What is Palle Srujana?

Palle Srujana is a voluntary organization works for aiding and promoting creativity at Grassroots level in the States of Andhra Pradesh & Telangana. It pursues the mission of National Innovation Foundation –India (NIF-India) in the states of Andhra Pradesh & Telangana as part of nationwide Honeybee network. We Scout across the rural parts (knowledge hubs) of Andhra Pradesh for knowledge and innovations. We document the knowledge acquired through scouting with sufficient recognition to the knowledge provider. The Grassroots innovations will be promoted and provided support for validation and reengineering. Palle Srujana also helps the innovators to get their technologies patented and take them to national and international level of recognition. The rural knowledge is disseminated horizontally, from land to land and village to village through Shodha Yatra, magazines in local language, participating in various farmers’ meet etc.  

Palle Srujana being a Voluntary organization, entire activity is accomplished through pure volunteerism. We involve students, elders, women, private and public institutions and organizations, NGOs, and Government in the entire value chain of the grassroots innovations. The grassroots knowledge is linked to the formal system for validation, value addition, patenting, reengineering, manufacturability, marketability and business incubation etc.  

Purpose

Nature provides abundant knowledge and those who live in nature absorb it easily. They leverage such knowledge for their livelihood and for the benefit of human comfort, improve the quality of life, preserve biodiversity, and above all maintain harmony with nature. This is the most appropriate way of life. 

While knowledge of nature brings in practices that over the period of time become traditional and time tested, there is abundant creativity in villages to find solutions to their problems. These solutions are simple and affordable. They are generally made of local available resources. Such creative solutions are sustainable and user friendly.

Rural people inherit a rich knowledge of traditional practices and ways of living. This valuable knowledge and innovations are fading away as there is no organization which is making efforts to document and preserve it for posterity. It is also important that these knowledge holders should be given a good appreciation in terms of visibility through awards and rewards. Their knowledge ownership should be recognized through patents and the legal rights thereof should be bestowed on them. Today’s truth is far from this ideal.

Although knowledge is available at several locations, identification, acquisition and dissemination of knowledge to those who need is a very challenging task. In the present system, no organized effort is being made in this regard. Most of the innovations and knowledge are in the state of “Proof of concept”. Converting them to a usable devices, mustering requisite finances and  engineering assistance, marketing the products and their dissemination across the country far and wide remains a very big challenge and needs enormous effort from the various segments of the society and the Government.  

Our Vision

Knowledge acquired from the nature through experimentation over the years and centuries is passed through tradition of speech and practice/observation is priceless. Such knowledge is not documented will be lost forever. It is important for us to leverage this knowledge and creativity which enhances the comfort in livelihood practices for silent growth without much investment. It is said that “every old man dies, one library is burnt”. We need to comprehend the significance this knowledge and evolve a mechanism for its full utilization. WE believe that the growth through such knowledge will be economical and more effective as the absorption of such technology is easier for the people in the rural regions. We also believe that some poverty alleviation is possible through knowledge of the poor people and not only through menial work.

The appropriate and affordable solutions thus available from at the grassroots level should be scouted, value added and disseminated on a continuous basis and across the country by ensuring due recognition and share of the monetary profits to the knowledge creator/community. This is the vision of Palle Srujana.

Operating Framework

Since 2005 November, Palle Srujana has been making inroads into the village creative arena and grown humbly with the voluntary assistance of hundreds of people from the Andhra Pradesh. To focus on the spectrum of activity undertaken by Palle Srujana, small operational frame work has been developed. As below: 

Categorizing Innovations 

As most of the Grassroots innovations are being developed with locally available raw materials, they are mostly are not in a marketable and manufacturable state. In addition, most of the grassroots innovators solve their problems through their creativity and do not intend to sell them. Based on the readiness of the innovation, and the innovator, each innovation at Palle Srujana is categorized into three - Ready For Sale (RFS), Ready For Entrepreneur (RFE), and Ready For Prototyping (RFP).

RFS: The innovation is ready to enter market and innovator can manufacture and supply the innovation. These innovations need supply chain and marketing.  

Eg: Subhani Boom Sprayer, Mahipal weeder, Solar sprayer, Remote for lights and fans etc

RFE: Those innovations that are fully ready for market, yet the innovator is not capable of its manufacture and supply.  Transfer of technology is possible for furthering these innovations in the value chain. They are open for entrepreneurs to develop business models to manufacture and market the product.

Eg: Sri Tailam and Nose Filters, Room air cleaners, Guraviah Seeder cum herbi sprayer, Cotton harvester, Cycle operated irrigation Pumping device etc.

RFP: RFP innovations are in prototype mode, and needs further refinement to enter the actual market. RFP innovations need intervention of engineers and technology assistance to take a shape to enter the market. Entrepreneurs need to select these products at “proof of concept” stage and develop them into marketable products sustaining their appropriateness and affordability by the masses.

Eg: Effective Brick Making Machine)/ Coconut Opener / Patan Saida Mastless wind mill operated Water Pump/ Shanmukha power generation through small turbine, etc.

Palle Srujana offers these grassroots innovations to the entrepreneurs in India and also abroad in the field of farming, low cost power generation, and comforts in daily life etc for manufacturing and marketing these affordable and highly useful innovations to the large cross section of the society.

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|  The Team  |