Dalmia Bharat Foundation

The agricultural sector employs over 50% of India's workforce yet contributes just 14% to the GDP. Many Indian farmers lack irrigation access, relying on monsoons. Their situation worsens due to inadequate support in finance, markets, quality inputs, and timely information.
DBF addresses this by promoting Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs). It has established 6 FPCs in Kadapa and Dalmiapuram. In the FPC setup process, DBF acts as the Producer Organization Promoting Institution (POPI), mobilizing farmers, forming FPOs, aiding in registrations, providing training, and developing business plans. This initiative is in partnership with NABARD and includes exposure visits for FPC members to successful ventures.

The NABARD Tribal Development Fund (TDF) project, a collaboration between DBF and NABARD, commenced with the first project approved in March 2017 and the second in February 2020. The project spans a maximum duration of 6 years and targets comprehensive development of tribal communities across 30 villages, impacting 1000 families. The primary focus is on establishing "wadis," permanent horticulture plantations, to diversify farmers' income sources.
Moreover, by converting land into permanent plantations, the project aims to reduce the practice of Jhum cultivation in Assam, a traditional shifting cultivation method that contributes to land degradation.
Key activities within the project encompass:
1. Horticulture - plantation of litchi, mango, pomegranate, lemon, pineapple, guava, and drumstick to enhance livelihoods. In Assam, turmeric is also promoted as an intercrop to generate additional income for farmers.
2. Farmer training in sustainable agricultural practices.

Dalmia Bharat Foundation (DBF) is dedicated to enhancing the skills of the local community, fostering better livelihoods, and promoting resilience and sustainability while creating supplementary income opportunities. To achieve this, the foundation actively provides skill training in both farming and non-farming sectors, establishes community-based organizations, and facilitates access to finance.
In 2016, DBF signed an MoU with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to train 60,000 youths across 10 trades through 8 Skill Development centers. These centers, now known as DIKSHa (Dalmia Institute of Knowledge and Skill Harnessing), were inaugurated with the first center in Trichy, Tamil Nadu.

In alignment with the honorable Prime Minister's vision of "Doubling the Farmer's Income by 2022," DBF recognizes the significant potential to make a substantial impact at the grassroots level by ensuring that Government schemes reach the intended beneficiaries through household-level intervention. To facilitate this endeavour, DBF has initiated the Gram Parivartan project.
The primary goal of this project is to improve access to government welfare schemes and development programs, thereby ensuring sustainable and comprehensive village development. The approach is guided by the following key principles:
• Providing last-mile support.
• Enhancing income opportunities.
• Ensuring the comprehensive mapping of all households.
The project is currently underway in 11 states, encompassing 19 districts.

Water is a critical factor in boosting land productivity. Inadequate and untimely irrigation water availability hinders farming profitability and productivity. The farming communities in Lalgudi taluk, Trichy district, Tamil Nadu, Mylavaram Mandal, Kadapa district, Andhra Pradesh, and Ramdurg Taluk, Belgaum district, Karnataka face similar water-related challenges.
Dalmia Bharat Foundation collaborates with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to address these water issues by implementing integrated watershed development projects in the locations. These projects have a duration of 5 years.

Kadapa district in Andhra Pradesh covers an extensive land area of 15,000 square kilometers, with approximately 65% of its population residing in rural areas. In 2006, the Government of India classified Kadapa as one of the top 250 backward districts in the country. Moreover, the specific area within Kadapa where Dalmia Bharat Foundation operates has been designated as drought-prone by the Government of India.
The majority of the local villagers are small and marginal farmers, primarily relying on rain-fed agriculture and milch cattle rearing for their income. Both of these livelihoods require a substantial amount of water to ensure productive yields.
Recognizing the pressing water needs and the region's drought-prone status, DBF is actively expanding its water harvesting initiatives in the area.

Persuading individuals to alter ingrained consumption habits and embrace alternative technologies poses a formidable challenge. The clean cooking initiative is squarely aimed at accomplishing this feat.
Within this initiative, DBF actively advocates for solar energy adoption, off-grid products for households, and the distribution of LPG connections through the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojna. The tangible outcomes of this project encompass the provisioning of fuel-efficient cook stoves and household bio-gas plants, where the potential for significant change lies.
As part of the project, product demonstrations are conducted in villages, enlightening beneficiaries about the manifold advantages of employing fuel-efficient cook stoves and bio-gas plants.

DBF, in collaboration with the Schneider Foundation (SF), has initiated the solar mini-grid project in Ramgarh and Nigohi, located in the Uttar Pradesh. This region boasts substantial agricultural potential, yet the primary obstacle is the lack of access to irrigation. Among the 420 households in these two villages, only 104 have grid electricity access.
The existing sources of water for irrigation are distant from the fields, and renting pipeline and pumps is costly. The solar power infrastructure (mini-grid) established through this project serves a dual purpose: it supplies electricity to pumps for daytime irrigation and provides households with electricity for domestic use at night.

Solar energy solutions represent a significant portion of the efforts in this domain, encompassing solar off-grid products like lanterns, home lighting systems, study lamps, streetlights, and solar pumps, which are actively promoted in the intervention areas.
In Meghalaya, the organisation conducted awareness campaigns on the UJALA (Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs) program, ensuring that people were informed about the scheme.

DBF has collaborated with HP India to deploy "HP World on Wheels," self-contained, internet-enabled, and solar-powered digital learning labs in buses, with the objective of promoting digital literacy, e-education, entrepreneurship training, and other citizen services in rural India. Each of these 20-seat IT-equipped HP WoW vehicles is furnished with HP computing and printing equipment, multiple software suites, and e-learning tools, all powered by solar energy.
This initiative encompasses a range of offerings, including digital literacy training, entrepreneurship development training for youth, e-education for students, and various common citizenship activities such as Aadhar Card registration, Ration Card services, driving license assistance, land records access, financial inclusion services, and video conferencing for specific groups.