SANJEEVITA is land-based mission on maximum resource utilization with R&D component to involve huge number of rural population. The target region of this mission is Rajasthan, Haryana, Orissa & Chhattisgarh through networking activities with local block administrations, Panchayat institutions, NGOs, Department of Agriculture, schools and Youth Clubs. It broadly comprises four objectives
- Over all well-being of humankind which not only works on absence of disease but also nutritional diet.
- Protection and promotion of Ayurveda (Herbs & Herbal treatment ).
- Conservation of Bio-diversity.
Organic agriculture.
The mission is cent percent eco-friendly without subversion of local tradition, only to make avenues of revenue generation and convert the farmers as Barefoot Agriculture Scientists in the far-flung regions of India. The base of this mission is organic cultivation to provide quality based intake to the mass including conservation of botanical legacy of India. So, generation of mass awareness for high volume crop to produce value added products and also cross cropping of greenvegetables with covering the people of Below Poverty Line (BPL) is also part and parcel of this mission. This is also an exemplary mission of Sulaxmi to stop migration through its multi- facet objectives, i.e. establishing linkages between mass and market eradication of bichaulia (middleman) system through direct marketing of organic yields of medicinal plants. Co-existence of tradition and technology and transfer technology to ill-informed regions and indigenous way of cultivation is the quintessence of this mission.
Right now, the first phase of SANJEEVITA is going on in Orissa, Rajasthan & Haryana and the second phase is going to be started in 2006 with incorporation of Chhattisgarh. The first phase is consisting medicinal plant cultivation, bamboo plantation and vermi-culture.
The vermi-culture programme coves two villages Khohar and Basai villages of Berhor sub-division of District Alwar of Rajasthan and 15 villages of Kalahandi of Orissa. Cultivation of Withania somanifera in 30 hectares of land and bamboo plantation (35 hactares) is being run in remote areas of Kalahandi.
The scientists have already declared the target region Alwar of Rajasthan as Dark Zone because the underground water table of this area is desperately going down due to many reasons. Following a detailed survey made by research team of INTWOT, it was concluded that only organic way of cultivation may help in getting rid of this problem. Hence, the mission was preferably started from most affected part of the targeted regions of SANJEEVITA.
Because of non-judicious uses of underground water in the name of GREEN REVOLUTION in Punjab, Haryana, Western UP and North-East Rajasthan, the womb of earth has been evacuated in Rajasthan, Haryana, Orissa & Chhattisgarh. It was the resultant affect of lack of mass awareness, and inadequate information about water amongst the farming community of these states. At beginning, our involvement is centralized to highlight the bad effect of fertilizers and pesticides and also to propagate the aged-long actualities and realities of organic manure and its methods of use. In this regard, Sulaxmi prepares accurate strategy to make public aware about the vermi- culture. In the course of various meetings, small group discussions in Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) technique, we felt an earnest necessity of vermiculture project at micro-level for this area.
Sulaxmi is generating awareness among the target mass for popularization of traditional health practices and promotion of Ayurveda. In Kalahandi and Phulbani (old Kondmal) of Orissa, we established networking among the traditional health practioners and still they are being provided technical and financial support by Sulaxmi to grow medicinal plants in their backyard. Documentation of the oral tradition of health practices and exchange of their experiences among each other in monthly gathering is also the part of our activities. By now, Sulaxmi has documented 180 pages of information regarding uses of medicinal plants of Jharkhand and Orissa and conducted 34 such monthly exchange meetings.
The targeted regions reel under water scarcity. Agriculture is mainly depending on rain. The farmers use chemical fertilizers and pesticides that is very harmful to their health and environment. Chemical fertilizers and pesticide pose health risks for farmers. The inorganic agriculture has been implicated in human studies with leukemia, lymphoma, plastic anemia, soft tissue sarcoma and cancers of the breast, brain, prostate, testis and ovaries. On the other side of coin, the drastic impact of fertilizers is emerging as the breaking down the fertility of soil and lackness of moisture amongst the atom of soil. Hence, water table is going down in this region.
Mindset of the target communities and their basic knowledge regarding organic agriculture has been alalysed. Some of our volunteers prepare a literature to convince the target populations. They accelerate door-to-door campaign in targeted villages to depict these facts through their prepared literature in Hindi or local dialects.
In every regions, two or three-day training camp is conducted. In addition to this, prominent nooks and corners are recognized for wall paintings, which through slogans in support of organic manure, organic agriculture and Mission SANJEEVITA are written and painted. The text and literature is thoroughly prepared with keeping this fact in mind that every word must be impressive in the psyche of participants. This particular component is very technical. The team adopts the method and technology of Public Relation (PR) and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) that leads towards decisions the villagers are comfortable with.
For dissemination of project's viabilities, Sulaxmi has developed Demonstration Plots, where the locals are free to see the works and action of this mission. In Kursurla village of Kalahandi, Sulaxmi raised 25,000 saplings of Bambusa nutans variety of bamboo, 90,000 slips of Withania somanifera and 5,000 saplings of fruits to distribute among the targeted mass free of cost. Till today, under this mission, 45,000 saplings of Bambusa nutans, 23,000 saplings of medicinal plants and 9,000 saplings of fruit trees have been distributed among the mass of Orissa.
In the 15 villages of Kalahandi, 90 vermi-pits are going to be completed till the end of June, 2005 to grow organic onion, green vegetables and garlic in 15 hectares of land. We hope to raise 5,00,000 saplings of bamboo and 2,50,000 saplings of fruit trees by the end of 2007 to cover 1500 hectares of land. By the end of 2008, Sulaxmi will cover 500 hectares of land with medicinal plant cultivation and in the same period, 2,500 vermi-pits will be completed in 50 villages of India under this mission.
