Creating viable livelihood options other than agriculture for village youths is probably one of the most constructive ways to stem migration. It takes a visit to a tiny hamlet off Bharatpur, Bada Nangla Itamda, to show me how.
From outside, Bada Nangla Itamda looks quite unremarkable; a cluster of pucca houses with mud-plastered cowsheds. There's a power cut, but then again, it's something one has come to expect in villages. Then, I see that the house we're going to enter has not only lights on, but fans as well. Blinded as I step in from the brilliant summer sun, all I can see is a flurry of hands moving in perfect coordination. The table closest to me has a mound of glittering gems. A young fellow is gluing them to the tips of, what look like pencils, with practised ease. The next table, a longer one, has three boys holding the pencil-like tools along a rotating belt. This is the home of Rajesh Mohan Sharma, and I'm here to see his gem-polishing unit in action.
"I learnt this trade in Jaipur, where I worked as a gem cutter and polisher for several years," he says. However, the cost of living in the city was high, making it tough for Sharma to save any money. "That is why I decided to set up a workshop in my own village," he says. Bharatpur-based Lupin Foundation helped him obtain a micro-loan of Rs 50,000 to buy machinery for his workshop. "There is such a huge demand for finished semi-precious and precious stones internationally that jewellers in Jaipur are happy to outsource the polishing and cutting to entrepreneurs like me. Today, I employ six boys and plan to expand, as there's no dearth of work available," he says.
It's an interesting peek into the jewellery business. Labour in Jaipur is relatively more expensive, as there's a shortage of skilled workers and the cost of living there is high. "I tie up with jewellers in Jaipur, who send gems that have been counted and weighed," he says. Unlike the city, there's no dearth of young boys wanting to be trained here in the village," says Sharma. "They have the added advantage of being able to look after the agriculture-related work on their farms even as they earn a decent living," he says. Every other house in the village I see as we walk around has a gem-polishing workshop. Erratic power supply is the only hitch, but most of these rural entrepreneurs have installed inverters and generators to ensure uninterrupted work. "Now we're trying to get solar-powered generators to run our polishing machines. With cheaper and continuous power, we'll be able to expand much faster," says Sharma. Who would have thought, I muse as I look around, that this sleepy little village could be the backbone of Rajasthan's gems and jewellery trade.
For Sharma and his fellow villagers, gem-polishing has proved to be a lucrative business. "Skilled workers can earn up to Rs 350 per day," says Sharma. The rates for polishing differ from stone to stone, ranging from Rs 10 per carat for Garnet, to Rs 20 per carat for Topaz. Sharma himself nets a cool Rs 500 every day in profits alone. It's no wonder, then, that young boys from 12 villages in the vicinity work here. "In fact, like me, others have also returned from the city to work in the village," smiles Sharma. "To think I used to earn about Rs 3,000 per month in Jaipur!" As I leave the village, I look at it one last time and think how different India's village economics would be if more livelihood options came up to transform rural lives, like gem-polishing in Bada Nangla Itamda has.
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