Drip Irrigation system in Charba. SIIRD has good relations with Acara and University of Minnesota and intend to extend their full support in future.

SIIRD team members with BioServ team

SIIRD ON REDIFF NEWS:

Gurdeep Singh & Gaurav Nemade represented SIIRD in the Rural Transformation track at PanIIT Global India Conference, 2008 held at IIT Madras.

SIIRD Team at ISB, Hyderabad

SIIRD team got the chance to present its work at Indian School of Business, Hyderabad on 26th August 2010 in AIESEC International Congress 2010 which saw the presence of 700+ attendees representing 107 countries in the AIESEC network. There were speakers from companies like Microsoft, DHL, Alcatel Lucent, TATA Consultancy Services etc.

SIIRD Team at ISB Hyderabad

SIIRD team with Nirvana cable, CEO and Founder, Global Village Commons, Inc.

SIIRD at PanIIT Conclave 2010

SIIRD, among its major achievements, presented its work at PanIIT Conclave 2010. Team got huge applause from various alumni, ministers, industrialists, CSR heads etc.

SIIRD members at PanIIT 2010- Left: sitting among the panellists with Mr. T Vijay Kumar. Right: posters of SIIRD at PanIIT 2010

CURRENT ASSOCIATIONS OF SIIRD

1. United Nations Development Projects (UNDP) e-Governance initiative o Integrated the Uttarakhand governments UNDP funded e-Governance project by setting up 3 soochna kutirs (Information Kiosks) at Charba. o Principal Investigator: Prof H.K. Verma, Deputy Director, IIT Roorkee. 2. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan for primary school ICT Education o Integrated SSA for the primary school ICT education initiative. o Officials-in-charge: Mrs. Geeta Nautiyal, District Education Officer, and Mr. S. P. Semwal, District Head of Computer Aided Learning Program (CALP). 3. Confederation of Indian industries (CII) o Integrated CII for the employment initiative and arranged for the training of the unemployed youth of Charba. o Officials-in-charge: CII, Uttarakhand unit at Dehradun. 4. INFOSYS : o Integrated Infosys for the Primary School ICT initiative through which SIIRD received 15 computers which were successfully installed in 3 primary schools of Charba. o Officials in charge: Mrs. Sudha Mahesh (Board of Directors, Infosys) approved the donation.

Regards, Gurdeep Singh Project Leader, Students Initiative for Integrated Rural Development (SIIRD). B.Tech, IV Year, Biotechnology, IIT Roorkee Email: gurdeepgsg@gmail.com Mobile No. +91-9410511537

Guided By: Prof. V.K. Nangia Head of Department, Management Studies Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee Email: nangvfdm@iitr.ernet.in vinaynangia@gmail.com