Ronnie Screwvala Wants To Make Agriculture ‘Cool’ Once Again

Mr. Ronnie Screwvala, the celebrated actor, adman, entrepreneur and innovator who created a huge multimedia conglomerate called UTV and then sold it to The Walt Disney Company, is now into the second innings of his life – this time as an anchor determined to empower one million people in rural India every five years through initiatives in water, sanitation, health, nutrition, education, agriculture and livelihood.

Mr. Screwvala started by saying that he and his wife Zarina had always wanted to take up social causes, right from the time when they started their cable TV business 25 years ago. They used to earmark 10% of their office space for an orphanage and 10% of their resources to small projects in the Raigad district. After selling their stake in UTV they created a foundation called “Share”, but in an inspired moment, opted instead for “Swades”, the name of one of their films that involved a NASA scientist visiting his grandmother in India and staying back to bring electricity to her village. For them, philanthropy was not just about writing a cheque. They wanted to do something in which they were fully involved. Once they reached this conclusion, Zarina started devoting all her time to “Swades” and he gave it about 40% of his time. They decided that whatever they did, it would be on scale. They spent a lot of time meeting people working in rural areas in India and in Bangladesh, including Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus, the founder of “Grameen Bank,” and Sir Fazle Hasan of “Brac.”

“Swades” decided to build its own organisation, adopt a 360-degree model and get involved with everything in the chosen geography to change people’s lives. In the six months that it took to assess things, there were many naysayers. For a South Bombay Parsi like him who did not know Hindi and yet produced movies and started television channels, he was used to people saying, “You are out of your mind!” They realised that no matter how high the education status of a village, taluka or panchayat, if the health, water and sanitation needs were not taken care of, there would be huge dropouts. This was another reason that prompted them to adopt the 360-degree model and to work at scale. The next step was logical – they would target a million people living in a concentric geographical area so that the foundation would work in all the verticals at a given time.

This would not only help set at rest people’s initial suspicions, it would also help create “ambassadors” out of the people they covered. In less than three years, “Swades” had about 1,500 people working for it; 300 on a full-time basis; and 1,200 volunteers who also worked almost full-time, for seven to But they realised that “exit” sounded like abandonment. So they opted for the term “empowerment”, with the idea that once they were done, the community would never again need any social work. Mr. Screwvala said that to provide 24×7 water inside every household, they decided to install two water taps in each house so that no one would need to lug buckets even for a short distance. Despite what the sceptics said, people did not waste water and it was a game-changing moment.

Another decision was to have a toilet adjoining each and every household and in every school and institution. In 1,300 schools, he said, toilets with running water for boys and girls were almost ready. The household toilets are a work in progress. In health, they decided to deal with anything that affected more than 1% of the community. The main focus was on anaemia, malnutrition, prenatal and post-natal childcare till the age of five, and care of the eyes. Unfortunately, he said, people didn’t take sufficient care of their eyes and take impending blindness as a sign of ageing and a matter of fate… In the field of education, they observed that 50% of the dropouts occurred by the tenth standard. Those who went to high school had an even higher rate of dropouts. So it was decided that the foundation would teach English and computer skills and focus on maths and science.

They also conducted training sessions for teachers, along with livelihood training and career counselling. Mr. Screwvala said that on Independence Day 1,200 students who were likely to drop out of the eleventh standard were identified and given scholarships and a cycle in the hope that these would make a difference. A lifechanging experience for the children was the setting up of a library in every school. Career counselling sessions had revealed that while most students wanted to become policemen or teachers, there were also many who wanted to do chartered accountancy or law and to go for other professions. Another major problem was migration. Agriculture was “not cool” for most people and definitely not for the youth. The challenge was to inspire them so that they would return to farming. Thus, the holy grail of the 360-degree model was livelihood. It was necessary to help take people’s income from Rs. 40,000 or so per annum to Rs. 4 lakhs per annum.

When the Foundation suggested to farmers that they attempt to grow two crops a year and try their hand at chillies, tomatoes and sunflower, the farmers asked who would market their produce. This showed that they were aware of their own realities and that it was necessary to create an entire market place for them. Answering questions, Mr. Screwvala said that “Swades” had one silo with 40 people working as a reconnaissance team. It went to villages not yet covered to lay the groundwork.

One of the biggest benefits of the concentric geographical model was that information about their work spread by word of mouth. He told PP Sandip Agarwalla and PDG Ghulam Vahanvaty that “Swades” had always worked with Rotary Clubs and there was no intention to discontinue the association. Mr. Screwvala concluded his talk with some statistics: “Swades” had created 15,000 entrepreneurs in cashew, mushrooms, sanitary napkins, poultry and agarbattis; more than 50% of them were women. However, they also made the community contribute 10% to 30% (5% to 10% in the case of adivasis), whether for a toilet, for water, books, scholarships or cycles. This gave the villagers a high sense of accountability.