62% of Gujarat’s 60 million population live in villages. If that is the case villages should be able to feed that population to avoid mass migration to the cities. When diamond polishing industry of Surat took hit in the global recession, many people had to go back to their villages.
When they went back to their villages the progress they found is astonishing. Once arid region of Saurashtra, where one crop per year is a difficult thing, people are growing 3 crops.
How is this possible? Multi-prong approach of the Gujarat government. 35000 check dams in the Saurashtra region alone along with rain water harvesting and sandbag initiatives pulled the water table level to 80 ft from 400 ft. Total check dams built across Gujarat are 135, 000. This happened in 5 years.
That solves the water problem but what about power? Under Jyotigram Yojana most of the rural areas are electrified. Many villages in Gujarat now enjoy uninterrupted power supply. People of villages don’t have to migrate to cities to earn money. They can actually “work from home” .
That is Gujarat. What if I don’t live in Gujarat?
You might not be having all the facilities which the people of Saurashtra are enjoying but there are entrepreneurs who are ready to help you. Ossian agro automation is one such company which has a product called Nano Ganesh.
Main problem in villages is the lack or intermittent supply of power. Agriculture needs power and the farmers don’t get it when they need it. Typically they have to work with the schedule of the power supply. They have to run to their pump sets during night.
Nano-Ganesh is a low-cost water pump activation system which reduces the need to travel. There will be devices set on the pump set in the remote location and the farmers can activate it by calling from the mobile phone and entering few codes. The full details can be found here. This has been piloted in Maharastra and 5000 farmers are using it. The cost is less than 1700 rupees.
Isn’t that the coolest thing in the world?
