Village Trip Report

Janumdih Village
Xavier Labor Relations Institute,
Jamshedpur

Submitted by:
Parthapratim Sarma B14095
Pavan S.Bharadwaj B14096
Piyush Saxena B14097
Poroj Bhuyan B14098
Prasad N S B14099
Prateek Giria B14100

About Janumdih
Janumdih is a small Village/hamlet in Nala Block in Jamtara District of Jharkhand State, India. It
comes under Janumdih Panchayath. It is located 27 KM towards East from District head quarters
Jamtara. 218 KM from State capital Ranchi
Janumdih is surrounded by Kundhit Block towards East , Barabani Block towards South , Salanpur
Block towards South , Jamtara Block towards west .
Mihijam , Jamtara , Asansol , Kulti are the nearby Cities to Janumdih.
This Place is in the border of the Jamtara District and Bardhaman District. Bardhaman District
Barabani is South towards this place. It is near to the West Bengal State Border.

Demographics
The population in Janamdi village is 1,040 as per the survey of census during 2011 by Indian
Government.
As per 2011 census:

There are 222 House Holds in Janamdi.

There are 531 males (51%); There are 509 females (49%).
Scheduled Cast are 0 (0%)
Total Scheduled Tribe are 1,020 (98% ).
Literates in Janamdi are 590 (57%).
There are 450 total Illiterates (43% ).
Literates are 590 (57% ) and total Illiterates 450 (43%) in Janamdi.
Workers are 528 (51%). 378 are regular and 150 are Irregular.
There are 512 Non Workers (49%).

Problems
Janumdih is severely underdeveloped. It consists of 6 tollas, with 25-35 families in each. Main
occupation of the village is farming. Paddy cultivation is dominant. Vegetable were grown for local
consumption few years ago, but is non-existent now. As the fields are rainfed, only a single crop is
grown per year, and the villagers are unemployed for more around 4-6 months after the harvest.
The youth migrate to cities in search of work. The other alternative for them is to work in brick kilns
where the pay is menial and the work conditions are inhuman. What contributes to their misery is
the fact that most of the soil is not fertile and is not suitable for agriculture, with the area being very
rocky.
Schools: A primary school exists in Janumdi and most village children do go there, but mostly for the
mid day meal. The secondary school is quite far, as a result no of villagers who have studied past
class 10 is only three. Moreover there is also a severe scarcity of teachers in the schools. In the
secondary school, there are only two teachers, with one of them being on contract duty.
Banking services havent reached the village. Moreover, the people are exploited by the middlemen
if they do go to the banks for loans. Hence, they are more dependent on moneylenders for credit
and are apprehencive and intimidated by formal banking. Nearest bank, Grameen Bank, is around

3kms away, which can be a considerable amount of distance if we consider that the people of the
village do not have access to timely transportation facilities.
Medical condition: There is a severe dearth of qualified medical practitioners providing services in
the village. There is no clinic or dispensary anywhere near the village. The nearest one is a
homeopathic clinic, which is quite some distance away. Moreover there is apathy from the
government to solve this issue. On speaking to one of the tea vendors, we came to know the
circumstances the villagers have to go theough to get medical care at one of the dispensaries in the
nearby village. The vendors daughter-in-law was pregnant and need of urgent care. His family took
her to the dispensary but the practitioner there refused to treat her and in turn was asking for
money before he even started her treatment. In this dire situation, the vendor had to ask his son-inlaw to call his friend and ask him for some credit, so he could give this sum to the practitioner at the
dispensary.
The village chief goes to collect the payment of MNREGA of behalf of the villagers. And even then
the payment reaches the villagers very late. According to the villagers the local administration does
not release the funds unless the palms are greased. And this problem persists right up the
administrative chain. Irrigation is again an issue here. And the village needs a pond as a reservoir of
water in order to preserve water for the dry season. Ponds are the only source of water. But they are
not large enough to sustain farming. Only 2 ponds are perennial. The nearest river is more than 6 km
far. No canals to draw water from the river have been dug. Agriculture is totally dependent on
monsoon, and low rainfall results in drought like situation; large parts of farmland lay dry and
farmers have no source of water left.
Model village: The state government had announced to develop Janumdih into a model village. The
government was supposed to upgrade the infrastructure like roads, electricity, healthcare, water
resources, etc. But even after three years of the announcement, no or minimal work has been done
and the funds have not been released. The only affect this announcement has made if the fact that
there is intermittent supply of electricity. During the rainy season, the roads are at their worst; they
get flooded and are not motorable.

The Success Stories of Janumdih

Grassmat Industry
Kala Mandir, a leading non profit in handicraft initiatives has been spearheading a silent journey to
revive dying art forms in Eastern India and thereby help poor tribals to improve their economic and
social conditions.
"Very often, we would go to sleep just by gulping down a glass of water. Two meals a day was luxury
that we could not afford. But now I am a happy man who can think beyond his meals and earn
enough to sustain my family," says Dinbandhu, a daily wage earner turned grass mat weaver in
Janumdih, a small remote village in Potka Block of East Singhbhum district of Jharkhand.
Having left behind his nights of empty stomachs, Dinbandhu now is a proud owner of a mobile
phone. It's certainly quite a distance in the language of transformation.
In the same village, there is another story of empowerment waiting to be told.

Year 2005, and Sarla would dig earth, work as a construction labour and continue to worry about her
next meal. Year 2010, she starts her day with hope. She smiles more often and confidence shines in
her face. She now rides her bicycle and travels through different villages forming self help groups
(SHGs) and training women for alternative income generation through local natural resources.
Quite a long way for a tribal woman who would have otherwise spent her entire life fighting poverty
and impoverishment.
Sarla and Dinbandhu are just two names from a growing tribe of individuals from remote pockets of
East Singhbhum, Seraikela Kharsawan and West Singhbhum districts in Jharkhand who are finding a
road to livelihood and so are the traditional artists in these villages who are reaching a window to
appreciation and recognition.
Showing them the path, is Kala Mandir, a leading non profit in handicraft initiatives that has been
spearheading a silent journey to revive dying art forms. From taking the artists to different
handicraft fairs across the country to providing a market linkage to their products and helping their
art forms to take shapes as desired by the market through capacity building and training, Kala
Mandir has been instrumental in constantly supporting, nurturing and disseminating various art
forms for more than a decade now.
But that is just the tip of an iceberg of change. The story lies in how Kala Mandir has managed to
weave its aim of infusing life into vanishing art forms with other components of livelihood in a nonprofit business model which has now become synonymous to growth and success. Named as Biponi,
(a rural mart owned by a federation of SHGs facilitated by Kala Mandir in Jamshedpur) is the
platform for these traditional art and craft handicrafts to reach out to the outer world.
"When we started working for promotion of rural art and craft, we could immediately realize that for
them to survive, it was extremely essential to identify market linkages and find a space in the market
for such products. And therefore, when the idea called Biponi was conceptualised, it was very clear
that the centre would be an interface for the artists to reach out to the outer world," says local
coordinator of Kala Mandir.
The aesthetically designed mart is home to bamboo products, grass mats, paper masks, Dokra art
products among many others, all of which come from the training centres being run by Kala Mandir
in 29 odd villages spread over three districts of Jharkhand. The uniqueness of the model in which
Biponi operates lies in the fact that the artists themselves are present to handle the costumers and
therefore get a first hand feedback on the needs and requirement of the emerging market trends.
Apart from that there is a payment module by virtue of which the artists gets his due within a week
and therefore is prevented from any sort of debt trap. Both the features in a way add to ownership
feeling to the artists which is a very important element of any rural venture.
And therefore it's not surprising when talking about the success of Biponi as a non profit business
model, Mr Ghosh shares, "From an annual turnover of Rs 1, 61,000 in 2006, we have now reached
the figure of close to a crore and the demand for these handicrafts is spiralling up further."
A growth of more than 85% in four years is something that perhaps words can hardly define. It can

only be felt in the happiness that echoes in Dinbandhu's voice when he says, "We have so much
work with us that we hardly get time to sleep."
Rural Tourism
So what makes Janumdih different from Aamadubi village, Dalbhumgarh block, where the state
tourism department has already started its rural tourism project?
Janumdih is more about experiencing no-holds-barred tribal life, while Aamadubi focuses on
hospitality at its best.
The idea was conceptualised by NGO Kalamandir, which wanted urban tourists to taste the magic of
the typical tribal life rather than luxurious hospitality experience.
Janumdih was zeroed in on, as villagers there already have exposure to self-help livelihood groups.
The grass mat self-help groups have been established with the help of the Union ministry of tribal
welfare, Union ministry of textiles and the state industries department, and have been implemented
by Kalamandir.
There are many adventurous tourists who want to do what they have never done. They can afford to
sleep on a typical five-star bed, but want to experience the khatiya. Kalamandir aims to give them
the ambience of a village surrounding by forest. Tribal fare such as rice crispies or puffed rice with
jaggery are offered on clay utensils.
The management and maintenance of this initiative will be done by village development
committees. They will keep the profit too.
According to Kalamandir, Janumdih has four cottages for overnight stay. Huts are be eco-friendly
and blend with the ambience. Santhals inspire architecture of the mud cottages.
Activites include trekking through natural pathways, attending rural fairs, knowing about flora and
fauna and visiting craft villages.
Tribal cuisine will boast rice crispies, jaggery, peetha, chicken khichdi and more, all prepared by the
locals.
Another shining example that we observed was of village Kundrukucha who have used the
opportunity provided by Kala Mandir to improve his monthly income for the betterment of his
family. Like many other farmer he was contacted by Kala Mandir to develop orchards in their
unutilised land, but he took the road less travelled. He developed his orchard alone and not in
community as other farmers have done. When we visited his orchard the first thing that we
observed was it's strong fence. Not a single weak point was there, the fence was five feet high and
was combination of wood skeleton and natural vegetation. It took him around fifteen days to
complete the fence, but the benefits will be for a lifetime. His lush green orchard had pomegranate,
lemon, mango and lot of local vegetable. Even though the gestation period of lemon and mango is
high, he is expecting money in range of two thousand per month from Selling vegetables. He has
done intercropping which was taught to him by Kala Mandir people. The another advantage he has is
the tubewell provided by Nabard, this allows him to properly irrigate his crops and improve the

yield. There is Scope Of drastic improvement In other farmers orchard, if they can visit his orchard
and talk to him and if he can share his quota of experience and Success story.
Yet another success story for which we would like to congratulate Kala Mandir is the story of
perseverance. He has also developed his orchard completely of his own. His story is clear example of
family involvement. His entire family works on the field and he ensures someone is always present in
the field to protect it from cattles and other animals. He is joined by his wife and his kids who help
him after school. We sensed great force of motivation inside him, he has Developed mini Nursery
where he was developing Brinjal seedlings. Apart from his hard work, motivation and family
involvement he had the great advantage of having the river beside his farm. Kala Mandir has also
built a small dam over the river stream from which water can be drawn to do irrigation. He is also
provided with a portable pump, with which he can pump water to a mini pond that he has dig in his
farm.

Recommendations
The major issue which we could observe during our interaction with the villagers was ignorance and
lack of awareness about their rights and entitlements. Even the village is isolated and neglected from
the rest of the world. The Gram Panchayat was newly formed and the officials did not know their
responsibilities and were also unaware of how to discharge their duties. The first and most
important task that needs to be undertaken is to open schools and other mediums of education for
the villagers. This would enable them to learn about their basic civil rights and fight for development
and betterment of their village.
Someone has to undertake rainwater harvesting and explore other options to solve the water
scarcity.
The youth need to be given vocational training to improve their chances of gaining livelihood.