The tragedy with India is that in spite of fifty years of attaining independence and the great green revolution, there is no work for the agricultural labour for 200 out of the 300 working days in a year. This is in spite of all the high-tech modern agriculture which is extremely energy-intensive in nature, requiring a quantum input of chemical fertilisers, hybrid seeds, synthetic pesticides and a colossal amount of water. So much for an agrarian economy which is neither capable of providing food to the hungry nor jobs to the needy for enhancing the purchasing capacity to buy even two square meals a day.

Hence, the need for appropriate non-farm technologies that can be converted into trades for the teeming millions residing in the 5,70,000 villages of India. It is vital to empower the local rural people with processes which can be turned into professions or sustainable livelihoods.

Sustainable livelihood creation basically translates into the creation of livelihoods that empower individuals to earn enough money to provide for basic amenities such as food, clothing and shelter, without destroying the natural resource base. It also enables people to lead a life of dignity in a sustainable manner.

In simple terms, creating sustainable livelihoods is the only path leading to the ultimate goal of sustainable development. In order to be sustainable, the development process has to be equitable, efficient, ecological and empowering. And, in the Indian context, self-employment is the best route to true empowerment of the marginalized and neglected - especially the women and the rural poor. Similar is the case for the urban poor who form 48 to 50 percent of any metropolis, living in shanty towns or slums.

It is against this backdrop that Development Alternatives is working relentlessly towards its mission of creating millions of sustainable livelihoods across the sub-continent. Development Alternatives is busy formulating tiny free enterprises, toeing the ‘small is beautiful’ philosophy of Schumacher, to generate self-employment for local people and, thus, provide them a perennial source of income and a regained sense of pride.

Development Alternatives plans to create around 15 million jobs in the very first year of the new millennium by establishing micro enterprises through its commercial wing -Technology and Action for Rural Advancement or TARA.

The main aim of TARA is to demonstrate the economic viability and feasibility of Development Alternatives’ innovations to provide work and dignity to the rural and urban poor of India. The entire TARA venture is driven by an urge to convert appropriate technologies into sustainable trades and useful, marketable products.

Like Development Alternatives, TARA is also a non-profit organisation, registered under the Society Registration Act of the Government of India. It is, however, entitled to manufacture and market the products designed by DA. It even pays royalties and fees for the (non-exclusive) rights to do so. Actually, it operates as a self-financing business and is the primary enterprise of the DA Group. TARA factories manufacture both the technologies and the products and sell them in the domestic and export markets through their marketing division.

The basic premise of making these TARA products is that all of them are designed to maximise benefits to the community and local economy and to minimise damages to the environment and resource base. The sustainable enterprises promoting the TARA technologies are basically small, decentralised, and utilise renewable local resources.

The very first product to emerge out of the TARA assembly line was an improved wood cookstove. This cookstove, termed the TARA Shakti Chulha, was low on fuel-consumption and also low on smoke-emissions in the kitchen. Studies reveal that the conventional cookstove or Chulha emits so much smoke that one hour in that smoke-filled kitchen is like smoking ten packets of cigarettes at a time. The smokeless TARA Chulha checked this health hazard and reduced the drudgery of rural women who traversed several kilometres each day to procure just a few twigs of firewood. Thus, this improved cookstove design prevented deforestation to a great degree and also brought down the passive smoking of millions of housewives.

Tens of thousands of TARA Shakti Chulhas have been sold and several more copied by local manufacturers all across the subcontinent as well as abroad.

This was the very first venture of TARA and a successful one at that. Development Alternatives and TARA have come a long way from those days of early eighties and have a basketful of innovations today.

Though the TARA technologies cover the whole range of the rheostat, some of the prominent ones are:

- TARA Tile Maker

- TARA Balram Mudblock Press

- Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln Technology

- TARA Concrete Block Making Machine

- TARA Handmade Paper

- TARA Mini Paper Recycling System

- TARA Handlooms and Accessories

- TARA Pollution Testing Kit

The dream of roofing the millions of homeless people of India would only come true once the cost of roofing a house is affordable for the man in the street. In fact, one could easily construct the four walls of a house with sun-baked clay bricks or some other cheap construction material but when it comes to roofing, the cost really hits the ceiling. And, if one does build a cheap roof it may not be durable enough. So, TARA gives an offer which one can not refuse - a roofing tile which does not cost the earth and is durable, apart from being an economically viable proposition for the homeless.

These tiles are called the Micro Concrete Roofing (MCR) tiles and are sold under the brand name of TARAcrete. Made of cement and sandstone, the TARAcrete roofing tiles are affordable, light, leak-proof and long lasting. These tiles allow total creative freedom to architects and engineers to design a variety of roof forms, without worrying about the cost factor. The machine used for producing these MCR tiles, known as the TARA Tile Maker, is also manufactured by TARA.

A product of intensive R&D, carried out by the Technology Systems Branch of Development Alternatives, the TARA Tile Maker makes roofing tiles of international quality. TARA also provides training in MCR tile-making technology to small, local, entrepreneurs so that they get a chance to earn up to 10,000 rupees each month.

If one has to address the problem of providing shelter to each and every person on this planet, then the only way out is to build houses with mud, even in the twenty-first century. So, building with mud seems to be the only sustainable option to address the current shelter crisis.

Building houses with burnt mud bricks is not an environment-friendly proposition as the conventional brick kilns or clamps emit a lot of smoke and are highly energy-intensive in nature. Hence, the need for construction technologies like the Compressed Earth Block (CEB) and the Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln (VSBK) which are eco-friendly and low-energy consuming alternatives.

The Compressed Earth Block (CEB) technology has proved to be an economical and a time-tested masonry system. It is an environmentally sound technology since the only energy it utilises is that of the sun to bake the mud bricks which are compressed in a manually operated machine. These mud bricks are as good as burnt mud bricks in terms of strength and load-bearing capacity. Stabilising them with 4 to 6 percent of cement makes the stabilised mud brick a durable and affordable product. Currently, these sun-baked bricks are being prolifically used in constructing residential and community buildings in both urban and rural regions. The machine used for making these compressed bricks is known as the TARA Balram.

TARA Balram, manufactured and marketed by TARA, is a simple, rugged, machine that compresses ordinary soil into dense masonry units with strength and water resistance, engineered as per the need. These compressed soil blocks can be used for a variety of construction applications to make strong buildings. TARA Balram’s operation process can be learnt in just a few days and the training is provided by TARA at their centres in Delhi, Jhansi and Bangalore, besides users’ sites.

This technology is a boon for the conventional brick makers who are still using the age-old technology of piling crude clay bricks in a heap and burning them with a non-renewable energy resource like coal. The VSBK technology provides the best quality bricks with the least energy consumption due to its efficient design.

The Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln comprises one or more shafts which are loaded at the top with sun-dried mud bricks for firing purposes .The firing zone is in the middle. The fired bricks are cooled by the draught of air moving up from below. They are lowered down with the help of a trolley which is moved out to unload the bricks from the bottom of the kiln. There is no wastage of heat in VSBK, hence it is a highly energy-efficient technology.

Thus, VSBK has a positive impact on forests, climate change and the local air-quality.

The ferrocement technology package for roofing, developed by DA, utilises state-of-the-art design principles to manufacture reinforced shells, commonly called channels. They are produced on specially designed vibrating tables and profiled moulds. The production system is uniquely tailored to provide special details, consistent shape and thickness – all crucial for high performance. The channels made with an optimised proportion of cement, sand and water, have a very high density, are impervious to penetration of water and provide high structural strength. Ferrocement roofing channels produced on mechanised equipment can be used for intermediate floor applications as well. This technology offers a viable alternative to conventional flat roofing systems such as reinforced cement concrete, reinforced brick cement, sand stones, etc. in both rural and urban areas of the country.

Concrete Block Technology offers a speedier, economical and eco-friendly alternative to conventional walling materials. It is based on the principle of densification of a lean concrete mix to make a regular shaped, uniform, high performance masonry unit. Concrete Block Technology can be easily adapted to suit the special needs of users by modifying design parameters such as the mix proportion, water/cement ratio and the type of production system. It is an effective means of utilising the waste generated by stone crushers, quarrying and stone processing units. The technology has a high potential in regions where the raw material is easily available.

The TARA concrete block making machine provides the optimum vibration in the concrete mix so that the ratio of cement used can be reduced substantially without compromising on the strength of the blocks. On an average, around 800 blocks can be made in eight hours by one skilled and six or seven semi-skilled workers.

The mill-made paper currently used is an extremely costly proposition as it amounts to an endless systematic deforestation. Valuable resources like bamboo are dwindling at a pretty fast pace as the paper mills literally feed on them. So, it is essential to have a technology which prevents the mining of our resources. Hence, the need for the TARA handmade paper, a technology which entails recycling of cellulose-rich waste like cotton rags and waste paper. The beauty of this technology is that it does not use any chemical in the entire process of making the handmade paper. But more important than all these features, TARA handmade paper unit is a tool to empower women economically. It provides them employment and a sense of ownership and pride as they run the entire unit all on their own.

The manufacturing systems of the TARA handmade paper technology are carefully optimised to produce paper of the highest quality at competitive rates. The basic raw material for the manufacture of handmade paper comprises cotton rags, denim waste, craft waste and waste paper. A TARA mini paper recycling system is designed for schools, voluntary organisations, hobby shops and vocational training purposes. The idea behind the creation of this mini system or ‘baby paper plant’ was to create awareness regarding the recycled handmade paper. Hence, this micro-technology.

The TARA handmade paper and paper products are in high demand globally due to their environment-friendly attributes, aesthetic appeal and uniqueness. Some of these ready-to-use paper products are - lamp shades, gift boxes, carry bags, lap top boxes, files, letter pads, diaries as well as conference bags.

The TARA Handloom technology of reducing the drudgery of traditional weavers, especially women, by improvising the conventional loom. The TARA Loom has upgraded the traditional loom by introducing advanced features like the flying-shuttle which weaves more cloth with the same effort. Apart from features like the fly-wheel and steel frame for higher efficiency, it has introduced a take-up mechanism for semi-automatic operation and a let-off mechanism for automatic tension control. Thus, it has proved to be a technology which is simple to operate, has a high productivity and gives a superior quality fabric than the traditional loom.

So, TARA has achieved a breakthrough in the handloom technology by inventing a loom that is as efficient as a powerloom and still does not need any electricity. A new generation weaving machine that combines versatility with the ease of operation, TARA Loom is ergonomically designed to conform to the traditional workmanship for producing more and better quality fabrics. TARA textiles have an unusually uniform weave and represent the best synthesis of powerloom and traditional fabrics. Elegant designs by master weavers in both ethnic and contemporary designs, are now in vogue everywhere.

Development Alternatives is constantly working towards alternatives which create a harmony between brother man and mother nature. So, it has designed kits to monitor the quality of the water we drink and the air we breathe. These kits indicate whether the level of pollution is within the prescribed safety limits or not.

Jal TARA and Pawan TARA are portable kits designed to test water and air pollution, respectively.

The Jal TARA kit can test 14 parameters of drinking water and river water quality to ensure whether the water is fit for consumption or not. It checks biological pathogens like the Coliform Bacteria, which spreads water-borne diseases like gastro-enteritis, dysentery and diarrhoea. Apart from checking physical parameters like the pH and turbidity, it also checks the presence of chemical hazards like fluorides, chlorides, residual chlorine, iron, phosphate and ammonia.

The Pawan TARA kit is so simple that the quality of air could be checked even by small kids. It checks three parameters, namely - Respirable Particulate Matter, Sulphur dioxide and Oxides of nitrogen. This kit has proved to be more efficient than other brands of commercially available low volume air sampling kits in the market.

Development Alternatives provides the after-sale service for both the kits, apart from the supply of refill chemicals, accessories as well as training.

Apart from manufacturing eco-friendly technologies and products, TARA also provides consultancy services, training and feasibility project reports. It undertakes turnkey projects of land and water-management, low cost constructions, renewable energy power plants and income-generating enterprises.

TARA operates through the network of its subsidiaries like the TARA Nirman Kendra (TNK), TARA-BKF Rural Technologies Private Limited (TBRT) and TARA Leasing and Finance. For example, TNK operates the building centres of Development Alternatives in New Delhi and Orchha (near Jhansi in central India). These building centres act as supermarkets for the construction technologies and building materials of TARA. They also provide the training, technical support and design and construction services to clients who wish to use the shelter-related innovations.

TBRT, a collaboration with the Holland based Bureau of Knowledge and Finance, is the franchising arm of TARA and has initiated a programme of setting up franchises based on TARA technologies in specific regions of the subcontinent.

TARA Leasing and Finance is engaged in activating financing systems to assist micro-level entrepreneurs to establish small but sustainable enterprises based on TARA innovations.

DESI Power is another TARA affiliate which has been set up to deliver electricity to far-flung rural communities which are not connected to the national power grid. The electricity, in this case, is produced from renewable biomass (like Ipomea) and agricultural waste. The gasifier turns the biomass into a gas through the process of pyrolysis and the gas, then, is used to produce electricity in diesel generators. The cost of electricity generated by this process is much lower than that produced by diesel generator sets and is even competitive with the grid supply, if available.