e-charkha is doubling as virtual micro
power plants in Jatwara village
BASSI (JAIPUR): The charkhas (spinning wheels) have come a long way
since the days of the country’s freedom struggle.
The simple device promoted by Mahatma Gandhi as a symbol of self
reliance and a source of income for the rural folks, has started
doubling as virtual micro power plants in poor households of villages
near the capital in Rajasthan.
The e-charkha is an improvised version of Ambar Charkha designed by
Ekambar Nath, a Gandhian worker from Tamil Nadu, following an appeal by
the Mahatma for a more productive version of the charkha. It may not
look like the typical charkha made of wood and a wheel attached to it.
But it is still a simple device and can be operated even by a child.
The inhabitants of Jatwara, a village in Bassi a tehsil of Jaipur
district, are fighting an unpredictable power situation with the
e-charkhas in addition to making a subsistence level income from
spinning the yarn.
Jatwara has 75 Ambar Charkhas in operation, while in the whole of
Bassi, which has a long tradition of khadi, there are 350 of them
working alongside a few thousands of traditional charkhas.
“There used to be, and there still are, many models of the charkha.
Gandhiji made an offer in 1923 to pay Rs.1 lakh to anyone who developed
a spinning wheel, which would enhance productivity while maintaining
the basic characteristics and simplicity of the device,” noted Awadh
Prasad, director of the Kumarappa Institute of Gram Swaraj, Jaipur.
“After many trials, it was Ekambar Nath who designed the Ambar Charkha,
though much later in 1954 after the martyrdom of the Mahatma,”
Prem of Jatwara is a Dalit woman who makes a daily income of Rs.30-45
from her own e-charkha. On an ordinary day, she makes half a kg of
yarn. The income may not be enough to sustain the family, but it helps
as a supplement. “We have half a dozen goats and I sell milk in the
neighbourhood,” she says.
Spinning has become the domain of the womenfolk in the village, while
the men, who are either marginal farmers or farm labourers, work in the
fields. The khadi body supplies cotton, the basic raw material for the
operation. It also buys the yarn that is produced.
For Shanti Devi, also from Jatwara, the “extra fittings,” a specially
designed LED light and a modified transistor, on her Ambar Charka is a
blessing.
“I start operating the charkha at home whenever the power goes off,”
she said. In two hours of operation, the charkha stores enough
electricity in its attachment to light up a room for eight hours.
“The modified Ambar Charkhas were introduced a few months back as a
pilot project by the Khadi Commission under the ‘SFURTI’ programme and
they are proving very popular with the villagers,” said Laxmi Chand
Bhandari, Secretary of the Khadi Gramodyog Sadhan Vikas Samiti, a
40-year-old Sarvodaya organisation that looks after the Bassi cluster.
President Pratibha Patil visited the cluster when she was Rajasthan
Governor to launch the programme. The chairperson of the Khadi
Gramodyog Commission, Kumud Ben Joshi, too has been to the cluster,
which has been in profit ever since its inception.
“There is great demand for khadi products and we could have provided
more Ambar Charkhas to the village. But getting weavers is a problem
these days,” Mr.Bhandari said. A modified charka costs Rs.8,500, while
the “attachment” to produce electricity requires another Rs.1, 500.
Under the SFURTI (Scheme of Funds for Regeneration of Traditional
Industries), the e-charkhas are provided on a 75 per cent grant. The
beneficiary can pay the remaining amount in easy instalments.
And the charkhas continue to light up homes.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/17/stories/2008081752612000.htm
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© 2008, The Hindu.
