2016 India Study Tour
Keio University, faculty of business and commerce,
Kazushige
Shimpo laboratory 09/05/2016~09/11/2016

2016 India Study Tour Report
Keio University, faculty of business and commerce,
Kazushige Shimpo laboratory123
01/11/2017

Contents
1Laboratory Web site: http://www.fbc.keio.ac.jp/~shimpo/
2Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/shimpolab
3Student Web site: http://shimpo-lab.sakura.ne.jp/student/Chapter 1: Working environment
1-1 GRAVIS
1-2 House environment
1-3 Visit HEDCON office

Chapter 2: India Water Problems and Sanitation Issues
2-1 Current Situation
2-2 GRAVIS

Chapter 3: Education in India
3-1 Why is education necessary?
3-2 Public school
3-3 Government school
3-4 GRAVIS school
3-5 Training center

References

Chapter1 Working environment
Kana Kobori, Daisuke Satomi, Yukihiro Numata, Koji Nohara

1. GRAVISOn the 3rd and 4th day of our study tour, we visited Jodhpur in the
Rajasthan state, which is famous for its marble and sandstone. There we got
the chance to see some activities of GRAVIS (Gramin Vikas Vigyan Samiti),an NGO mainly working in Thar desert. We toured sandstone mine, mine
worker’s house, school for their children, hospital run by GRAVIS and so on,
getting brief explanation from an officer of GRAVIS, Rajendra Kumar, forthe current situation and problems GRAVIS is working on.
On the 4th day, we visited GRAVIS office, heard details about theirworks, and had a discussion about their activities with the officer. There
work is divided into 6 parts as below.
1. Water Security
2. Health Care
3. Agriculture & Animal Husbandry
4. Education
5. Research & Advocacy
6. Community Development
They put special effort on 3 parts; 1.water security, 2.health care, and4.education.
In the following report, we are going to address labor environment, waterproblem specific to desert district, current state of education in rural area inRajasthan as well as whole India, and GRAVIS’s activities to solve theseissues.

Photo1.14 Discussion at the GRAVIS office (left), September 7th, 2016
Photo1.2 Rajendra Kumar (right), September 7th, 2016

Mineworker at Rajasthan
Rajasthan state has several thousands of mine, famous for the
production of marble and sandstone. These productions are exported to all
over the world and used for the construction of tomb as well as house.
Therefore, in this state, mineworker is a common occupation with up to 500
thousand people (population of Rajasthan is 56.5 million). Not only men,also women and children are working at mine. Next is farmer, but during
4All photos by members of Shimpo laboratorydrought and monsoon season, they also work at mine to earn a living.
Gainings from mining is a main source of earnings for many people inRajasthan, however, payment is very little and the labor environment isvery severe. According to one survey, they work up to 12 hours a day and get
only 50-90 rupee.

Photo1.3 mine at Tinwari and mineworker (left), November 25th, 2016
Photo1.4 mine (right), September 7th, 2016

Problems surrounding mineworker
Mineworkers have less power than owner of the mine, who have politicalconnections, great wealth and huge power. In addition to the low payment,
mineworkers are facing number of difficult problems, such as few or noaccess to latrine, clean water, and health care. A main disease they arelikely to get is silicosis, which is one of the lung trouble with no complete
cure. The cause of this disease is too much dust produced by mining processwith long year labor, which include Silica (SiO2). This makes mineworkers

suffer from breathing trouble and fever, and increase the chance oftuberculosis.

Photo1.5 discussion with mineworker (left)
Photo1.6 space for mineworkers (right), September 7th, 2016
Work by GRAVISGRAVIS is tackling the issues surrounding mineworkers. They educate
mineworkers about their rights and health problems like silicosis, and often
advocate their rights. In addition, they hand out mask to workers to prevent
them from taking in toxic dust. Mineworkers, however, don’t understand theeffect and necessity of masks, so this program don’t have big effect on theirhealth. But why GRAVIS has to deal with this issues, not employers? This isdue to the current labor situation, oversupply. In other words, employers
can get another labor force very easily when worker become incapacity towork because of disease or other reason.
Moreover, GRAVIS manages general hospitals but lack doctors andmedical facilities. We visited a hospital, and saw eye clinic, gynecology andobstetrics and so on. There we found pictures of patient and dedicateddoctors who asked us about current hospital situation in Japan, but
equipment are much poorer compare to those in Japan. I thought that it isdifficult to offer sufficient care in that environment. Besides hospitals,
GRAVIS manages schools for mineworkers’ children. These schools are also
suffering from the shortage of teachers, equipment, and textbooks. Anotherproblem is that parents are unwilling to send children to school because
they can be working force.
GRAVIS is working to solve many social problems, but they have toovercome lots of difficulties to carry on their projects successfully.

Photo1.7 GRAVIS Hospital (upper left), September 7th, 2016
Photo1.8 GRAVIS School (upper right), September 7th, 2016

Photo1.9 children at school (below), September 7th, 2016

1.2 House environment

Photo2.1 house, September 7th, 2016
Then we went to house where mine workers live. This area iscountryside, as you can see from the above picture, women wore Indian
traditional clothes “sari”. We entered into a house. I was so surprised thatgas stove was installed.

Photo2.2 gas in the house, September 7th, 2016

1.3 Visit HEDCON office
HEDCON
We

visitedofficeof

HEDCON(The

HealthEnvironment

andDevelopment Consortium) 5th day of India study tour in 9/9, Jaipur.
HEADCON is non-governmental organization which began to work in
October 1998. HEADON’s act is based on Gandhian ethics and they consult
other NGOs and propel projects for policymakers to help poor classes
acquire right. Their main activity is
・to manage water in desert area such as Rajasthan.
・to tackle problems of mineworker.

Photo3.1 HEDCON office, September 8th, 2016
We discuss these problems with Mr. Mahitosh, an officer of HEDCON.
He said mineworker are forced to work in very bad labor environment. In
addition, their employers in Rajasthan are usually men of power and theyhire gangs to subjugate mineworkers. So mineworkers cannot complain andmany of them do not have range of choices. To sum up, there is big
difference of bargaining positions between mineworkers and employers.
(Figure 1)(Figure 1) Bargaining position
This figure consists of indifference curves of mineworker and employer

(Edgeworth box), vertical axis shows income and lateral axis shows leisure.
At first, mineworkers are in black point in figure1 because workers are in
weak position but in this condition they cannot live. So employers hire
workers in minimum necessary condition of living at same wedge (Line1) inthis figure (red point of figure1). In developed countries, workers areprotected by social welfare program but in Rajasthan, position ofmineworker is too weak so they have no choice but working in such a bad
condition, Therefore, this problem happens. Projects to help these workers
are needed.

Moreover, we carried on “Cloth to India” project to support mineworkers
with HEADCON in connection with this problem. When we visit their office,
we are suggested a project to collect secondhand clothes to send mineworker
who don’t have decent clothes enough. We created a flyer, distributing them

around our university campus, and collected clothes during school festival in
November, 2016. We send 60 men’s clothing, 97 women’s clothing and 300
children’s clothing.

Photo3.2 Collected clothes, November 25th, 2016
Photo3.3 Packed clothes, November 25th, 2016

Chapter2 India Water Problems and Sanitation
IssuesYurika Shibagaki, Kosuke Nomoto, Takumi Hayama, Yoichiro Matsumoto

In this chapter, we write about water situation and hygiene circumstances,
especially toilet circumstances in India. Both water problems and sanitation
problems are very serious problems for human because they directly affecthealth. Furthermore, it is said that they are very serious situation in India.
On our tour, We visited several NGOs and learned a lot about water
situation and toilet circumstances.

1. Current Situation
Current situation of water problem
It is said that India is one of the countries with the most water problem in
the world. According to World Bank, water cause 21% of infectious diseases
occurring in India, and the number of deaths due to diarrhea caused byunsanitary water intake amounts to about 600,000 a year. In addition,according to the United Nations, the country's sewage treatment capacity isonly 10%, the rest is being flown directly to rivers and others.
For example, Agra which we visited on the seventh day is especially called
the worst water environment in India. The Yamuna River, where waste
flows down from the capital of Delhi and the neighboring Haryana State
Industrial Park, is one of the dirtiest rivers in the world and its water
quality data of Agra’s tap water, whose main water source is the Yamuna
River, is not a number suitable for drinking water. Also, a large amount ofchlorine is used for purification, and the possibility of producing many
dangerous substances such as trihalomethane, which is a carcinogenic
substance, has been pointed out. Furthermore, all the water administration,such as the water supply network that carries water, the technology topurify, collection of water fee and so on, are all poor and dangerous not todrink even local people.
However, it is the current situation that measures against water pollution
have not progressed due to the state-based operations, budget shortage, etc.
For this reason, water whose quality has deteriorated continues to be used
for daily use water and drinking water.

Current situation of sanitation problem
Next, as a current state of sanitation problems in India, the populationthat can access the toilet may be 50% or less. This background includes
social wisdom that accepts and recommends outdoor excretion, lack of
inexpensive products that are easy to obtain even for poor people, and theexistence of impermanent people called scavengers who processed living byprocessing out what was excreted outdated from ancient times. However,the custom of outdoor excretion leads to development inhibition andmalnutrition as well as infection, so it must be improved.
Based on the current situation
Safe water and lack of proper hygiene practices have a great impact,
including health. For example, when it comes to the possibility of infectious
diseases such as diarrhea, tropical diseases, it becomes an economic problem
because it can‘t work enough if it becomes sick. Also, women and children
have to spend a long time drawing water, but the long way of drawing water
often involves danger, and for that time the child can’t go to school andwomen can’t work. In other words, it also leads to educational problems andempowerment of women. Thus, water and sanitary environment are thebasis for achieving other development goals, and it is urgent to solve water
problems and hygiene problems in India.

2.2 GRAVIS
Water Activity
In the Tar Desert, there is a rainfall of about 200 mm per monsoon,
which lasts only 9 to 12 days. (From rainy season from June to September)
So many families in Rajasthan State are in short of water and depend on
rainwater or water stored in tanks. Quick access to safe water greatlycontributes to empowerment of women. Women and children spend six toeight hours a day in order to secure water, which is why young girls often
can’t go to school.
GRAVIS is an NGO that tries to empower people living in the Tar Desert
and the community and aim for sustainable development. It is responsible
for promoting safety, promoting education, improving health, empowering
women, and defending workers. As stated earlier, strengthening thesecurity of water in desert areas with extremely little precipitation is
directly linked to the quality of life and the improvement of the status of
women. It is working on making and setting NAADIS, BERIS, TAANKAS in
relation to water.

NARDISNAADI is the oldest rainwater harvesting method in Rajasthan State, its
storage technology. 259 are installed in India, and 789,140 families benefit
from it. The average village NAADIS can supply water to several
households for up to one year. Since silt (clastic material) damages the
structure, the village struggles to hold.

BERIS
BERI is the prevention of outflow of groundwater brought by the monsoon,
and it is a well to save water. 583 are installed in India and 2,910 families
benefit from it. Supplies water to multiple homes and can hold about

100,000 to 200,000 liters of water. Mineral deposits in the soil are used topurify the stored water.

TAANKATAANKA is a cylindrical storage tank. Currently 6,392 TAANKA are
installed in Rajasthan province and 19176 families benefit from it. It canstore 20,000 liters of water and 5 or 6 people can store one-years’ worth ofwater. Rainwater stored in TAANKA is gathered in an inclined catchment
area. As a device applied to TAANKA, a filter is installed inside so that
insects and grass do not get inside. When it rains, the surrounding weeds
have been removed so that the water efficiently accumulates in TAANKA.
In order to prevent foreign matter from flowing into TAANKA during themonsoon flood, the fences made of net and wood are spread all over.
Photo2.1 TAANKA, September7th, 2016(left)
Photo2.2 TAANKA’s Net, Spetember7th, 2016(right)

Water Reservoir
There is also a place to store rain water for animals living in the Tar
Desert, where basically human use is prohibited. If it becomes empty,transport the water of the pond and refill it. It is built in the topographythat can collect rain water efficiently by using the inclination, and in caseusing this water, penalties are decided to reduce fines and distribution.
When a violation is discovered for the second time, social ostracism called
will be taken, and in order to recover from that state, heavy penalty for
preparing meals for all households (80 households) in the village is decided.
However, because some people are still in violation, there is a need for new
regulations and incentives not to violate in order to avoid using the water in
the irrigation pond.

Photo2.3 The pond for animals, September 7th, 2016

Photo2.4 The pond for animals, September 5th, 2016

2.3 Slab International
On September 5th 2016, we visit the Slab International. This is a nongovernmental organization (NGO) we visited for the first time in our tour.
The organization has taken an action to free “manual-scavenger”. They are
untouchables and dip excrement from toilet in India.

This NGO has a museum,” the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets”.
We can study history of development and design of a toilet from theirexhibits. In addition, we can also study the models of the sulabh technology

In the museum
Some details about the development of toilet system in the world are on
display, for example, the photograph of the toilet remaining from 2,500 B.C.
Besides, the museum is also exhibiting some interesting toilets in the worldand some ultra-modern electronic toilets from Japan.
Some Japanese toilets have one of the most advanced toilet technology.

Photo2.5 The museum of toilet, Spetember5th, 2016

Outside the museum
This NGO is trying to spread toilets that don’t need dipping up by hand.
So, they have developed the toilet technology. Outside the museum, somemodels of the Sulabh based two-pit-pour-flush composting toilets are
exhibited.

Photo2.6 The models of the Sulabh toilet, Spetember5th, 2016

The electricity in the facility is generated by biogas. The biogas is used tocook a meal, to turn lights and so on. This biogas system is installed bythemselves.
In addition, they have a system for regenerating water from excrements.
Outside of the NGO building, there is a water ATM. This provides waterto neighborhood. This is because that the water is clean and cheap.

Photo2.7 The water ATM, Spetember5th, 2016

Chapter3 Education in India
Emina Shiroki, Nozomi Shozuguchi, Kamiyama Aoi, Momo Hirata
The right of children to free and compulsory education act was passed inAugust 2009 and brought into force on April 1, 2010. In fact, a small
proportion of elite government schools have excellent infrastructure, trainedteachers, low student-teacher ratios and very high tuition fees. On the other
hand, schools around both rural area and slum have poor infrastructure,
untrained teacher and low tuition fees. We learned that there are many
problems of education in India. With these matters in our mind, we visited
India. In this chapter, we mention our experiences about schools.

1. Why is education necessary?
Before talking about the education in India, we would like to indicate thereasons why education is necessary. There are several reasons why
education is important in developing counties. Especially, the main reason
is that education will help relieve the disparity in class and gender. Getting
appropriate education helps improve the quality of life, say, we can get
economical success, complain about political requirement, and solve theproblem about human rights, and so on.

Economic development and education
Nowadays, many people have become conscious of the necessity ofeducation in India. But the education in India has not kept pace with othercountries. Actually, the literacy rate and attendance rate is still low level,
especially in rural area. This is because, during the economic development,
the government has disregard education and has not put enough budgets in
education, on the other hands, in other countries in East Asia including
Japan, governments regard education as important and work out theirstrategies to remark that point.

The current situation of education in India
To solve the several problem of education, The Right of Children to Free
and Compulsory Education Act, which intends improvement of the quality ofeducation and extension of educational facilities, came into force. But still
there are many problems, say, the high absence rate of students andteachers, the deficiency of facilities and equipment, and quality of education.

2. Public school
In India, some specialists say the improvement of education should be
carried out by mainly public school, which is because government schools
have many problems. But the Indian economist, Amartya Sen suggests in
hisbook, An Uncertain Glory, to struggle with the problems whichgovernment schools have, we shouldn’t rely on the public schools about the
improvement of education.
In our study tour, we visited the Sulabh Public School, which is operated
by Sulabh International, the NGO working for the removal of untouchability
and social discrimination against scavengers. This school was established in
1992 for the children of scavengers along with other children. Now, about 60
percent of students are untouchable and study with other children. In thisschool, students can receive high quality education in English. They can get
not only basic education but also the practical skills, like typing and sewing
and the knowledge of sanitation and hygiene.

3. Government School

Photo3.1(left) Government School in New Delhi, September 6, 2016
Photo3.2(right) The condition of classroom, September 6, 2016

We visited some government and private schools, Day 2 in the morning,
we visited a government school in New Delhi. In the first impression, I
think that the government school is bigger than I thought because westudied bad equipment in Japan. For example, Indian school is not equippedwith toilet, wall and roof etc. Probably, we visited the other school whichgovernment operates in India. The government school is made of concrete
walls and have a large school playground. Students waved their hands tous, had smiles and welcomed. In the school, there are many classrooms.
Classrooms were equipped with a blackboard, desks and chairs. There arepanels on the wall to use the number and English training. Students wore
the school uniform. I think that this school was similar to Japanese schools
about equipment.
We divided 4groups and exchanged each own culture like origami,
number, songs, dances and cleaning etc. When we were primary school
student, we cleaned our classroom everyday so it’s habit. However, westudied that it’s not habit to clean classroom by myself in India. So wedemonstrated how to clean. Probably, they don’t become to clean themselves
everyday but we hope that they learn about the importance of cleaning oneday.

Photo3.3 Cleaning, September 6, 2016

4. GRAVIS School
At September 7th, after visiting mining place, we also visited the schoolthat GRAVIS runs in the Thar Desert.
One of the main work of GRAVIS is education. “GRAVIS currently runs
49 primary schools in the Thar Desert. Nowadays, 94 schools have been set
up by GRAVIS and many of them are now run by village communities
independently. These schools are often located in the areas of villages where
government school don't exist, and some provide midday meals for students.
Once these schools are well established, GRAVIS hands over theadministration to the local Village Development Committee or the stateschoolsystem.”5

5GRAVIS HP(http://www.gravis.org.in/index.php/our-work/education, Last accessdate is January 9, 2017)

Photo4.1 GRAVIS school, September 7th, 2016

GRAVIS’s

staff,

Mr.Ragendra

Kumar

explained

about

outreachprograms of GRAVIS to us. Some parents want their children to work
(specifically pick up pebbles to earn a little income), help their housework.
Because of this, it’s difficult for their children to go to school. So GRAVIS
staffs visit these parents and discuss their children’s option.
Then a teacher of this school and he also explained about this school that
we visited. This school is same as primary school (grades one through five).
There are two teachers and students attending class in spare moments of
their work. The subjects are Hindi, English, Mathematics, Drawing andEnvironment. In the class “Environment”, not only importance of water but
also importance of awareness was taught. For example, the awareness isthat using masks are useful to prevent pulmonary diseases. Finally, theteacher showed us the classroom and the children saw us off.

Photo4.2 The teacher of this school (left), Mr.Ragendra Kumar (center),
Professor Shimpo(right), September 7th, 2016

Photo4.3 students and a teacher of this school, September 7th, 2016

Photo4.4 students and a teacher of this school, September 7th, 2016

5. Training center
GRAVIS training centerWe visited GRAVIS training center .In here, we saw school timetable of
GRAVIS school and, girls hostel. About school timetable, I was surprised attightly timetable. Students take many classes from morning till night.
GRAVIS has recently built a new girls hostel in one of its center where thegirls will stay to receive middle and high school education. The center canaccommodate up to 16 girls. Girls live at GRAVIS center and participate inmany activities.

Photo5.1, 5.2 Computer room(left) and School timetable(right), September 7,
2016

A vocational training center(Women's problem in India and the role of vocational training center)
In Regions where education is not well-trained. Marriage is often decided
by parents. After marriage, most women live with their husband's parents'
house. The women's activity is largely restricted. Also, after marriage, some
women who cannot be economically independent suffered from damage suchas domestic violence and killing. Vocational training centers support
women's independence by offering women educational opportunities, andaim to prevent crime.
Alternating current
We greeted about twenty students. First of all, we deepened our
exchanges by arm wrestling and pushing sumo. From Japanese students,
Awa Odori, Soranbusi and Japanese songs were performed, and Indian
students also gave presentations of ethnic dances and songs, and it got

really exciting. Finally, the question and answer between the students wasdone. When we asked them about their future dreams, there were many
people who answered as teachers. I felt that there is a desire to study
because they could not receive enough and not want the future children to
be in the same circumstances.
Photo5.3, 5.4 Pushing sumo(left) and ethnic dance in India(right),
September 7, 2016

References

Jagdish Bhagwati, Arvind Panagariya 『 Why Growth Matters: How
Economic Growth in India Reduced Poverty and the Lessons for Other
Developing Countries』2013, PublicAffairs

GRAVIS HP, http://www.gravis.org.in/index.php/our-work/education, Last
access date is January 11th, 2017

「インドで「水の危機」深刻化 国民生活に多大な影響,「Snakei Biz
2013.4.9 06:55, Last access date is January 11th, 2017
http://www.sankeibiz.jp/macro/news/130409/mcb1304090656019-n1.htm