Subhasgram

To build a ‘Sustainable Development Center’ at Choto Jagulia, Barasat called ‘Subhasgram’ – in memory of the Founder President of Sankalpa Trust, Sri Subhas Mukhopadhyay - that will meet the mission of ARTS.

1.2 Mission - ARTS

The mission of ARTS is to contribute to the development of rural communities through grant-aid, development funding, development consultancy, small business development and strategic business investments. This mission is consistent with the mission of Sankalpa Trust - to work with rural people to build a society that offers equality, liberty, justice and freedom from poverty. These are the fundamental tenets of Sankalpa Trust's definition of sustainable development and sustainable livelihoods.

1.3 Business objectives

· Develop sustainable, knowledge-based businesses that create employment.

· Provide employment and training opportunities that aim to increase employability.

· Learn from our experience, develop new services and actively promote the development of sustainable rural technologies.

1.4 Model for development

The pyramidal model for development of rural communities is shown in Annexure 1. The cornerstones of this paradigm are based on ‘Sustainable Livelihoods’, ‘Sustainable Shelter’ and ‘Sustainable Energy’ programs as the primary change agents, held together by ‘Sustainable Information’ strategies to attain the final goal of ‘Total Empowerment’ of target rural communities through ‘Sustainable Knowledge’

2 Sustainable Development Center

The Subhasgram ‘Sustainable Development Center’ (SDC) promotes and disseminates environment-friendly technologies to conserve Mother Nature. A preliminary concept of an SDC is shown below:

The objective of the SDC is to provide rural inhabitants of the target community with knowledge resources and practical demonstration models of environment-friendly technologies for the generation of sustainable livelihoods while conserving Mother Nature at the same time. This is the essence of the concept of sustainability.

2.1 SDC Elements

The elements of the Subhasgram SDC at Choto Jugulia comprise:

· ‘ARTS Information Center’ to propagate Internet technologies in particular, and IT-enabled systems and services, in general.

· ‘ARTS Livelihood Center’ for employment generation schemes, including:

· Sustainable livelihoods projects in handmade paper products, shelter products, energy and IT-enabled products and services;

· Primary education programs for children, based on computer-mediated communications;

· ‘ARTS Energy Center’ for the dissemination of:

· Biomass technologies, including briquetting and gasification processes;

· Solar Photovoltaic and solar thermal systems.

· ‘ARTS Building Center’ for:

· Demonstration and production of economical and environment-friendly shelter products, including:

· Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB) Technology;

· Micro Concrete Roofing Tiles (MCRT);

· Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln (VSBK) project;

· Disseminate low-cost architectural plans and building designs;

· Provide low-cost buildings to underprivileged people in the rural villages.

3 ‘ARTS Information Center’

Internet related technologies have an important role in aiding developmental efforts. The greatest obstacles to rural development - large distances and inadequate infrastructure - may be overcome by instant access to virtual institutions that provide education, health care, neonatal information, agricultural advice, banking and other socio-economic and environmental instruments.

Rural information networks permit knowledge, services, money and certain kinds of products to flow more easily from node to node across long distances.

Text Box:
Cyber Cafe At a fraction of the cost of the corresponding ‘real’ institutions, each village node can serve as a range of virtual institutions, such as:

· Community center

· Banking facilities

· Medical center

· Government information center

· Matrimonial office

· Public telephone booth

· Public library and

· Educational resource center

· Electronic documentation Center

· Imaging and audio generation capabilities for multimedia services

3.1 Connectivity

By making these resources available in villages, information centers can alleviate the asymmetry between urban and rural environments. In order to accelerate rural growth, it is essential that we learn new ways of integrating social and human infrastructure development into the installation of basic information and communications infrastructure.

3.2 Content

Research and development of innovative applications and highly localized content is planned in the following application areas:

· Agricultural information systems

· Online spot labor market applications

· Micro-finance systems

· Health systems

· Education applications

· Email and Internet browsing

· Access to online government forms

· Voice/Video/Data Services

· Integrated communication suites

· Community newsmagazines

· Text to speech tools

· Cricket resource center

3.3 Activity schedule

The 'Activity Schedule' for implementing the ‘IT Center’ is as follows:

Notes:

(a) The content development and CBT programs will be coordinated at a software center in Calcutta; the budgeted cost estimates relate mainly to the salaries of IT professionals and subject experts, who will be needed to generate the content as well as CBTs.

4 ‘ARTS Livelihood Center’

The ‘ARTS Livelihood Center’ (LC) primarily addresses the socio-economic needs of a rural community that is based on agriculture. The goals of the LC will be to provide ‘Training & Education’ (T&E) programs, in order to:

· Improve and refine the existing designs and develop new technologies for agricultural needs, such as vermi-composting;

· Upgrade and adopt foreign designs to suit local requirements;

· Develop technology for conservation of agro-produce and value addition through appropriate technologies and processing methods;

· Integrated energy management and development of technology for supplementation of energy in agriculture through renewable energy sources.

4.1 Training & Education programs

The ARTS ‘Training & Education’ (T&E) programs will enable the creation of sustainable livelihoods in the rural community. ‘Appropriate Technology’ approaches that have already been proved to be successful elsewhere will be implemented in the 2^nd phase, such as:

Text Box: (a) The inexpensive earthenware "Pot-in-Pot" cooling device or ‘natural refrigeration’ system which costs ~Rs. 50 a pair, devised by Nigerian teacher Mohammed Bah Abba (Rolex Award winner 2001), [shown on the left]; fundamental to the “Pot-in-Pot” project is the lack of electricity in many rural communities and the high cost of acquiring and operating electrically operated refrigerator.

(b) Handmade Paper Products: Provides indigent people of the community, especially young women, an opportunity to earn a livelihood from the production of handicraft items using handmade paper, bamboo and jute as raw material inputs.

(c) Briquetting: This relates to the production of briquettes from biomass. The LC will develop employment opportunities in the supply chain management, as well as in the distribution of the finished product.

(d) Shelter Project: This relates to the production of CEBs and MCRT in the ‘ARTS Building Center’. The LC will again develop employment opportunities in the supply chain management for these products, as well as in the distribution of bricks and tiles, and finally in the production of low cost buildings for the local community.

4.2 Primary Education Opportunities

The above pictures relate to the ongoing SARI project in Tamil Nadu. We have also seen in the ‘Hole-in-the-wall’ project initiated by Dr Sugata Mitra of NIIT at Delhi, that young children have a natural affinity to computer-based strategies.

These ongoing research projects reinforce our belief that the ‘Arts Information Center’ will have a great deal of relevance for promoting livelihoods-oriented primary education opportunities for the community at Choto Jagulia.

4.3 Activity schedule

The 'Activity Schedule' for implementing the ‘ARTS LC’ is as follows:

Notes:

The ‘Primary Education Program’ is essentially an ongoing work, which will take considerably more than the two-year horizon of this report (more likely to be five years for full implememntation).

5 ‘ARTS Energy Center’

Renewable energy systems use resources that occur naturally, are constantly replaced and are usually less polluting.

5.1 Biomass energy

Because plants and trees depend on sunlight to grow, biomass energy is a form of stored solar energy. Although wood is the largest source of biomass energy, we may also use rice husk, corn, sugarcane wastes, and other farming byproducts.

There are three ways to use biomass.

(a) It can be burned to produce thermal energy for cooking and domestic applications. Traditionally, women and children collect wood and burn them in open ‘chullahs’, which are not only highly polluting, but is also very inefficient. The briquetted fuel technology uses woody biomass materials as the input and produces a clean, eco-friendly fuel as the output, which is smokeless and helps to improve the home environment, while providing an economical source of home energy.

(b) Text Box:
Gasifier plant equipment Changed to a gas-like fuel such as methane or ‘producer gas’ in a gasifier (see picture on the right).

Text Box:
Gasifier-based Crematorium There are a large number of renewable technologies for generating electricity as well as thermal applications for gasifiers. For example, the picture on the left right shows the thermal application of a 100kWe gasifier in a crematorium. Note the cleanliness and serenity of the crematorium.

Text Box: The next picture shows the use of a gasifier at a marriage party, where the thermal energy output of the gasifier is used for cooking energy, instead of LPG, kerosene stoves or fuelwood.

Hence, a large number of industrial and commercial applications, such as drying, can be run with gasifiers.

Diesel fuel can be replaced by biodiesel made from vegetable oils! A commonly used biofuel is ethanol, which is produced from corn and other grains.

5.2 Solar Energy

Tata BP Solar is one of the largest solar companies in the world, with state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Bangalore. It would be very desirable to become a distributor for solar photovoltaic and thermal systems products for the Barasat area. The standard package comes with the following items:

a. Glow Sign of Solar Shop & Service Centre

b. Display boards

c. Display materials like

i. Solar Lantern with Solarmite charger and module

ii. Solar Home Lighting System

iii. Solar Mini Lite Kit with SMF battery

iv. Solar Water Heating System (100 liters per day)

v. Solar Cooker

d. Roll ups (5nos.)

e. Banners - 4 nos.

f. Streamers - 6sets

g. CD containing source files of individual files

5.3 Activity schedule

The 'Activity Schedule' for building the ‘ARTS Energy Center’ is as follows:

6 ‘ARTS Building Center’

The ‘ARTS Building Center’ shall promote a number of environmental-friendly and economically sustainable ‘shelter products’ technologies, including:

· Compressed Earth Blocks Technology

· Micro-concrete Roofing Tiles Technology

· Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln (VSBK) technology, which was first developed in China as an energy efficient, environment-friendly and economically viable means of producing high quality bricks.

These technologies on ‘Shelter Products’ have been developed by Development Alternatives and are desirable for the following reasons:

· They provide a means of employment and income generating opportunities, utilizing locally available materials, skills, manpower and management methods;

· They provide building materials for making 'pucca' structures, that will improve the standard of living, by enhancing the self-assurance and confidence of the rural dwellers, who otherwise live in tattered and thatched, wobbly huts, at present, and

· They provide an opportunity for enterprise development, inherently low in monetary cost;

· They utilize renewable energy sources

· They are self-sustaining and promote self-reliance.

6.1 Manual Press for Production of Compressed Soil Blocks

Text Box:
Fig. 2.1 TARA Balram The Compressed Earth Block (CEB) Technology offers a cost effective, environmentally sound masonry system, suitable for a variety of applications in walls and roofs to make strong and durable buildings. The inputs needed are human and sunlight energy and ordinary soil as the raw material.

The TARA Balram machine (see Fig. 5) produces standard chamfered blocks in two sizes: 23 x 10.9 x 7.6 cms and 23 x 23 x 7.6 cms. The manual machine costs about Rs. 35,000 (US$720). The performance specifications for the manually operated unit are:

No. of blocks per cycle: 2 for Type A and 1 for Type B units

No. of cycles per hour: 160

No. of blocks / 8-hr day: 1000-1500 for Type A units; 500-750 for Type B units, including time for soil preparation, block stacking and curing.

Six to ten persons are required to operate a manual machine. One skilled worker is required, the rest unskilled. Typically, the workers can be trained to operate any machine within 10 to 12 days.

6.2 Tara Tile Maker:

The TARA Tile Maker (see Fig 6a) is used to produce micro-concrete roofing tiles (MCR) (see Fig 6b for its application). Roofs with MCR Tiles will resist cyclonic, high wind velocities. The MCR mix consists of 1 part cement, 2 parts of graded sand, and 1 part of stone grit, smaller than 6 mm in size.

The mix requires a water-cement ratio between 0.45 and 0.5.

With this mix and a labour force of 4 persons, a production rate of upto 200 tiles a day per vibrator is easily achieved.

The machine will cost about Rs 90,000 (US$1,850).

Fig 6b An MCR Roof

Fig. 6a The TARA Tile Maker

6.3 Cost of buildings

The current cost per sq. ft varies from Rs.150 to Rs. 250.

The estimated cost of a bare single (10' x 12') dwelling unit including a verandah space is about Rs. 20,000, which means that the gross building cost is going to be about Rs 170 per sq.ft only. This compares very well with current rates of between Rs 350 to 500 per sq.ft, using conventional building materials. The basis of these cost estimates are given below:

A. COST OF ROOFING = Rs. 3,000

Assumptions:

a) Cost of one tile is Rs. 6; (b) Cost of understructure of bamboo and labour cost of making understructure and tile laying is Rs. 10 per sq. ft. (US$0.20 per sq.ft.); (c) Cost of construction of sloping roof using MCR tile and understructure of bamboo is Rs. 25 per sq. ft. (US$0.52 per sq.ft.)

B. COST OF WALLS = Rs. 4,000

Assumptions:

a) Cost of each CEB (Balram) brick is Rs. 1.20; (b) Cost of labour and mortar is Rs. 2,500.00

C. COST OF FOUNDATION = Rs. 5,000

Assumptions:

a) Same as that for fired bricks.

D. DOOR AND 3 WINDOWS = Rs. 3,000

Assumptions:

a) Cost of Door = Rs. 1,200.00 ; (b) Cost of Windows = Rs. 800.00

E. OVERHEAD CHARGES = Rs. 5,000

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TOTAL COST (A+B+C+D+E) = Rs. 20,000

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Notes:

1. Finishing operations (whether on interior or exterior walls, or on floor) will cost extra.

2. These are estimated costs. Precise cost estimates can be made when we gather cost of local material and labour costs, in situ.

6.4 VSBK Technology

Vertical Shaft Brick Kilns (VSBK) provides for cleaner brick production. Bricks remain one of the most important building materials in the country. Brick making is a traditional industry in India, generally confined to rural areas. Notably, the Indian brick industry, with more than 100,000 production units producing about 100 billion bricks annually, is the second largest brick producer in the world after that of China. The industry has an annual turnover of more than Rs.100 billion (US$ 2 billion) and, very importantly, it is one of the largest employment generating industries, employing millions of workers. However, brick making is an energy intensive process as fuel costs account for almost 30% of the production cost.

Despite all initiatives to introduce alternative walling materials like compressed earth blocks, concrete / stonecrete blocks, and flyash bricks, it is envisaged that burnt clay bricks would still occupy the dominant position in the foreseeable decades.

Current technologies for brick production such as clamps, downdraught kilns and Bull’s Trench Kilns (BTK) consume large quantities of fuel such as coal, firewood and other biomass inputs. The devastating effect of the pollution caused by huge amounts of emissions from the brick industry has attracted the attention of regulatory agencies, who have issued deadlines after which the polluting kilns have either to clean up or to close down permanently.

The advantages of VSBK technology are:

· It represents a very high-energy efficient method of firing bricks resulting in an energy saving of 30 % compared to BTK and more than 50% compared to clamps. The fired quality is better than the quality of bricks fired in other traditional kilns such as clamps.

· This kiln is very compact, requiring a small area of land. For the same production capacity, the land requirement is about 1/4th compared to BTK.

· Easy to operate and does not require electricity to function

· The construction cost, though slightly higher than BTK, is still reasonably low - Rs.350,000 (US$7,000) for a production capacity of 5000 bricks per day.

· The kiln is not affected by variations in the weather. It can be operated during monsoons because unlike other traditional kilns, VSBK has a roof, which means protection from rain and year-round operations. Other brick kilns are able to operate only for 5 or 6 months in a year.

· The kiln is highly suitable for use where fuel is incorporated into the brick. In several parts of the country, agricultural residue like rice husk or fuels like coal dust are mixed with clay before moulding. This allows use of inferior quality fuel and, in general, reduction in production cost. VSBK, because of its fast firing characteristics, is particularly suited for firing of brick containing internal fuel.

· Modularity in construction and flexibility in production are important attributes of the technology. Additional shafts of production capacity of 2000 to 5000 bricks per day can be easily added or operated according to the demand for bricks.

6.5 Activity schedule

The 'Activity Schedule' for the ‘ARTS Building Center Project’ is as follows:

Notes:

(a) The preliminary construction activities involve architectural planning issues

(b) The first two months for the Compressed Earth Block (CEB), TARA Tile Maker & Concrete Block Technology (CBT) projects relate to the installation of machines; the next four months relate to the removal of teething problems and the hiring and training of the required manpower, before revenues start to flow in after the sixth month.

(c) The installation of the VSBK project will roughly coincide with the actual construction of the ‘Building Center’ itself, and revenues from the first VSBK is expected to commence from the 14^th month.

7 Promotion

Experts agree that one of the best promotional strategies for a project like the ‘Subhasgram’ ARTS SDC involving rural people is through the medium of music and songs, in the local language. A properly designed and produced ‘jingle’ will be a very powerful medium for communicating the mission and objectives of the ARTS SDC.

The estimated cost for producing the ‘master tape’ for such a jingle is about Rs. 20,000.

8 Financials

The estimated project cost & means of finance for two levels of functionality – high and low – for implementing a limited version of the SDC including (a) ARTS Information Center, (b) ARTS Livelihood Center and (c) ARTS Building Center are shown below:

Details will be made available on request.

Annexure 1

Subhasgram

‘ARTS Sustainable Development Center’

Business Plan

Contents

3 ‘ARTS Information Center’

6 ‘ARTS Building Center’

6.4 VSBK Technology