“The institute’s main thrust has been in capacity building and motivating the youth in the areas of land-based agriculture and allied activities,” says Kshitindra Kalita, the institute director.

SIRD has trained over 2.48 lakh persons in micro enterprises and most of them are now self-employed by way of productive income generating activities. It started training youths under the skill development programme on its own, after years of bitter experience with State Government officials, who were not interested in providing rural development schemes to the people. It has also provided short duration training to about 20,000 people, of whom 50 per cent benefited.

Of the 15,000 Self Help Groups formed, 6876 SHGs have been extended loans to the tune of Rs. 50.04 crore under the 10 special projects sanctioned by the Government. That is not all. The institute has been implementing Chief Minister’s Jeevanjyoti Swaniyojan Yojana through which institutional credit with 15 per cent margin money from the Government is provided to educated unemployed youth to enable them to take up productive self-employment activities in a scientific manner. It has also been executing the pilot project of North Eastern Council and Ministry of Textiles, Government of India for economic empowerment of rural weavers.

About 15 small tea gardens too have come up, employing 120 persons. SIRD has been marketing a wide array of products of SHGs through AASTHA, a chain of retail outlets in cities, village level outlets and collection centres.

Niranjan Kalita of Kamrup district was an ULFA deserter and had lost a sense of direction in life, when he approached the State Institute of Rural Development.

After participating in a training programme on scientific management of poultry units in July 1999, Kalita went back to his village and started a poultry farm on his own. “I managed a private loan of Rs. 17,000 at a very high interest rate, to set up a poultry farm, and am now planning to expand the activities of my unit,” says Kalita.

Praneeta Kalita, a tenth standard girl, has started a broiler farm, earning Rs.3,500 per month. “Today we can tell you that 80 per cent of these trainees have come back and tried to do something,” says a senior faculty member.

Usually the autonomous bodies under the State Government are normally required to provide training to officials and panchayat members. But the one in Assam is unique in the sense that it has gone beyond the mandate by organizing special training programmes, awareness camps and sanitization programmes for rural masses, particularly the youth, women and young farmers.

“Considering the need for people’s participation in the development process, the State Institute of Rural Development tried to develop the human resource base,” says a beaming Kalita, who is credited with metamorphosing SIRD from a state of inactivity.

Focus has always been on scientific and planned approach, the thrust being on utilizing local resources for taking up economic activities in the primary sector. Without focus, financial assistance would be of no good use, says Kalita. The institute also lays special emphasis on post-training services like monitoring and guidance. “Providing training is easy, but it is more important to ascertain whether the training programme has reaped benefits,” says the director.

SIRD officials say the feedback received by them is tremendous and if this trend continues for some time, rural Assam will witness a silent revolution in the not so distant future.

In Assam, with its monumental unemployment problem, the State Institute of Rural Development has struck gold for the unemployed.

Md. Sabir Nishat