DESI
Power’s EmPower Partnership Projects based on stand-alone biomass
gasifier based power plants in rural areas provide multiple
sustainable development benefits for women and the poorer villagers.
This is done through the simultaneous creation of power for
domestic lighting and home uses, and for the long term assured power
supply for water pumping, micro-industry, and other energy services.
The aim is to provide new jobs from the integrated activities of
power generation and small industry development. The investment in
one EmPower Partnership Project creates between 20 - 30 new
permanent jobs in addition to many more indirect jobs and encourages
many local social initiatives.
Since decentralised energy systems are
the ideal vehicles for large-scale commercialisation of renewable energy and
the simultaneous promotion of sustainable development of rural areas, the
Independent Rural Power Producers (IRPPs) solution presents an ideal win-win
situation. The EmPower Partnership Program promotes and establishes local
cluster companies which build, own, operate and (later) transfer power plants
in Indian villages. A 100 Village Program is currently being implemented in
Araria District, Bihar, for the commercial demonstration of the concept which
will, it is hoped, lead to a large-scale replication of the integrated model
of village development.
DESI
Power’s village level experience during implementation has shown
that one of the critical bottlenecks for a large scale replication
of the EmPower Partnership Program is the lack of trained manpower
at all technical and managerial levels. The reluctance of city
trained persons to move to a village or small town is one big
barrier. The practice of local men trained by DESI Power to seek
better fortune elsewhere no sooner than they have become productive
is the other.
Finance for the power plants is no
longer the primary barrier. Based on DESI Power’s experience and track record,
finance for the power plant can now somehow be put together by raising local
equity and bank loans, selling CERs and getting government subsidy. Raising
capital for the micro-enterprises in villages remains a difficult task. Since
the EmPower Partnership Program depends on micro-enterprises and energy
services for most of the local job creation, lack of capital for building
micro-enterprises adversely affects the progress of the total program. After
discussions, DESI Power is signing an MOU with SBI, the largest Indian bank,
to enable the villagers to borrow money directly to start their own small
enterprises and businesses. Under the MOU with SBI, DESI Power has agreed to
train the local entrepreneurs and their staff so that they can run the
business profitably and service the Bank loan.
Recognising the seriousness
of the problem of staffing, without which the 100 Village EmPower
Partnership Program can not be completed within the planned time
frame, DESI Power decided to find its own solution for
training about 3000 local people within 10 years and started a
“Management Training Centre for Rural Women” called “DESI_MANTRA”.
The centre provides training to women in areas of relevance to EmPP
Programme: computer usage and applications, biomass generation and
management, energy services, basics of micro-finance, book keeping
and accounting, project management, project profitability and
personnel management.
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Develop trained local persons, with a focus on rural women, for DESI
Power’s 100 Village EmPower Partnership Projects.
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Identify and train local entrepreneurs, inculcate professional and
management skills in the rural people, especially in rural women,
through a rural business incubation program.
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Provide hands-on training in using personal computers / business
software packages for managing rural enterprises.
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Identify and develop micro-finance opportunities and skills.
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Promote skills for bio-businesses such as vermiculture,
growing vegetables, organic farming, biogas generation and
utilisation, etc.
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Promotion of fuel and agro forestry.
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Promote team-working environment and sharpen team-building skills.
Because women are less likely to walk away to a
better job after being trained, DESI_MANTRA is providing training
mostly for local women on:
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Biomass gasification,
biogas, power generation and management
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Rural energy services:
making solar ovens, solar panels, LED
lamp assemblies, energy efficient stove, value addition to the agro
by-products by briquetting etc
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Rural enterprises
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Basics of office
Administration
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Basics of book keeping
and accounting
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Basics of project
management and monitoring
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Basics of financial
management
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Basics of micro-finance
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Fuel and agro forestry
(Bio diesel etc.)
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Vermiculture, Organic farming, Biogas etc.
DESI Power
set up a DESI_MANTRA Capacity Building Steering Committee (CBSC) on 30 March
2006 in Araria. The members of CBSC are local intellectuals, agriculture
scientists, bankers, media people and educationalists. CBSC members
unanimously elected Mrs. Anwari, Principal of Araria Girls High School and Mr.
Manzoor Alam, Retd. High School Teacher as a Co-Chairperson of CBSC.
10 local
rural women and three rural young boys along with two urban boys were selected
for the first batch of trainees of DESI_MANTRA by the executives of DESI Power
in consultation with CBSE.
Formal
classes of DESI_MANTRA were started on 22nd May 2006 in Araria. Daily 3 hours
classroom teaching was conducted including theory and practical modules for 3
months. After 3 months classroom teaching all the trainees were put on the job
training for 3 months.
For the on-the-job training,
the best 5 women and two men were selected as employees-on-probation and
were given the responsibilities of accounts management, office management and
documents management of DESI Power and BOVS under the supervision of the
executives of DESI Power. At the end of the probation period, O one girl was
selected as the team leader of DESI_MANTRA for managing all the trainees. 3
boys have also been selected and trained partly in Bangalore for Bio-business
Group of DESI power and put on the job.
From October’06, 5 girls and 5 boys have
been employed by DESI Power for its 100 Village project. all The trainees
worked in two groups till the end of December’06: Project auditing
and development group and Bio-business Group.
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1st batch student of DESI_MANTRA
(From left) MINU GUPTA,
SABIHA PERWEEN, SHAGUFTA MANZOOR, SHEERAZ SEHAR (TRAM LEADER), JAY PRAKASH
MANDAL, GIRISH N., B K SINHA, GOWTHAM R.
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Activities being handled by Project auditing and development group
Helping DESI Power
and BOVS Management Team, Araria
Job of personal secretary to
the Managers:
Correspondence, management of
the time schedules, Internet and e-mail, etc.
Accounting and bookkeeping
of DESI Power Branch office and project sites:
Budget preparation.
Day Book, Cash Book and
Ledger management.
Preparation of Income &
Expense statement weekly and monthly.
Sending the is monthly report
to Bangalore office with Bank statement and bills through e-mail and post.
Weekly auditing of accounts
of the project site with the project in charge and conveying information to
the management.
100 – village project
related work:
Conducting village surveys
and preparation of village survey reports of each village. (presently for
village Gaiyari).
Making soft copies of the
data and information of the local cooperative GRID at Gaiyari.
Project status report
preparation and reporting to the head office of DESI Power.
Support Bio-business group
for preparing and sending their reports to the head office. Presently making
the soft copy of the survey data of village Baharbari for biogas and organic
farming.
Helping prepare the business
plan for Bio-business group.
Preparation of the business
plan for micro enterprises (MEs) for 100 Village Projects. Presently preparing
the portfolios for each selected MEs.
DESI_MANTRA training:
Providing training to the
existing project team of DESI Power and its local partners.
Preparation for starting the
course for the next batch of DESI MANTRA.
Activities being
handled by Bio business Group
Vermiculture:
Established the Vermicultuer
demonstration unit and promoting vermiculture amongst the farmers in the
villages under DESI Power’s 100-Village project.
Organic farming:
Established the demonstration
unit of organic farming near the fishpond of BOVS and promoting organic
farming in the region. Interacting with local scientific centres in Bihar like
Krishi Vigyan Kendra etc. for more information about organic farming and agro
forestry.
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Biobusiness group's pond |
Biobusiness experiment
gardens |
Biobusiness group
organic vegetables in the
local village market |
Bio gas:
Site survey for Biogas
project is under process following which the plan of action and budget for
this project will be prepared.
Agro & Fuel Forestry:
Identification of land for
agro and fuel forestry is being done and now a POA and implementation plan is
under preparation.
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