A lot has been said of BPOs. They have changed people’s lives and brought a modicum of hope to the lesser privileged sections of society that was denied for so long. However, till now the story was mostly restricted to urban India. Thanks to the efforts of a few like an enterprising District Collector in Tamil Nadu, Santhosh Babu and an economics graduate straight out of a US college, Kartik Raman, rural India now has an opportunity to be included in the BPO boom, and avail of alternative and better sources of income than what they could eke out from their meagre resources.

Kartik, along with 2 others, started a rural BPO in Bagad village in Jhunjhunu district if Rajasthan with 10 women, many out of class X and some graduates. A year later, the BPO called Source of Change boasts of 30 more employees earning between Rs.3500 and Rs.7000. Kartik plans to expand to more towns, recruiting about 1000 employees by 2012.

When Santhosh Babu decided to open a BPO for his collectorate, he recruited and trained villagers who had failed class X. The first BPO was of 100 seats capacity and was started with a loan of Rs.20 lakhs from the District Rural Development Agency. Its biggest client today is the US All State Insurance. Sreelatha Menon reports in Business Standard:

The most important gain of the BPO experiment in Tamil Nadu is that it recruits mostly people in villages who have failed Class X as well as graduates and pays both equal salaries of up to Rs 5,000.

After the tremendous success of the BPO experiment, Babu has been made the Managing Director of Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot) to expand his operations to all 30 districts. Elcot has started a rural finishing scool where 7000 dropouts have already been trained, and plans to tender applications for franchises in every village. Every franchisee has to profitable and uncompromising on quality. The model is already serving as an inspiration for other states to embark on a similar development path.

We wish these dedicated few all the success in their endeavours and hope many more will join their ranks in improving the lot of all the far flung villages in India.

Read the rest of the story here.
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

Village Services Trust (VST) is an NGO based in Tamil Nadu with a mission to facilitate rural development through community development projects. Their vision is to “serve the basic needs and priorities of the socially, educationally and economically backward sections of women, foster rehabilitation and overall development of the physically challenged and provide utmost care and support for child welfare”.

VST’s main focus areas are women’s empowerment and child welfare and they currently operate in the Dindigul and Kanyakumari districts of Tamil Nadu. Many of their initiatives, targeting the areas of education, health and overall welfare, are implemented in tandem with the state government and other NGOs operating in these areas.

VST has enabled the formation of women’s group in village to campaign for better representation and involvement in key decision making processes. They also have implemented a Grameen Bank model micro credit system that is supported by Self Help Groups (SHGs). These SHGs have also been successful in building community network within these societies for women and the marginalised.

VST also runs health centers to provide medical, maternity consultations and counselling. In collaboration with the Aravind hospital, Madurai, VST has organized eye and dental camps. They are also active in spreading awareness about personal hygiene, HIV, STDs, immunization and family planning.

The other major focus for VST is child welfare with emphasis on rehabilitation of abandoned and abused children. VST rescues at-risk children and provides them shelter, education, vocational training and, more importantly, an opportunity to lead a normal life again. The child rehabilitation project has been operational since 1999 at their Dindigul center. It is estimated that there are 3500 children living on the streets of Dindigul.

Many of the abandoned or run-away children seek work in factories and shops to earn a living. Their predicament makes them easy victims of sexual, labor and/or drug abuse. VST seeks to help these children by help strengthen family structure to minimize run-aways, scouting for and reaching out to the abandoned as early as possible and shelter them before abuse. They also rescue abused children and provide a safe shelter where they can grow in a nurturing environment.

At present, there at 83 children being cared for at the shelter. It takes almost Rs. 1.5 Lakhs or $3,000 a month to sustain this project, to provide for children’s basic needs ie food, clothing, health care, education etc.

The child rehabilitation project currently has a crisis of funds. VST is seeking donations to help them continue operations and provide for these children.

Below is the link to their website which is enabled with a Paypal system for donations. Your generosity will be greatly appreciated by VST and the children. You can also choose to sponsor a child at the shelter.

Village Services Trust

Please do visit the website to read more about the work that they are doing on the ground.

You can also contact them at

The Village Service Trust

Michaelpalayam – 624215
Nilakottai Taluk
Dindigul District
Tamil Nadu

Phone: +91 (451) 6531 997
Mobile: +91 (0) 995 286 4440 or +91 (0) 984 212 4729
Fax: +91 (451) 242 0430 or +91 (451) 244 0062

Email: thevst[at]rediffmail[dot]com

A cooking stove that not only cooks faster, saves fuel but also reduces harmful emissions by 80%. This is the promise of the stoves manufactured by Envirofit India Pvt. Ltd, part of the Shell Group. And they have already found 50,000 takers in the southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

Eliminating the dependence of poor people on gas and electricity, both of which are expensive and hard to come by in rural areas, the Envirofit stoves work on wood which is easier to collect. By working on a fuller combustion model and using heat insulating material, they reduce cooking time by as much as 40% as compared to traditional three stone stoves. However, at a retail price of a minimum of Rs.700 for a single pot burner, they might still be a little unaffordable for the large population living below poverty line. Envirofit aims to bring down this price to Rs. 500 in order to cater to this segment as well.

Poornima Mohandas reports in Mint:

The retail channel in south India sure seems ready. Sadathulla, a home appliances retailer in Gundalpet, says he sells more Envirofit stoves in a month than kerosene, electric or gas stoves.

With a reported 1.6 million deaths globally due to the use of solid biomass fuels, 400,000 of which are in India itself, it appears that the Envirofit stove could not have arrived sooner.

Read the complete article here.

Photo Courtesy: www.livemint.com

StoryTrails provides a unique way of learning about India. In stead of carrying out the usual touristy routes of sight-seeing and visiting the famous locations, StoryTrails adopts a new path. They carry out what they term as “Trails” which visitors can be a part of. These trails, to use their own words, are “a subtle presentation of some fascinating arts, customs and practices that are unique to the region, which we help our guests discover and learn about“.

We believe this is a great way to actually immerse yourself in the culture of the region and learn about India in your own way, at your own pace.

One such trail that was recently organized by StoryTrails was “The Animal Trail” in Chennai. The idea of this trail was to make children more comfortable with animals, and to dispel the fear and myths that children usually associate animals with. As part of this trail, the children were taken to the Blue Cross which is a shelter for abandoned and stray animals at Velachery.

This article by Kamini Mathai in the Times of India provides more details about this initiative by StoryTrails.

The other such “trails” carried about by StoryTrails include the Peacock Trail, Bazaar Trail and Family Trails.

Click here to check out their website and to participate in their unique way of knowing India better.