Basant Kumar Jhawar

Founder

Basant Kumar Jhawar is the founder of Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra (1988)[1], an Indian non-profit working on rural & agriculture, livelihood and healthcare from Ranchi.

Basant Kumar Jhawar is an Indian industrialist who founded the Usha Martin group and, in 1972, Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra (KGVK), the rural development organisation associated with the group in Jharkhand. He is chairman emeritus of Usha Martin.

KGVK began by funding village projects and, from 2000, shifted to a model combining financial support with sustained mentoring. Jhawar has described the organisation as an attempt to bridge what he calls the divide between urban India and rural Bharat: 'Pursuing inclusive growth to bridge this gap was one of the reasons why we founded KGVK.'

Career

Jhawar built Usha Martin, a steel and wire rope manufacturer headquartered in Kolkata with operations in Jharkhand, into an Indian multinational. KGVK was established in 1972 as the group's rural development arm in Jharkhand.

From 2000 KGVK began water harvesting work and partnered with the government and Life Spring Hospital on maternal and child health. In 2005 it introduced the system of root intensification for paddy cultivation, and in 2008 it developed a Total Village Management model organised around eight areas including natural resource management, education, health and women's empowerment. By 2012 the model was running in about 130 villages, with plans to extend it across six districts.

He has served on the governing bodies of several educational institutions, including as a governing council member of the LN Mittal Institute of Information Technology in Jaipur, president of the managing committee of Birla High School in Kolkata, vice-president of the Sri Shiksha Niketan School Trust in Kolkata, a member of the governing board of XLRI Jamshedpur and of the governing council of Calcutta Business School, and a trustee of the National Foundation of India. He was an active member of the national council of the Confederation of Indian Industry and chaired several of its national committees.[2][3]

Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra

Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra (KGVK) works to foster sustainable, integrated rural development through its Total Village Management approach. Based in Ranchi, it runs programs in natural resource management, health and sanitation, education, livelihoods, capacity building, and renewable energy.

Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra reports the following, on its own site:

38,982.5 hectares treated under integrated watershed management programmes across Jharkhand districts
3,500 youths trained in agriculture trades (Jan 2015 – Dec 2017)