Public Private Partnerships

1. Rural Development Public Private Partnerships Dr. SADHANA K. MALHOTRA

2. PPP Definition • These are partnerships between the public and private sectors for the purpose of delivering a project or service traditionally provided for by the public sector

3. The Public Sector The strengths of the public sector include: • Works on a very large scale; can utilize economies of scale. • A lot of technical and professional expertise exists in the system • Presence in the rural and inaccessible areas • More equitable

4. The Private Sector The private sector also has some distinct strengths: • Viable enterprises with good business models • Many of them have good market presence, with plenty of clients • Good management systems with greater efficiency • Flexibility to act independently at a short notice The synergy of public and private sector for agreed upon objectives in PPP achieves more than what each can accomplish alone. The intent behind the initiative is to utilize the strengths of the government system and the private sector.

5. Govt. and Private sector in partnership • The Govt. has its own programmes for the development and upliftment of rural India • Some of the leading corporates have also been instrumental in bringing a positive change in the rural sector through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Initiatives

6. The ITC initiative • ITC launched `Choupal Sagar’ a rural mall • ITC has also started E choupal to link directly with the rural farmers for procurement of agricultural /aquaculture produce like wheat, coffee, soyabean and prawns. • The objective was to tackle the challenges of fragmented farms, weak infrastructure and numerous intermediaries

7. What is Choupal Sagar • The size of Choupal Sagar is smaller than other malls in the cities. The ground area of the mall is only 7000 square feet, but the height of the ceiling is very high, as the mall serves the dual purpose of warehouse-cum-shopping mall. • Choupal Sagar is self-service mall and serves multi-purpose activities like warehouse, trading and information center, i.e., “all under single roof”. • For sustainability of this rural mall, ITC has a tie-up with players of different industries like banks, insurance companies, petroleum, and agri-input industries. A separate building has been constucted nearby for them. There the agri-input companies of farm machinery, seed and pesticide can also demonstrate their products. • ITC has also tied-up with agro-institutes for training farmers. • It organizes various activities and events like melas, training programs, and demonstrations to increase the number of footfalls during the off-season.

8. What is e Choupal • Kiosks have been set up with computers and internet connectivity at the house of the sanchalak, a trained farmer • The principle is to inform, empower and compete. Farmer’s can obtain information in regional languages on prices, good farming practices, weather forecast, crop insurance and buy agricultural inputs • The farmers’ directly negotiate the sale of their produce with ITC • The sanchalak earns a service fee for the e transactions done through his e choupal • Each kiosk serves 600 farmers from the surrounding 10 villages in the radius of 5 km.4m farmers benefited from the service.

9. Impact of e Choupal • Farmer’s incomes have increased • Farmer’s get real time information about the prices of agricultural produce despite physical distance from mandis. • The procurement cost by ITC has fallen • The quality of produce has improved with better information • Small farmers have also benefited • Facilitates two way exchange of goods and services between rural India and the world

10. The Macro impact of e choupal Such a market business model can enhance the global competitiveness of Indian agriculture and trigger a cycle of higher productivity→ higher income→ higher farmer risk management→ larger investments→ higher quality and productivity Higher rural incomes triggers demand for industrial goods and that leads to growth of Indian economy

11. The Present and Future • E Choupal is one of the largest initiatives in rural India with 7,000 kiosks in 10 states (UP, Haryana, MP, Uttrakhand, Kerala,AP, Karnataka,Tamil Nadu, and Maharastra) • ITC will establish 20,000 e choupals by 2012 in 1,00,000 villages in 15 states and service 15 million farmers

12. The pitfalls of the ITC model Indian Tobacco Company (ITC), has weighing technology in which they weigh the entire truck full of grain and then the empty truck. If a farmer does not have one truck full of grain he can't sell. Farmers can't even do it collectively, because the variety of the grain differs. The small farmer may be left out of the procurement process. And even big farmers often have to suffer losses in transport expenses if the company rejects their grain under some criteria of their own.

13. The Emami Initiative • Emami has devised a project of self employment in the rural areas with the objective of providing employment to the rural youth, empowerment of women, poverty eradication and contribute to economic and social development

14. The Emami schemes • Emami Mobile Traders (EMT) • Emami Small Village Shops (ESVS) The project started in 2004 in N. Bengal. Now it is operational in WB, AP,MP, Orissa , Chattisgarh, Maharastra and Karnataka. The unemployed rural youth and women earn regular and sustainable income through direct marketing

15. Reliance and Social responsibility • Social welfare and community development is the crux of Reliance CSR • They recognize that business has a purpose- to serve human needs • RIL keeps close contact with the communities around its manufacturing facilities to bring about qualitative changes

16. Reliance areas of support • Health care • Education • Infrastructure Development • Environment • Disaster Management • Support to other social development organizations

17. The Reliance Initiative • RIL’s Jamnagar Complex serves the rural community in the area of health, education, cultural support, creating/ augmenting village infrastructure, fodder to cowsheds and supply of drinking water • At Hazira, RIL provides health care, educational infrastructural facilities and extra curricular activities to a cluster of 7 villages

18. Some examples of RIL’s support • RIL provides assistance to the students by providing books, uniforms, shoes, stationery • Health and hygiene awareness programs for students, medical camps organised • The Company has implemented HIV / AIDS and DOTS programme at Hazira and Jamnagar, and is in the process of replicating the same at the other manufacturing divisions. This initiative is a PPP between the Government, NGOs and Reliance • Reliance also operates the Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Lodhivali and renders quality medical services to the rural population and highway accident victims. 

19. More instances of RIL’s support • Reliance also operates free medical diagnostic and therapeutic services at neighbouring villages of several of its manufacturing locations. • A community medical centre was established in Moti Khavdi, a village near Jamnagar Manufacturing Division, in Nov 1995. It provides comprehensive medical services free of cost and  round the clock. About 1.2 lakh villagers of nearby areas benefit from the same. • The Company’s CSR cell took the initiative to propagate the concept of solid waste (dry and wet waste) management in the neighbouring villages to help villagers in keeping their environment clean and garbage-free. • Reliance runs special training programs to equip the young people of neighboring villages with life and work skills necessary for sustaining livelihood. • Reliance organised extensive awareness programmes on improved packaging solutions for potato and other vegetables for farmers all over India through use of Leno bags, which are more durable and cheaper than traditional materials. This programme helped the farmers reduce the cost of packaging of potato and also reduce wastage while keeping in cold storage.  

20. The IFFCO Initiative • IT enabled services for Farmers and Cooperatives has been provided with multi lingual content. Touch screen based Information Kiosks have been setup to disseminate information on agricultural practices and nutrient related issues, prevailing prices and arrivals in mandies, spot and futures trading information, weather, plant disease and appropriate rural technologies

21. IFFCO’s advice to farmers In mid-2007, IFFCO began IKSL(IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd.) with Airtel offering a voice message service to its members, which provided agricultural advice in the form of minute-long voice messages in local languages. Airtel has designed green SIM cards and service is operational in 18 states.Farmers receive 5 messages everyday. Today, the program is one of the rare mobile projects that has successfully scaled and continues to grow. A helpline puts the farmer in touch with experts on farming and veterinary medicine.

22. The ONGC Initiative • ONGC has been extending full support in the overall development of the areas around its operations all over the country. • Projects are identified by ONGC at the plant level by involving the district administration, local representatives and recognized voluntary organisations. Major emphasis has been given for promotion of education, health and community development and calamity relief

23. ONGC’s Helping hand • Supplementing the efforts of existing health centers in rural areas • Construction and renovation of schools and assistance to the pupils from weaker sections • Providing civic amenities: sanitation, clean drinking water facilities to panchayats, Gram Sabhas • Development of agriculture and other cottage industries • Animal husbandry • Development of infrastructure facilities

24. PPP initiatives in forestry • Forest based industries (ITC, Wimco) joined hands with farmers for production of raw material • Wimco provided the poplar seedlings, technical assistance, arranged fertilizer input and buyback at an agreed price. ITC Bhadrachalam did the same with eucalyptus seedlings • The clone plantations of Eucalyptus and Poplar registered an increase in production and bridged the gap between supply and demand. The income of the farmers also consequently increased. • However the scheme was not a success as farmers reneged on the loans and sold the plantations to third parties

25. The PPP initiatives have largely been successful • More corporate need to step in and work for rural development. They also need to synergize their efforts with the ultimate aim of reaching out to all at the grassroots level • The development of the country has to be all inclusive and the corporate sector can make it happen through their CSR initiatives