Thursday, November 29, 2012

The biggest impact of HARIT PRAYAS!
Kota ( Chatarpur)  has become  1st 100% Organic Cultivation village with efforts through HARIT PRAYAS project of Caritas India  

This is not me, but a leading new national news paper ( Nai Duniya) which has covered a story on Kota village is stating it and after that other media houses are also covering it!




With HARIT PRAYAS we are able to bring a new side of development….a project with a movement of change, let’s believe a change!


A brief about Kota village:

Kota is the far most village of HARIT PRAYAS in Chatarpur (Madhya Pradesh), its around 100 kms from Khajuraho (our cluster office). Also its quite difficult to reach Kota, as to reach Kota one has to cross a river and dark forest.; generally an outsider prefer not to go to Kota and non of the organisation or any other government institution has ever shown any interest in the development of Kota. HARIT PRAYAS team at Satna included Kota in the project as a challenge to work in the village and to bring out the change.

In Kota there are altogether 35 SC and ST families and population is around 200. People living there depend on agriculture and used to practice synthetic fertiliser based cultivation, When HARIT PRAYAS project has started there our cluster Coordinator Mr. Virender sen (of HARIT PRAYAS Satna team) started staying there in the village facing all the difficulties and slowly-slowly started guiding village community on organic cultivation. He has visited and stayed in all the 35 families and with slow process of motivation, series of trainings and demonstration in Kota.

Unbelievable Change!
  • Today Kota has become the 100% organic cultivation village  and hope fully it’s the 1st in Madhya Pradesh. Here important is to note that organic cultivation has not only become the practice but it has become the thought process of the community.
  • Yes till certification has not yet started in this area, but certification is not only the criteria of organic cultivation, HARIT PRAYAS team along with Caritas India support has gone beyond certification and worked on changing thought process of the community on organic cultivation from synthetic fertiliser based cultivation.
  •  It is also important to note that earlier (baseline line status) say that in Kota 100% farmers  ( those who used to used to practice agriculture) used to practice synthetic fertiliser based cultivation.  
  • The most important thing HARIT PRAYAS is not only focusing on agriculture part, but with a minimum focus the team is able to bring pout the change, and its remarkable. The credit is mainly to the team working there.


To bring out this change entire credit goes to the cluster Coordinator Mr. Virender and the HARIT PRAYAS Team at SSSS-Satna ( please find a video of Interaction of Mr. Virender and Project Coordinator Ms . Preeti with Kota farmer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQUrV58WbJ0&feature=youtu.be )

What this 100% organic cultivation is actually giving benefit?
Now community members are happy with the concept of organic cultivation and are able to reduce the input cost in agriculture by 70-90%. The best part is that saved amount they are using for the development of their houses from Kutcha to Pucca houses and also contributing some amount for the development of village to make it neat and clean.

Benefit in agriculture has reduce migration up to 100% in the village ( watch attached video) baseline report states 40% of total HHs migration.

My own recent experience ( Caritas India Project Officer for HARIT PRAYAS)
I have visited Kota on 22nd Nov and last time I have visited it in 2011, I find a big change not only in organic cultivation, but in the behaviour, the hygiene and sanitation and indeed the well being of the village.


Its good experience to see such changes. Also Kota is now like a hill station, and those who earlier do not want to visit it , now because of HARIT PRAYAS intervention, many government institutions are visiting it and there is planning to have a small bridge over the river near by Kota ( which cuts Kota from entire other villages in rainy season).


I suggest that HARIT PRAYAS Kota village at Chatarpur could be one of the ideal village for exposure on organic cultivation, so we can suggest to some opf the partners to visit there for exposure in other projects!

Let’s believe Change!

For more on HARIT PRAYAS log on to www.haritprayas.blogspot.com, or follow on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/harit.prayas) or follow on Twitter (HARIT PRAYAS) or watch HARIT PRAYAS channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/haritprayas




सिर्फ़ हंगामा, खड़ा करना, मेरा मकसद नही
sirf hangama, khada karna, mera maksad nahi
सारी कोशिश, है की ये, सूरत बदलनी चाहिए
saari koshish, hai ki ye, soorat badalni chahiye
मेरे सीने में नही, तो तेरे सीने में सही
mere seene mein nahi, to tere seene mein sahi
हो कही भी आग लेकिन, आग जलनी चाहिए
ho kahi bhi aag lekin, aag jalni chahiye

Poet Dushyant Kumar wrote above lines on bringing change-describes that its not only we talk about change…but instead we must bring change!  And with Caritas  India HARIT PRAYAS project we have  tried to bring  change at community and at all stake holder levels. 

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister in HARIT PRAYAS field


Madhya Pradesh CM  Mr. Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan has programme near by our HARIT PRAYAS project field in Khajuraho (Rajnagar block) has interaction with the collectivism women farmers group of HARIT PRAYAS there. The same has been covered in NEWS by leading Media houses.



Sunday, November 25, 2012

Caritas India Project Officer visit to HARIT PRAYAS@ MVSS-Sagar


  • 3rd/12/2012: Reaching to Sagar (early morning by Gondwana Express)
  • 3rd/12/2012: Interaction with the Director and the staff , sharing of plan and moving to field for field visit.
  • 4th/12/2012: discussion on field visit, re-orientation to the entire project team on HARIT PRAYAS and the way foreword, HARIT PRAYAS project finance review and meeting with NABARD DDM

  • 5th/12/2012: Visit to field 2 villages ( especially visit to VICs) and discussion on Caritas India Chairman’s visit.
  • 6th/12/2012: Caritas India Chairman visit to the field of HARIT PRAYAS
  • 6th/12/2012: Leaving for Khajuraho

HARIT PRAYAS channel!


Now you all can meet with the farmers of HARIT PRAYAS and see and feel the innovation on LIVE ( will be live from 1st Jan 2013) channel of HARIT PRAYAS at http://www.youtube.com/user/haritprayas . HARIT PRAYAs channel is an outcome of informal communication wing of HARIT PRAYAS with support from Project team-Ms. Preeti,Mr. Vinod, Mr. Prakash, fr. Robin & Fr. Jossy

Next week programme schedule on HARIT PRAYAS channel is :

26th/11/2012 : 2.00 pm:  Community in Guwali village ( HARIT PRAYAS village at Jhansi) on NREGA

27th/11/2012: 3.30 pm  Introducing the farmers of Madhya Pradesh 1st 100% organic village through the effort of HARIT PRAYAS –Kota village

28th /11/2012: 1.00 pm:  HARIT PRAYAS strengthening the concept of RTI in villages of Jhansi


Enjoy watching HARIT PRAYAS channel and follow on face book (http://www.facebook.com/harit.prayas ) and on Twitter HARIT PRAYAS.

Innovative farmers from the field of HARIT PRAYAS


Dear all,

Greetings from the field of HARIT PRAYAS!

jage hain der tak, hamen kuchh der sone do
thodee see rat aur hai, subah toh hone do
aadhe adhure khwab jo pure naa ho sake
ek bar phir se nind me woh khwab bone do

“The above lines are from a Hindi movie “Guru” it indicates that we have started our endeavours and change has started happening, lets wait some more dream of change will soom be fulfilled, in the same with HARIT PRAYAS we have started the process of change and HOPE that with HARIT PRAYAS Bundelkhand will be on development track with more prosperity and love!”


Innovation  is the base and life line of HARIT PRAYAS and its not only limited to the technology based innovation or programmatic innovation, innovation has now taken place at community level….now individual community members are doing innovation with support from HARIT PRAYAS team.

In concern with the above today we are introducing two unique innovative farmers to you all who has bring out the innovation in the field of sustainable agriculture and organic brick making. The two farmers are Gauri and harden from HARIT PRAYAS Majhota village (Khajuraho). Gauri has introduced the organic cultivation of ‘Aarvi’ ( potato family) with no cost input, where as Hardeen has made a profitable agriculture with usage of traditional seeds, introduced the concept of organic bricks, cultivated paddy ( through organic cultivation) after 10 years in the Khajuraho region and organic crop rotation technique. All these innovations are first its own and with all our google search we are not able to find any such innovation any where.

Watch Harden at:
Organic bricks:
HARIT PRAYAS reaching to 200 villages:

Watch Gauri at:
On organic cultivation of Arvi ( potato variety crop):

Here it is also important to know that with HARIT PRASYAS we are able to made organic cultivation simple…easily available and indeed lowest in cost…..we are able to introduce at maximum organic input costing of 100 INR for any crop cultivation for one acre. All credit goes to the field staff of HARIT PRAYAS.

HARIT PRAYAS team!

Saturday, November 24, 2012



Enabling tribal’s of Jhansi to submit written application for MGNREGA!

Caritas India staff along with the HARIT PRAYAS team at JCSS-Jhansi is facilitating a workshop at Jhansi ( Guwali village)  on MGNREGA. Guwali is a tribal village and is in the interiors of BABINA block.  Its quite difficult to reach as the way to reach Guwali is Kutcha roads only, so we can imagine how NREGA would be reaching here, but with the endeavours of HARIT PRAYAS team now at least Guwali people have Job cards and the next focus is on submission of written application to get the job under NREGA. At the end of the workshop it has been decided by the community and the HARIT PRAYTAS system that, with the support from HARIT PRAYAS team every Sunday there would be a NREGA day in the village and the community would learn about the NREGA through HARIT PRAYAS cluster coordinators and on Monday would submit written application for the same.




Friday, November 23, 2012


Kota the 1st 100% Organic Cultivation village in Madhya Pradesh!

With HARIT PRAYAS we are able to bring a new side of development….a project with a movement of change, lets believe a change!

Kota is the far most village of HARIT PRAYAS in Chatarpur, its around 100 kms from Khajuraho (our cluster office). Also its quite difficult to reach Kota, as to reach Kota one has to cross a river and dark forest.; generally an outsider prefer not to go to Kota and non of the organisation or any other government institution has ever shown any interest in the development of Kota. HARIT PRAYAS team at Satna included Kota in the project as a challenge to work in the village and to bring out the change.

In Kota there are altogether 35 SC and ST families and population is around 200. People living there depend on agriculture and used to practice synthetic fertiliser based cultivation, When HARIT PRAYAS project has started there our cluster Coordinator Mr. Virender sen (of HARIT PRAYAS Satna team) started staying there in the village facing all the difficulties and slowly-slowly started guiding village community on organic cultivation. He has visited and stayed in all the 35 families and with slow process of motivation, series of training's and demonstration in Kota, today Kota has become the 1st 100% organic cultivation village in Madhya Pradesh.









To bring out this change entire credit goes to The cluster Coordinator Mr. Virender and the HARIT PRAYAS Team at SSSS-Satna.


Now community members are happy with the concept of organic cultivation and are able to reduce the input cost in agriculture by 70-90%. The best part is that saved amount they are using for the development of their houses from Kutcha to Pucca houses and also contributing some amount for the development of village to make it neat and clean.



Its good experience to see such changes. Also Kota is now like a hill station, and those who earlier do not want to visit it , now because of HARIT PRAYAS intervention, many government institutions are visting it and there is planning to have a small bridge over the river near by Kota ( which cuts Kota from entire other villages in rainy season).


Let’s believe Change!