In barely 18 months, Sushant Gaurav, a 2014-batch officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), transformed the poverty-stricken district of Gumla in Jharkhand into a potential hub of economic activity centred around ragi (finger millet).
Posted as deputy commissioner (DC) between February 2022 and August 2023 in a district predominantly inhabited by the indigenous Adivasi communities and marked by decades of Naxalite insurgency, he introduced some game-changing interventions.
Primarily, Sushant brought about a transformation in local agricultural practices by helping thousands of farmers, particularly women, transition from water-guzzling paddy to a more sustainable model of ragi cultivation. He empowered them to leverage that transition into a self-sustaining business opportunity by helping them sell ragi-based products in and out of the state. Given its health benefits, he also employed ragi to address severe anaemia and malnutrition.
Before his arrival, farmers in the district did not cultivate this ‘super grain’. Today, there are approximately 30,000 farmers in the district growing this millet on more than 30,000 acres and largely selling their harvest locally, according to the district’s agriculture department.
Some of these farmers are also part of a successful women-driven Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) called the ‘Baghima-Palkot Farmer Producer Company Ltd’ selling a variety of ragi-based products.
Speaking to The Better India, Bhagwati Devi, a 40-year-old ragi farmer and member of this FPO, says, “Our organisation [the] Baghima-Palkot Farmer Producer Company, currently makes a variety of items out of ragi including laddoo, cookies, mixture, khajuria, nimki, bhujia, chips and flour. Thanks to the intervention of DC Sushant, we sell some of these items to the local administration, particularly for their ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme), and various local markets too. At the Millet Cafe in Gumla, we also serve samosa, pakoda, etc.”
An official closely associated with the FPO claims, “Since May 2023, we have earned approximately Rs 15 lakh through retail sales and Rs 28 lakh through selling food items to the local administration. Our company has generated a total revenue of around Rs 43 lakh.”
For his efforts, Sushant was awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration in the “holistic development through aspirational district programme — overall progress with special focus on saturation approach” category in April 2023.
What’s more, this initiative was also presented at the Harvard Business School earlier this year by Avinash Kumar, a Mahatma Gandhi National Fellow at the Government of India’s Ministry of Skill Development. Speaking to the National Press earlier this year, Avinash claimed that the institute has also commenced a case study on the ‘Gumla model’ and it will be circulated among other business schools and used in training modules for bureaucrats.
Former DC of Gumla Sushant Gaurav receiving an award from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Lay of the land
Located in the southern part of the Chota Nagpur Plateau, about 100 km away from Ranchi, Gumla district is marked by a highly undulating and rugged terrain consisting of flat-topped hills. What Sushant found here was a poverty-stricken populace predominantly dependent on rain-fed agriculture. He noted that due to the lack of irrigation facilities, infrastructure, scientific inputs and marketing, the majority of the families engaged in agriculture don’t earn enough to provide basic necessities to their families.
“About 85% of the population has agriculture as the primary source of livelihood, among whom 90% are small and marginal farmers. They predominantly engage in paddy cultivation even though the soil conditions don’t really support it. What we found was acidic soil with a mix of red (soil) and laterite (soil). The topography is marked by gentle and steep slopes resulting in a lot of surface run-off (unconfined flow of water over the ground surface) and soil erosion,” he says.
“This is part of the legacy of the Green Revolution where an emphasis was made on growing wheat and paddy. As a result, what we saw in terms of food habits were locals consuming rice-intensive diets. In the mornings, for example, people would eat paani bhaat, a local delicacy containing leftover rice soaked in water overnight with a dash of salt. There was a shortage of protein and no scope for roughage or vegetables in their diets,” he adds.
Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood in Gumla district.Finding the solution in ragi
Ragi, known locally as mandua, is consumed in Jharkhand “in different food preparations such as porridge, chapati, cake, cookies, kurha, and sweetmeat,” according to this 2020 paper published in the International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences.
“In addition to these, boiled and malted germinated grains are used as a food supplement to infants and pregnant women as it does not form acids and are easy to digest,” the paper adds.
Going further, ragi is also “a drought-tolerant and highly nutritional crop which has an economic value and productivity in the range of major cereals.” Given its popularity locally, nutritional value and suitability to local weather conditions, ragi seemed........