Discussion Paper No. 1
Division for Sustainable Development Studies (DSDS)
April, 2015
Transforming Rural India:
A Narrative of a Development Intervention in East
Godavari and its Implication on Sustainability
Runa Sarkar and Anup Sinha
IIM Calcutta
CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STUDIES
Begumpet, Hyderabad-500016
About the Division for Sustainable Development Studies (DSDS)
In view of the growing importance on the issue of Sustainable Development,
CESS (Centre for Economic and Social Studies) has contemplated the
need for starting a Division for DSDS in May 2014. Prior to starting
DSDS, a Research Unit for Livelihoods and Natural Resources (RULNR,
supported by Jamsetji Tata Trust, Mumbai) at CESS had worked for six
long years between 2008-2014 in the core areas of forest ecosystem, dryland
ecosystem and river basin ecosystem and their linkages with the livelihoods
of the communities in a Pan-Indian setting. As RULNR phase came to an
end CESS realized the need to take forward the pool of knowledge base
that was created and expand it to other related frontiers of knowledge
such as Climate Change, Green Economy, Energy & Water Security,
Industrial Pollution and Urban Waste Management, Forest and Tribal
Development, Sustainable Agriculture, Aqua Culture and Fisheries, Gender
Issues, Governance and Institutions relating to Natural Resource
Management etc., DSDS intends to conduct evidence based policy research
and expects to bring in cutting edge level solutions on the problems studied
in different areas of research. Further, DSDS intends to forge networking
with other Social Science research institutes and develop collaborative
research projects in the area of mutual interest in the field of sustainable
development. DSDS also proposes to act as a forum to launch debates and
discourses on the major research themes relating to sustainable development
by inviting eminent scholars working in these areas and bring out
Discussion Papers, Working Papers, Policy Briefs and Research Monographs
etc, to reach out to larger audience.
About the Authors
Runa Sarkar is Associate Professor of Economics, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta,
Kolkata. Prior to this, she taught at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. A chemical
Engineer from Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, she pursued her Masters
in Environmental Engineering at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA.
She has been closely involved in European Union and World Bank Projects on the
application of social informatics in agriculture and is currently on the board of two
companies of the BASIX group.
Anup Sinha is Professor of Economics, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Kolkata.
He was educated at Presidency College and University of Rochester and completed his
doctoral research at the University of Southern California. He has taught at the Centre
for Economic Studies, Presidency College and held visiting appointments in a number of
institutions in India and abroad. He was Dean, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
and has also served as a non-executive director on the board of National Bank for Agriculture
and Rural development (NABARD).
Discussion Paper No. 1
Division for Sustainable Development Studies (DSDS)
April, 2015
Transforming Rural India:
A Narrative of a Development Intervention in East Godavari
and its Implication on Sustainability
Runa Sarkar and Anup Sinha
IIM Calcutta
CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL STUDIES
Begumpet, Hyderabad-500016
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge research support from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
through a financial grant no. RP: DPTOLIE/3419/2009-10 and logistics support from
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).
2
Development as Transformation
The term development is loosely used to connote progress. It conveys a variety of different things to
different social scientists, leading to a wide range of theories and approaches to development. While
economists usually use the term to focus on changes in material living conditions and opportunities
to increase consumer choice and consumption, sociologists have a wider perspective. Development,
for them, encompasses changes in social institutions such as family or class, qualitative aspects of
living such as liberties and rights, and belief systems. Anthropologists interpret development through
the lens of processes of change in society, and how people relate to one another in terms of social
relations and culture.
Across disciplines, while change is a common theme when we talk of development, it is not clear
whether there are a set of universal ends or accepted goals to be attained through development. In
addition to improvements in material living conditions, other concerns for development include the
availability and distribution of goods and services in the future as the population grows. Further, as
material goals are accomplished, non-material notions of fairness and justice (Rawls 1971) become
goals of a development process. Ethical concerns about equity and growth transcend distributional
changes among the current generation to changes between the current and future generations. Appadurai
(2004) focuses on how the aspirations and ambitions of people evolve as an outcome of the changes
brought about by development. Thus, a wider notion of development embraces the concepts of
sustainable development, which explores whether the process and desired outcomes are sustainable
over a reasonable period of time, extending into the foreseeable future (Dasgupta 2001).
Sustainable development is then not only about change, manifested in improved economic and
social conditions, but also about the ability to maintain a positive momentum in the direction of
change. The change could be measured using standard metrics such as quantitative changes in
income, consumption and quality of social and economic institutions. However, the change would
be called sustainable only if there is a substantial qualitative change or transformation in the social
and economic conditions of the agents, which empowers them to take control of their lives and
improve their own standards of well-being. Thus, transformative change or change that is suggestive
of a transformative process is termed sustainable development, when the outcomes of the change
can continue to be harvested for an indefinite amount of time in an equitable manner.
The literature on economic development in the context of transformation can be categorised into
three distinct classes, Lewisian or complete transformation (Lewis 1954, 1979), hybrid or delayed
transformation (Amin 1976; Brewer 1980; Frank 1978; Furtado 1973; Wallerstein 1979) and the
impossibility of transformation (Chatterjee 2008; Sanyal 2007; Taylor 1979). The Lewisian approach
draws from the transformation during the industrial revolution in Europe. It states that a feudal precapitalist traditional rural country side is transformed into a capitalist industrial economy with wage
labour and machine based technology as a result of continuing investments in the modern sector
drawing out productive resources from the traditional sector. The alternate view of hybrid or delayed
transformation debates whether there is one concept of modern capitalism vis-a-vis traditional capitalism
or whether there are several types of transformation contextualised by factors beyond our control,
3
including the inherent ability of the traditional sector to transform itself. Based on observations of
economies which were colonies of the west, the third view of economic development proposes the
impossibility of transformation, asserting that the structure of capitalism contains non-capitalistic
structures (as opposed to pre-capitalist structures) within itself. The only change therefore would be
quantitative and incremental, and transformation is impossible.
Background
Given this canvas of theoretical positions around economic development, the objective of our research
was to situate the Indian development experience in one of them. Given that we were trying to look
at transformation rather than change, we realised that a macro-analysis of available quantitative data
may not provide appropriate insights. Instead, we chose to focus on specific development interventions
and changes at the basic level of the village to examine whether the seeds of transformation had
been sowed through these interventions. We looked at several micro-interventions across India,
ranging from watersheds in Rajasthan, Maharashtra and West Bengal, entrepreneurship experiments
in Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Arunachal Pradesh, development of tribal areas in Andhra
Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and fishing in Kerala. While our project was funded by the Indian Institute
of Management Calcutta, we received support from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural
Development (NABARD) for identifying interventions and logistics. This paper describes our
observations and learning from one such intervention in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.
The paper is organised as follows. The next section briefly describes the mental model with which
we undertook our study. This is followed by a discussion from what we saw in East Godavari. We
present our observations from three villages, Vetamamidi, Mitlapalem and Pinjarikonda, where MHP
projects had been initiated. We then devote a section to comparing the different outcomes of the
intervention in the three villages, while venturing some explanations for the same. Some specific
learnings from our visit are documented in the next section. Finally, the last section attempts to
draw some conclusions on the outcome of the development intervention in the context of transformation,
which is validated through our observations in the other states as well.
Our Mental Model
Given the nature of our quest, we decided at the outset itself that this would not just another
quantitative study of development related indicators. Instead, we decided to focus more on the
qualitative changes in individuals, and how it all fitted together in a big picture, which in turn,
affected the people involved. Specifically, we looked at the impact of the consequent diversification
of livelihoods on both beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries and whether (and in which way) it affected
their aspirations and ambitions. Since many of the development interventions relate to creating
economic opportunities from a village's natural resources, we also assessed whether ecological assets
were being conserved or created and the change in control over the village commons. Since we did
not start with any preconceived notions or expectations on what we would conclude from our field
investigations, we adopted a grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss 1967), observing, listening
and learning as we went along. We held one on one as well as focused group interviews using
unstructured discussions with all stakeholders including beneficiaries, non-beneficiaries and the people
responsible for bringing change. Secondary data from NABARD and the implementing NGOs was
4
also examined in depth, to develop a framework for investigation and arrive at a preliminary
understanding of the village and villagers we were going to meet.
Figure 1: An Exploratory Framework for Analysis
Income & wealth creation
Temporary
Organisation
People's
Participation
Intervention
Process:
Livelihoods
Approach
Environmental
Impact
Sustainable
Development?
Changed
Aspirations
Source: Runa Sarkar and Anup Sinha (2015): Another Development: Participation, Empowerment and Well-being
in Rural India Routledge, Taylor and Francis, New Delhi, pp. 20
Figure 1 represents the broad framework used to organize and analyse our observations to explore the
dynamics of development interventions. As is evident, our purpose was to look at both outcomes of
development interventions as well as the processes that bring about those outcomes. The field studies
tried to understand the processes through which the environmental, economic and human factors
interact to create development outcomes, and the nature of the outcomes themselves.
The 'temporary organization' refers to all the people involved in a development intervention, including
the funding agents, the change agents (NGOs or individuals) as well as the people themselves whose
livelihoods are being addressed. While 'people's participations refers to the different ways different
stakeholders involved themselves in the intervention, we focused more specifically on the 'vikas victims',
the villagers whose lives the intervention seeks to change, and to what extent they influenced the
process by which the specific intervention would be implemented. The intervention process includes
conceptualizing a project, designing it, identifying and accessing the resources required, including
people and organization, and then managing the dynamics of the interaction of a complex set of ideas,
activities and people. In general we observed that all the interventions we studied followed a 'livelihoods
approach', that is, one which addresses the issue of poverty reduction through providing a means of
generating sustainable income, often leveraging the instrumental value of natural resources in the
process (Carney et. al., 1999).The outcomes of implementation were assessed on the basis of income
and wealth creation, environmental impact and changed aspirations of the participants. We tried to
ascertain the element of scalability and durability of the intervention to determine its role in contributing
to more comprehensive socio economic transformation, which in turn would lead to the desired goal
of sustainable development.
5
Case Study of an RIDF Project in East Godavari
The topography of East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh makes it ideal for locating sites for
hydroelectric power generation (see Figure 2). The rolling hills of the Eastern Ghats, with little rivulets
running through them are ideal for developing mini hydroelectric power plants (MHPP)1. Further,
this is sparsely populated (primarily) tribal area, which reduces concerns about displacement of
population and their rehabilitation.
In the early 2000s, when there was a nation-wide thrust on developing sources of renewable energy, a
private company surveyed the East Godavari region around the town of Adateegala, and identified the
Yelleru river as a potential water body to tap for hydroelectric power, and submitted a project plan to
the Nonconventional Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh Limited (NEDCAP) for
approval. NEDCAP, however, could not approve the project as it involved acquisition of tribal land by
the private party to set up the power plant, which is restricted. A separate agency, the Andhra Pradesh
Tribal Power Company Limited (APTRIPCO), had the mandate to establish mini hydel power plants
in tribal areas by involving local tribal women's organizations, and ensure that the entire profits from
such projects would accrue to the tribals for developing the local areas. The local Integrated Tribal
Development Agency (ITDA), took up the private company's proposal through APTRIPCO, which,
by 2005, had chosen three sites on the Yelleru River, where a slight diversion of the river water could
be used to generate power. The tehsil itself had a population of around 40,000. The three sites chosen
were located in Vetamamidi, Mitlapalem and Pinjarikonda villages. The projects were funded through
the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF)2 and from a subsidy scheme of the Ministry of
New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).
The authors visited East Godavari in November, 2012, to understand, first hand, this novel project
and the impact it has had on the locals in the area. We first visited the village of Vetamamidi, where the
power plant was already in operation for a couple of months and then went to Mitlapalem and
Pinjarikonda. A narrative of our observation follows.
Vetamamidi
A drive of a kilometre or so on a turn-off from the main road led us to the power plant site at Vetamamidi.
Since we were visiting just after the monsoons, the area was green and lush, with the rocky undulating
1
An MHPP produces electricity (usually above 1,000 MW at peak capacity) by using the energy from the
flowing water of a river. The plant is supposed to function as a run-of-river system where water passing through
the generator is directed back to the stream without the need of a reservoir. The electricity generated is typically
fed to the power grid for distribution, although it could be locally consumed if there is adequate neighbourhood
demand.
2
The purpose of RIDF is to promote innovation in the rural and agricultural sector and to ensure that good
infrastructure projects are not stalled because of a lack of funds. The specific projects to be funded are decided
keeping in mind the sectoral priorities of the government, and the new projects recommended by the different
departments of the state governments. RIDF is a demand-driven non-concessional scheme where finances are
provided in the form of loans from NABARD to the state government which implements the project through
local government institutions and line departments. NABARD has no role in implementing or monitoring the
RIDF projects; this is the responsibility of the state government.
6
terrain reminding us of thickly wooded hills not far away. The plant gate had a large yellow board that
marked the project site, where the plant capacity was listed as 1,200 KW. The funding details were
also painted: the project cost was Rs 60 million, of which Rs 29 million was from RIDF, and the
residual Rs 31million was a subsidy from MNRE. The officer of NABARD, who accompanied us,
told us that over the years there had been a 25 per cent cost escalation of the project to around Rs 80
million. Further, this plant, situated on 2 acres of land, had been constructed on an erstwhile nursery
plantation of ITDA. The power plant needed 11 acres in totality, the remaining 8 acres coming from
the state government and 1 acre coming from two private owners. The private landowners were
compensated at the rate of around Rs 35,000 per acre for the land and for the crops/ plants grown on
the land. The project commenced in 2005 and the plant had begun to produce electricity from April
2011.
A group of five or six people received us at the gate. We were shown around the plant by an engineer
from APTRIPCO, who were still responsible for plant operations, and Parvati, a lady electrical engineer,
fresh from college, recruited as Assistant Manager (with a salary of Rs 9000 per month) to oversee the
entire plant. The President and Secretary of the 'Management Committee' that were supposed to take
over the plant in less than a year's time, once APTRICO stabilized all operations, were also there. A
local village youth, recruited as a non-technical employee of the plant, made up the team that showed
us around.
As we walked around looking at the equipment, the engineer from APTRIPCO did most of the
talking, explaining the process as well as hurdles faced while setting up the plant. He added that the
plant was operating at 600 KVA; the low utilization was due to a combination of natural and man
made factors. Firstly, the flow of water in the Yelleru was lower than normal, attributed to low rainfall
in the just concluded monsoon season. Second, the quality of the civil construction was poor; some of
the channels were incomplete, leading to water leaks, reducing the water pressure further. The poor
construction quality was evident even to us. Thirdly, the operators of the power plant (mainly some
contract workers employed by APTRIPCO) and Parvati were inexperienced and slow to respond to
problems. Overload alarms kept going off in the control room.
Although it had been a couple of months since the power generated was linked to APTRANSCO's
grid at Addateegala, generation had not stabilised and the billing of units was still in progress. Hence
there were no revenue inflows into the project, and the operating costs of the plant were still being met
by APTRIPCO. The Divisional Engineer deputed by APTRIPCO to the project was actively involved
in supervising the day-to-day progress of the plant as this was the only one in the series of three
MHPPs that had seen the light of day. Successful handover of this plant to the VMC would be a
feather in his cap. He had been involved with this plant since May 2009. According to him, APTRIPCO
itself was in disarray with many of its senior officers resigning due to unmanageable delays in project
execution. He believed that his hard work and patience could lead to a more rapid career progression
for him given the number of vacant top-level positions. Towards this objective, he even claimed to
have spent up to Rs 0.3 million from his personal funds to assist the contractors so as to ensure that the
projects were completed. He empathised with the contractor's reluctance to complete the projects as
they were allotted the projects on the basis of estimates made in 2005, and given cost escalations over
7
the last few years it was not economically viable for the contractors to honour their commitments.
This was part of the reason why in Vetamamidi, although the contractor's work was incomplete, he
had not been fired and the project team was being patient.
We walked around half a kilometer upstream from the power plant to the site where the river was
diverted. Here some of the civil construction work was incomplete. Within less than a year of the
project operating, one could already see the formation of sand banks on the riverbed where its flow
had been diverted. We were surprised to hear that this was not a source of ecological concern to the
engineer at APTRIPCO, who confidently reiterated that such a minor diversion of water would not
change the pattern of the river's flow.
As our discussions slowly veered to non- technical matters, the two ladies who were accompanying us
(both Managing Committee members), became more vocal, sharing with us that the successful
implementation of the plant was largely because of the enthusiasm of Prerana Devi, the then ITDA
commissioner. She used to visit the village often, and was instrumental in convincing the villagers that
they should support this project and that they were capable of managing a complicated thing like a
power plant by themselves. Further, they could get some revenues from successful operation, which
they could use to create valuable village infrastructure, without any investment by the villagers. Moreover,
the availability of water in the village would not be affected, and very little land would be required.
The villagers gave their formal consent to the project in a meeting of the gram sabha. Since the ITDA
administration and APTRIPCO were known entities, there were no serious reservations about outcomes
and consequences. In addition to the villagers' consensus, a more formal tripartite memorandum of
understanding (MoU)3 was signed between the APTRIPCO, ITDA and a committee chosen by the
villagers through the meeting of the gram sabha regarding responsibility and revenue sharing. The
understanding was that APTRIPCO would supervise the construction and initial operations of the
plant and ultimately (after one full year of running the completed project) hand over the plant to the
Village Management Committee (VMC) for sustained operation and maintenance. The handover of
the project from APTRIPCO to VMC would take place under the supervision of the ITDA.
Though nothing was explicitly mentioned in the MoU, we were given to understand that the ITDA
wanted the composition of the VMC to be 80 per cent women, with key positions held by them. The
gender of the previous commissioner of ITDA might have been the source of the emphasis on women
being brought to the fore and encouraged to take long-term responsibility of maintaining the common
assets to be created. The persons who would be displaced from their land would be accommodated in
the VMC. In addition to project supervision, APTRIPCO would be responsible for training local
tribal youth and members of the VMC on maintenance and management aspects of the project. The
contractor appointed by APTRIPCO would be responsible for commissioning commercial operations
and for maintenance of the project for one year from the date of commissioning. The contractor
would also be responsible for imparting hands-on training to the project employees. The MoU was
supposed to document carefully the cost and revenue sharing model for the project.
3
Despite several efforts, we were not able to see a copy of this MoU. Nevertheless, the different stakeholders'
(APRTIPCO, the village committee)version of the content of the MoU was consistent.
8
The revenue sharing formula was as follows. First, regardless of the revenues generated, 4 per cent of
the project cost, had to be set aside as operation, maintenance, insurance and working capital costs.
Second, actual costs incurred in handholding, subject to a maximum of 0.5 per cent of the project cost
was earmarked as annual fees to APTRIPCO for services rendered until the entire RIDF loan component
was repaid. (After the repayment the VMC could continue with APTRIPCO under the same conditions
if it so desired). Once revenues started flowing, an amount upto Rs 3 million annually could be
utilised for repaying the RIDF loan through APTRIPCO. About 1 per cent of the project cost was to
be apportioned as an emergency fund to meet operational exigencies. From the remaining revenue, 50
per cent was to be directly utilized by the gram sabha for development activities, mainly the creation of
common assets. Around 25 per cent of the remaining revenue was to be utilized by the local ITDA for
development activities in the Addateegala area, and the residual 25 per cent would be devoted to
developing renewable sources of energy which could benefit the tribal people within the local ITDA
region of Rampachodavaram.
Despite this being so complex, VMC members were able to recite these relative shares accurately with
a little prompting from each other. However, the committee members were not as clear when we asked
them about the revenue and net revenue prospects. Instead, they emphasized that they would have
access to 50 per cent of the remaining gross revenue to build assets in the village. We pointed out that
even if the tariff offered by the grid for green energy was fixed, the amount of power they could supply
would be variable, depending on the plant efficiency and the amount of water available. Thus they
could plan only on the basis of some expected amount. They stared at us blankly, not comprehending
any part of our argument. We calculated the net surplus that the VMC could earn for using for village
development activities (see Table 1) for three hypothetical scenarios. The net surplus would depend on
the power generation capacity utilized. We assumed that revenue per unit of power sold to the grid
was Rs 4 and simulated three alternative states of affairs, a 'best' situation (plant generating 1,000 KW
for 10 months for 16 hours a day4), an average situation (800 KW of generation for nine months at the
rate of 12 hours per day), and the worst case (600 KW generated on average for eight months in a year
at the rate of eight hours per day) which was the current operating conditions.
In the best case, the net surplus that the VMC could earn would be Rs 5.9 million in a year, which is
a healthy amount to build a portfolio of assets in the village that would promote the capabilities of the
villagers in terms of health, education and accessibility. At an average level of utilization, the net
surplus available to the village would fall to Rs 1.48 million as a result of the fixed maintenance costs
and loan repayment built into the project finances. Under the worst-case outcome, the net surplus
available to the VMC would turn negative, that is, no revenues would be available for development,
and annual repayment amount for the RIDF loan would be a mere Rs 0.21 million instead of Rs 3
million. What this means is that unless the project was run at a high degree of capacity utilization and
technical efficiency (over which the villagers had some control) the benefits flowing from this project
would be effectively zero. It was not too clear to us that the VMC understood the gravity of the
situation.
4
This was despite the rated capacity of the plant being 1,200 KW, as we realized 1200 KW could be only peak
power generation when all was well with the powerplant and the river was in full flow (the monsoon months).
9
Table 1: Revenue Generated from MHPP at Vetamamidi and its Distribution
Shares
Best Case
Average
Case
Worst
Case
(in Rs million)
Units
-
4,800,000
259,200
1,152,000
Revenue
100%
19.2
10.37
4.61
O&M costs
Rs 3.2 mill
3.2
3.2
3.2
APTRIPCO annual fee (max)
Rs 4 mill
0.4
0.4
0.4
Loan repayment
Rs 3 mill
3.0
3.0
0.21
Emergency fund
Rs 0.8 mill
0.8
0.8
0.8
Remaining revenue
26%
11.8
2.97
0
Village common asset fund
13%
5.9
1.48
0
local ITDA (common asset)
6.5%
2.95
0.74
0
local ITDA (green energy)
6.5%
2.95
0.74
0
Distribution of Remaining Revenue
Note: Assumptions:
Green power feed in tariff assumed as Rs 4 per unit.
Best Case: 1,000 KW generated on average for 10 months in a year, with the plant operating 16 hours per day.
Average case: 800 KW generated on average for nine months in a year, with the plant operating 12 hours per day.
Worst Case: 600 KW generated on average for eight months in a year, with the plant operating eight hours per
day
The VMC comprised 19 members of which 10 were women (not the expected 80:20 in favour of
women). The office holders, namely the president, Manasa, secretary, Vijaya, and treasurer, Preksha,
were all women. Five of the male members (of which two were from families from whom land had
been acquired)in the VMC formed the operation and maintenance team of the project and earned
salaries. A provision through which10 per cent of the committee (two members) could be changed
through consensus or elections by the gram sabha every two years had not been exercised so far.
The VMC played a pivotal role in the supervision of the construction work of the MHPP. Committee
members took turns supervising so as to not jeopardize their domestic commitments. The enthusiasm
and sincerity of the VMC made up for their lack of knowledge. During construction, they often made
phone calls to APTRIPCO officials to ask what brand of cement was to be used or the exact proportion
of sand, stone chips and cement for concrete. To get the contractor's attention they often resorted to
10
measures such as temporarily stopping work or threats to disengage the contractor. There were situations
where the VMC confirmed the contractor's deviation from the work plan in writing with the local
APTRIPCO official and sent it over to APTRIPCO's office at Hyderabad for validation. APTRIPCO
officials personally supervised critical construction and erection works at the water intake point and at
the plant site. The villagers working at the civil construction site got daily wages between Rs 60 and Rs
80 (compared to the rural employment guarantee scheme rate of Rs 140 at that time),. Supervision
was, however, entirely voluntary, with the VMC volunteering because they felt they were contributing
towards the improvement in the living conditions of the village in the long term, and because it would
earn them more respect from the villagers. So far, there were few other benefits from the project. For
the few who were directly employed, earnings were not very high, with salaries ranging around Rs
3,500 a month for unskilled labour. The incentive for individual sacrifice (effort) for reaping collective
benefits (common assets created) was evident.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of this project was the increase in self-confidence and awareness of the
participating women of the village. They claimed that they were leading from the front now, as compared
to in 2005 (when ITDA and APTRIPCO approached the villagers with the proposal) when they had
little to contribute. They were proud of the assertive role they had played in the supervision of the civil
construction works, more so since this was the only successful MHPP site. In addition, the training
they had obtained from APTRIPCO on power generation gave them confidence. Despite this, the
women were still shaky on operating and managing the power plant once APTRIPCO handed it over.
For example, Preksha, their treasurer, who had had formal education only till middle school (class
eight), had no idea of how to maintain or keep books of accounts since she had not been exposed to
these aspects. She, however, was confident of operating the bank account of the VMC, which had the
president and secretary as the other signatories. Moreover, the VMC was aware that based on the MoU
they would have APTRIPCO support and involvement till the time that the RIDF loan was repaid.
Mitlapalem
At Mitlapalem, the construction site (the power generation station was not completed yet) was far
from the metalled road, over uneven terrain. The undulations on the path, sudden curves and a road
fullof stone, gravel and rocky outgrowths were such deterrents that the driver of our four-wheel drive
had to be coaxed to take us as close as possible to the site. We found a few pieces of rusted equipment,
including the turbine blades, scattered at the site where the plant was to come up. Upstream, only a
small part of the civil construction was visible: a half-made diverting weir and the beginnings of the
concrete channel. There were saplings and trees growing out of the cracks in the concrete.
Hailing from the Koidara tribe, the villagers at Mitlapalem wore a forlorn look when asked about the
progress of their MHPP. They were despondent; they had been hoping that the ITDA would intervene
to help resolve their standoff with the truant contractor but no help was forthcoming. Here, almost
12.4 acres of the 14.2 acres required for the MHPP had been acquired from private landholders.
Persuaded by APTRIPCO officials, they had sold their land willingly; quite happy with the lump sum
payment they received. As land donors, they harboured an expectation of an increase in esteem among
fellow villagers once the MHPP was up and running. Some of the landowners were (mistakenly)
optimistic that in the future APTRIPCO would compensate them with some land. These erstwhile
11
landowners had now become daily labourers, and they regretted that they did not save more from the
compensation they had received. In retrospect they felt that the compensation amount of Rs 35,000
per acre was low since losing the land implied that they lost an income of around Rs 15,000 to Rs
20,000 per acre per year.
Only seven of 19 members of the managing committee were women. Fewer women from this village
had showed interest and as per the MoU, one representative (usually male) from each of the families
that had lost land had to be accommodated in the committee. The five major posts of president, vice
president, secretary, joint secretary and treasurer were however held by women. Work on the MHPP in
this village had been stalled for a long time. There had been no government intervention in the village
since 2005-6.The committee members had lost hope as the project was at a standstill. The president of
the VMC had given up, and she appeared a trifle disturbed that she was letting the village down. She
was clear that she would not go to the court of law so as not to repeat the Pinjarikonda story, where,
because of termination of contract, the contractor had filed a case and the project was on hold because
of litigation issues. She was also certain that the negotiations were best handled by APTRIPCO. Since
the contractor had stopped work citing problems of inaccessibility and cost escalations, the villagers
had offered that the contractor and workers could stay in the village itself. ITDA, who, as per the
MoU, should have stepped in to handle situations such as work stoppages, hadlet them down. The
president was lost, and was unsure whether APTRIPCO'sadvice to write a complaint to ITDA would
help in any way. APTRIPCO's inability to influence the contractor was because the tenders of the
Mitlapalem MHPP had to be issued for the third time before any contractor participated in the bid.
We rued the irony of the situation: the RIDF was set up to provide funds to complete stalled government
projects, and instead here was an instance of another stalled project!
Pinjarikonda
The situation at Pinjarikonda was even more distressing. Young villagers had little idea of the location
of the project site. Others unexcitedly gave us directions to the place where the power generating site
was to be set up, where we came across an old rusted turbine lying in the middle of an overgrown piece
of land. An iron signboard with remnants of yellow paint marked the site. The large turbine lying there
was a monument to how development interventions can be wasted. The project had come to a standstill
in 2008,when the village committee had terminated the contractor's services because of poor progress,
and the contractor had challenged the decision, obtaining a stay order from the court. Meanwhile, the
turbine lay there, gathering dust and slowly disintegrating into scrap under the vagaries of the weather.
The Fine Line between Success and Failure
The work on the MHPP at Vetamamidi, Mitlapalem and Pinjarikonda started at almost the same
time. However, while the right mix of coercion, threats and understanding, the MHPP at Vetamamidi
saw the light of day, the other two sites were not as lucky. The creation of a network for collective
action was at the heart of the functioning of the VMC at Vetamamidi. The network, between the
village community and the representatives chosen, the APTRIPCO employees in the project, the
private contractor, and the powerful ITDA officials, was imposed on them by the MoU. People who
voluntarily joined the network (not the officials of agencies like APTRIPCO and ITDA) did so because
they had shared beliefs about the importance of the subsequent accumulation of common assets. It
12
was a form of civic engagement through interpersonal networks. However, there could be repercussions
on the governance of the project, which would be determined by the relative competencies of these
volunteers. Perhaps, this is what explained the relative success of Vetamamidi over Mitlapalem and
Pinjarikonda.
The project design was identical, and the sizes and socio-economic profiles of the three villages were
very similar. In Vetamamidi, the plant was complete and power generation (albeit at a low level of
capacity utilisation) had begun. In Mitlapalem, the civil works were about three-fourths completed,
after which the contractor had stopped work and had refused to come to the site. In Pinjarikonda,
work was at a standstill. It was the same contractor appointed in all the three villages, all in the same
vicinity. Was the leadership of the VMC a determining factor for the observed differences? In
Vetamamidi, the office-bearers had relentlessly pursued the contractor and the engineers of APTRIPCO
to complete the works. The optimism of the president, an eighth class dropout, was almost contagious.
The project cost had ballooned from Rs 60 million to Rs 80 million. The management committee
mentioned that while they were not fully aware as to all the reasons behind the escalation, they were
very conscious that one reason could have been their insistence on high quality materials for the civil
works. As part of his defence for abandoning the projects, the contract or had officially cited the lack
of proper access to the project site in Mitlapalem and Pinjarikonda as compared to Vetamamidi.
However, the contractor must have known about the terrain of the sites when he accepted the job.
An institutional implication of this failure relates to the way the job contract was drawn up. The
APTRIPCO engineer at the sites had not seen the contract and was unclear about the penalties for the
failure to deliver by the contractor. He was not even sure about the responsibilities arising out of
complementary commitments of the ITDA (like the building of roads to the project sites if necessary).
The contract was at the APTRIPCO head office. We followed up on the issue with the ITDA
commissioner in-charge of the project area. She was unaware of the impasse, and claimed that landrelated disputes took up all her time. Another concern was the effect legal institutions could have on
people involved in participatory development. The court was a distant nebulous but powerful force
that could intervene and upset their lives in unanticipated ways with often irreversible negative
consequences.
Learnings from East Godavari
This case study is about the creation of a common property resource (CPR) that was not entirely
natural, and yet was derived from natural resources. This was a project where participation was sought
from above; rather than participation generated by people demanding intervention. Except for a few,
the fruits of successful collective action would not result in any direct improvement of personal incomes.
Gains from the project would be for the community as a whole. The overall supervision of the project
was left to local women. The project was the construction of a set of mini hydel power plants (MHPPs)
along the Yelleru River with public funds. The project, on completion, would generate and sell electricity
to the grid. The net surplus (after meeting all costs and charges) would be available to the villagers,
from which they could create common resources like schools, hospitals and roads in the village and its
neighbourhood. This was a different experiment in 'build and transfer-to-operate'. The power plants,
once completed, would be operated and maintained by a committee formed by the local villagers,
13
consisting almost entirely of people drawn from the community. The leadership of the management
committee would have to be drawn only from women members chosen by the villagers themselves.
What kept the VMC motivated? Self-interest may not be the only force that drives people (Dasgupta
2001; Sen 1977). Dasgupta (2010) discusses motives like mutual affection, pro-social inclinations and
creation of trust and credibility as possible motives why people undertake collective action. There
could be ethical reasons too as to why people cooperate. In the case of these villages, personal interest
could not have been the driving force, because there were no individual incomes that resulted from a
successful completion of the project, except for three or four salaried beneficiaries. While the benefits
were collective, and could not be apportioned to individuals, the costs were personal. There were
opportunity costs in terms of time foregone in working on one's own fields or working as day labourers.
It was like a 'voluntary tax' paid for the well-being of the community, even beyond the boundaries of
their own village.
While the 'output' of a working MHPP was visible only in Vetamamidi, the outcome of this development
intervention was evident in all three project sites. The observed outcomes were diverse in terms of the
way that local participants emerged from their participatory role with different experiences. The
MHPP project was adopted by local villagers and a form of participation was imposed by its design
where the incentives transcended individual benefits. These experiences ranged from the need to learn
new things like accounting or the insight that a sacrifice for the community's benefit was a rewarding
moment of self-realisation, to the agony of failure and a sense of impotence against the bigger powers
of the contractor and courts of law. A mix of leadership styles and institutional failures combined to
create the outcomes we witnessed. We came away with the feeling that not only was collective action
and the creation of a temporary organization problematic; but also that the intent to act collectively
towards a common cause may not be a guarantee of success.
The critical resource for the project was the Yelleru River, a natural capital asset. The exclusive focus on
the instrumental value of nature (or return on ecological capital) could lead to a variety of intense and
inevitable conflicts. In Vetamamidi, sandbanks were already evident where the local river had been
diverted to generate green power for the grid, but this was not a source of concern to any of the
stakeholders. The ecological impact of this in the long run could be quite serious.
Situating the East Godavari Development Experience
We began with the premise that micro-interventions, such as the series of MHPs in east Godavari,
were designed to act as a catalyst for transformation since, left to its own devices, the process of
capitalist economic growth was not enough to pull the rural sector out of its traditional mould. From
this point of view, was the East Godavari intervention an instance of a Lewisian style complete
transformation, or of a delayed transformation, or could we conclude that transformation was
incomplete?
To assess this, some markers to look out for are the creation of market access, especially access to credit
markets, creation of infrastructure, especially natural assets and developing human capabilities, especially
through capacity building and empowerment of women.
14
In the case of Vetamamidi, Mitlapalem and Pinjarikonda, as with many of the other interventions we
studied (not described in this paper) we were unable to discern any emergent unambiguous
transformative trends. In East Godavari, there was no big change in network of markets or the number
of participants in the development process had not changed significantly. Neither was there a qualitative
transformation in market linkages or human capabilities beyond very minimal quantitative increments
in transactions and incomes during the MHPP building stages. The physical infrastructure created
would not cater to local needs or open up the rural areas to connect to modern economic spaces. We
did not observe any inter-sectoral mobility of resources. Perhaps this was not representative of a Lewisian
transformation.
In that case, wasthis a scenario where transformation was merely delayed? While there was a functioning
MHPP in Vetamamidi, in terms of its operation, it was not really an exemplar of a modern institution.
It still operated based on personal understanding and social network rather than in a more professional
manner (in which case the contractor should have been disengaged). There were no visible attempts to
try and create linkages with the more urban parts of Andhra Pradesh through the MHPP, except for
the occasional exposure visits that the VMC were taken on to see other MHPPs. We did not see any
possibility of a transition from traditional to modern coming out of this intervention, in terms of the
commonly accepted metrics of development. Was it that there was change, but transformation was
actually impossible, as posited by Sanyal (2007)?
We came away with a more optimistic outlook. While there were no evident signs of a transformation
having taken place, or even the presence of the right elements so that there is hope that transformation
will eventually take place, the one element which caught our imaginations was the look of hope and
optimism in the eyes of most of the villagers we spoke to. The local people directly involved with the
mini hydel project were engaging with ideas of looking for opportunities beyond the project at hand
such as large irrigation projects. Some of them also realised that to make these possibilities come true
participation in politics was a prerequisite and they nurtured their own political ambitions. This belief
mixed with desire could be interpreted as a very nascent form of agency. Its transformative power was
absent because there was neither a destination nor a road map of change although the movement away
from the here and now was deemed necessary. They dreamt of alternatives, of another life, usually not
for themselves, but for the next generations. They were not able to completely articulate their vision
for their village or present an appropriate action plan to change their present conditions. This, however,
did not deter their desire to see (if not create) a different future for themselves, not necessarily in their
villages. These aspirations are not a sufficient condition for transformation to an urban-modern world,
yet one cannot undermine the power of human agency. We left East Godavari with a strong belief that
this indomitable power of human agency would ensure that the possibility of transformative change in
the villages we visited was not entirely negated.
15
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