Bharati Thakore interviewed Amrish Patel, founder-president of the Shirpur Education Society, chancellor, NMIMS University and president SVKM trust, in Shirpur. Excerpts:

During the past almost seven decades since independence, several rural development and regeneration movements have been started but have achieved limited success. Among them Operation Flood started by Dr. Verghese Kurien in the 1970s in rural Gujarat, the Shetkari Sanghathana movement begun by the late World Bank economist and farmers’ leader Sharad Joshi, Bunker Roy’s Barefoot College, Anna Hazare in Ralegan Siddhi. Why have none of these movements captured the public imagination and spread countrywide?

What Dr. Kurien did was remarkable and I don’t think anyone can match the achievement of Operation Flood which transformed milk-deficient India into the world’s largest producer of milk within two decades. The movement worked because he got the support of the milk producers of Kaira district and Anand town. Some governments and cooperatives across the country did succeed in replicating it in some other parts of the country. The Amul/Anand model didn’t succeed in horticulture and oilseeds because state governments couldn’t support it, and there was no one of Dr. Kurien’s stature and vision to carry his mission forward after he passed away.

Transforming rural India requires sustained education of farmers, organisational effort, infusion of technology and creation of rural-urban linkages. One person cannot do this for the whole country. Others have to be enthused by the model and replicate it as happened in the case of Operation Flood and the Amul model.

Continuous under-investment in rural India by the Central and state governments, lack of rural leadership, commitment, under-investment in public education, teacher absenteeism, and poor quality government schools have stifled growth and productivity in rural India.

The original mistake was adoption of the Soviet-inspired centrally planned economic development model which sucked away rural savings for investment into a capital intensive public sector, neglecting agriculture, rural development and social sectors. What’s your comment?

I’m not familiar with the Soviet development model. But I believe that right from early 1950s, our Central planners should have allocated maximum investment to agriculture and education for India to succeed. Unfortunately, this mistake has been uncorrected for the past seven decades. Even today, the Central and most state governments are perpetuating this error by giving low priority to human resource development and investment in the agricultural sector, with disproportionate focus on urban development. Yet the plain truth is that no country has attained developed nation status without investing 6-8 percent of GDP in education, especially primary-secondary and skills education.

Against this background, you have engineered the education-driven Shirpur Education Society (SES) rural development model in Shirpur. What are its distinguishing features?

The distinguishing feature of the SES model, which has brought prosperity to this region, is focus on education and irrigation. Over the past three decades, we have established 85 education institutions including 77 primary-secondary schools and eight higher education institutions in Shirpur that are qualitatively comparable to the best in Nasik or Pune. We have developed a cadre of good teachers who are accountable and we follow the curriculum of the Maharashtra state secondary board of education which has been made more rigorous by our teachers. Today, the graduates of our schools and colleges are being recruited into companies such as TCS and Infosys. Having learned the value of good education, they educate their brothers and sisters and carry on the tradition of education. Shirpur has a population of 75,000, of which 35,000 attend school or college, including 31,000 in SES schools and colleges.

Our second focus area is water management and conservation systems. The rivers Arunavati and Tapi flow through the town. During my five years as a municipal corporator and 26 years as an MLA and MLC in the state legislative assembly, I persuaded the corporation and state government to install the world’s best water supply systems from the Arunavati and Tapi rivers to Shirpur. There won’t be water shortage in Shirpur even if the town expands five times.

How satisfied are you with the impact of the SES development model in Shirpur taluka?

I am fairly, but not entirely satisfied. It has succeeded because my heart was in it throughout my career. Since I first became a municipal corporator and later an MLA in 1990, my focus remained on providing quality education and year-round water supply to residents of Shirpur and the surrounding villages. Today the residents of Shirpur taluka are thriving. With farmers able to grow two — and sometimes three — crops per year, land values in the taluka which used to be Rs.40,000 an acre in 1980-90 have risen to Rs.2 crore per acre. Jobs are easy to find in the textile and associated industries and in agriculture and allied businesses, and all people in the taluka including 40 percent tribals, and 20,000 Muslims are prospering. I would say I’m 80 percent satisfied. It will take another five years for every farmer in Shirpur taluka to prosper.

Despite Maharashtra being India’s most industrialised state, it is ranked # 21 on the Educational Development Index 2013-14 of NUEPA. How do you explain sustained under-investment in education in Maharashtra?

Maharashtra probably has the best private education system and processes in the country. Private investment in education in Maharashtra is higher than in most of India and our private education institutions are the best countrywide in terms of infrastructure, enrolment and learning outcomes. In our 85 SES education institutions, we have 2,000 teachers and support staff — a large number for a small town — because we pay teachers well, make them accountable, and together with them have established good teaching-learning systems and processes with focus on employability. In sharp contrast, in government schools and colleges, there is unchecked corruption in teacher recruitment and placements. Although the Maharashtra government is investing heavily in public education — 3.5 percent of state GDP — there’s little information and accountability available about how this money is spent.

As far as higher education in Maharashtra is concerned, I believe that it has been leveled down because in universities across the state there’s a standard syllabus/curriculum. Students from Mumbai and Sindhudurg all write the Mumbai University exam. But to ensure that students from Sindhudurg can pass the exam the curriculum is levelled down. Therefore students coming out of our higher education system are largely unemployable.

Moreover, I don’t believe India Inc. is doing enough for education. The 2 percent of profit that all companies with a net profit of over Rs.5 crore are obliged to spend to discharge their corporate social responsibilities under s. 135 of the Companies Act, 2013 should be spent on R&D related to improving agriculture productivity and rural education. Unfortunately very little of this CSR obligation is spent on rural development projects.

Quite clearly the SES rural development model has been tested and found to be successful. What needs to be done to roll it out nationally?

To roll out the SES model nationally, it has to become a people’s movement. We need to carefully motivate and involve local people, especially the youth to become partners in the process of development in various sectors. There is an urgent need to carefully recruit competent primary-secondary teachers, capable administrators, and the government needs to back them with political will and focus. Investment in developing the country’s abundant human resources should be our top national priority. If we fail to do so, our demographic dividend will become a demographic disaster.

It is now established that there is a clear link between the poor condition of public primary-secondary education and widespread rural poverty, farmer suicides and distress. What’s your prescription for reviving public education in India?

Strict government accountability for expenditure under each head, establishment of excellent teacher training institutes, continuous in-service teacher training, greater investment in agriculture productivity and rural development research, and curriculum autonomy for higher education institutions.