NGO bridges gap between govt & people

Sauramandala co-founder talks about how they are finding the ground reality and facilitating growth of individuals

Shillong: Sauramandala, an NGO that was set up in 2018 and that is working closely with the Meghalaya government on various rural projects, has been doing a yeoman job in grooming rural entrepreneurs. The NGO is also running several other projects in sectors such as healthcare, energy and education. In fact, it has been playing an important role in providing grassroots data to the state government, helping it to improvise schemes as per the requirements of the beneficiaries.

Business-North East spoke to Nagakarthik MP, co-founder of Sauramandala to know more about the NGO’s activities. Nagakarthik, who did his engineering from Bengaluru, left his job in an IT company to explore avenues where he could contribute to the public good. This quest took him to Jammu & Kashmir where he worked closely with partner NGOs to help vulnerable communities. It was a project by SELCO that brought Sauramandala to Meghalaya. Nagakarthik and Neil Kamat, another co-founder, are overseeing the projects in the state. Excerpts from the interview:

BNE: How was the idea of Sauramandala conceived?
NMP: I took a break from work in 2014 and went to J&K to teach in a school. I went to an extremely remote village there and I had to trek about 8 km to get to the village. However, with time, the initial romanticism started waning and started seeing how the system (of the country) is broken at different levels. There were several problems that people were facing. They were always on the edge of poverty. So, the school had a volunteer programme and people from other states would participate. Some of us discussed the situation there and what could we do to address the gap… We realised that we could not solve all problems but we can always take the ground reality to the government. That’s how Sauramandala started. We also realised that taking solar energy to people helped us connect with the locals easier and faster. So, we decided that whichever community we would approach, we will first take our energy accessibility project. In fact, the meaning of Sauramandala is the solar system and all the energy. 
We started with a crowdfunding campaign and electrified the school. We raised about Rs 18 lakh. 

BNE: What brought you to Meghalaya? How did the collaboration with PRIME start?
NMP: With our success J&K, some partner NGOs approached us and we started work in the North East also. Then Article 370 happened… we thought we should shift focus to the North East. A bee-keeping programme was already going on in Assam. Then, we were approached by IIM-Bangalore. Simultaneously, we were approached by SELCO. The latter was more of a field work and that brought us to Meghalaya. We started from Garo Hills… one of the things that caught our attention was the maternal and infant mortality rate. One of the reasons was the absence of electricity at the sub-centres. So, along with the DC with East and West Garo Hills, we started to plan a solution. We got 50% funds from the district administration and the remaining from SELCO. The energy project immediately started showing results and this got traction within the system.
We were then approached to work with 100 health sub-centres and we were told that we had to bring in 25% of the funding and the rest would be given by the government.

This was also a success and we got to work with more sub-centres… Now, during the process, I noticed that there were many entrepreneurs in rural areas who were doing really good work, like, not probably a start-up, but they were running their households. But one of the largest gaps in the system was the connection between government schemes and the potential beneficiaries. So, Neil and I decided to identify the entrepreneurs and their needs and we would take them to the government. We were working ground up. We started with cooperatives and then Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA) came to us and asked us to do it on a larger scale. It connected us with the PRIME team. So, this is how the collaboration started. 

BNE: What is the role of Sauramandala in training entrepreneurs?
NMP: So, it’s largely designing the programme. Whatever is required we will not do directly but find local agencies or enterprises to do that. For instance, we have a local chartered accountant who can help the entrepreneurs. There are about six design agencies. So, we will tell them what are the requirements for the entrepreneurs and they will give us logos for the respective businesses. That way, we design what is needed and bring in partners, who are mostly locals. 

BNE: What is the funding process?
NMP: The funding is from both sides. For instance, if we are bringing funds for three blocks, the government is helping in five blocks with the understanding that there will handover of the programmes to the latter. This way, there is better ownership of the programmes too. There is accountability also. 

BNE: Tell us about your other projects.
NMP: We have several programmes, such as the solar electrification project for health centres, climate-resilient health facilities, Chief Minister’s Youth Centres and the Forgotten Folklore Project. The last is an interesting one. Here we are connecting with communities and asking them about the forgotten folktales and then conceptualise these stories. We are working with Pratham Books to bring out 45 books and distribute them among 60 anganwadis, where at present, there is barely any local study content for children. We will study the impact of this project and provide the data to the state government.

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