Cool Bihari

Friday, July 08, 2011

IITians leave cushy jobs to work with farmers

A farming initiative by the two IITians Shashank and Manish has helped the villagers of Bihar's Vaishali district earn three times what they used to earn a year ago. The initiative has been introduced in 30 villages so far.

The two IITians who refused to pursue a cushy and lucrative career and decided to work at the grassroots. They headed to Bihar to help farmers get a better life. The conventional farming is now being turned into scientific farming, new crops are being experimented and the bumper harvest is already changing the facet of the region. Not only this IIT duo, but thousands of farmers are benefited in the process.

'Farms and Farmers', the name of their farming initiative, has now become a household name. The initiative has helped farmers learn and implement new techniques such as water harvesting and organic farming. Each technique is tailored to the soil content and land size. Cash crops such as rajma and flowers have replaced the conventional rice and wheat farming in the region.

Labels: Agri Business, Agricultural Innovation, Entrepreneurship, IIT, Innovation, Social Entrepreneurs

Posted by Ajit Chouhan at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

IIT first and IIM's now -Bihar 2.0

After IIT, it is the IIM, which is all set to make a debut in Bihar. The state government has set in motion the process to open a B-school after its success in securing the arrival of some top-class institutions, like the IIT, National Law School University and National Institute of Fashion Designing, in Bihar.

The late principal secretary of the human resource development department, Madan Mohan Jha, had finalised all the modalities of opening the institute through a series of meetings with IIM, Ahmedabad, director B.H. Dholakia. Jha, who died on Friday, has also left behind a detailed project report (DPR) and the bylaws of the B-school in the offing.

Anjani Kumar Singh, who has replaced Jha as the department’s new secretary, said the new business would begin functioning from the next academic year. “We have all the groundwork ready,” he said. Sources in the department said that the government had already decided to appoint V. Mukund Das, a former professor of IIM-A, as the first director of its proposed school of management.

In fact, Das, at present working as the dean of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Kozhikode, has also been working on the new project for Bihar. He, along with Piyush Sinha, a professor at IIM-A, got the DPR of the proposed institute prepared in consultation with Jha.

The proposed B-school will start with 50 students at the outset and the admission would be through CAT. Singh said the government had already procured the approval of taking admission in its upcoming B-school through CAT. Apart from the six IIMs, around 70 other B-schools take students based on CAT score.

Initially, the institute will function at the Hindi Bhavan adjacent to the All India Radio office here. Later, it will be shifted to a venue that the government would “exclusively” build for it.

The law university, too, is at present functioning at the AN Sinha Institute here. But the government has already allotted land for it in Mithapur on which the new building for the university is under construction. The government has also allotted 500 acres for the proposed IIT at Bihata on the outskirts of Patna.