This Man Offered to Buy Me A Pepsi:

His name is Ram Kumar, and he works as a Chintan waste-recycler in Tansen Marg, near Bengali Market. I met him on Friday and shadowed his route. Midway, he parked his rickshaw in an alley and asked me with a smile: "Pepsi or Coke?"

At first, I was a little thrown back and I kept respectfully declining. I was also sick at the time, so soda wouldn't have been my natural choice of drink anyway. Yet, he kept insisting and finally bought me a Pepsi with the approximately 2000 rs (roughly US$40) that he earns in one month. As he walked towards the drink stand, I contemplated chasing after him to offer to pay for both our drinks, but I chose to stay put. I was certain I made the right choice when the elderly waste-picker came walking back beaming with pride as he handed over that bottle of soda to me. In a country where street children and women in stained saris tug on your shirt for change and food, where auto-wallas and storekeepers shamelessly try to 'fleece' or cheat you, this wastepicker spent half of his daily earnings to buy me a Pepsi. Talk about having self-dignity. Thoughts?

--

P.S. After he finished his route, Ram offered to buy me tea and lunch, but this time I politely declined, said my goodbyes and thank yous, and made a move for the office. Part of it was due to my fear of drying up his savings, the other part was due to how awkward our table talk would have been given my 10-Hindi phrases vocab limit.

Two Weeks Left!

With two weeks left in Delhi, I am scrambling to finish my final report. At the beginning of the summer, I was assigned to audit Chintan’s Door to Door program, a micro-waste initiative that provides residential neighborhoods with responsible doorstep garbage collection while simultaneously providing our wastepickers with a way of earning a livelihood. Each morning from Monday to Saturday, households give their waste to the wastepicker who will segregate and sell it to the recycling trade. On top of the revenue earned by selling the recyclables, each wastepicker recieves a salary of approximately 10 rupees per door per month from Chintan. The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), a branch of the government, provides the rickshaws that are used in collection routes along with two waste bins per household. Chintan finances the uniforms, salaries of wastepickers/supervisors/manager, and maintenance of the rickshaws. The only source of revenue for Chintan in this waste initiative is the monthly fees that range from 30 rupees in middle class neighborhoods to 50 rupees in VIP neighborhoods. Since its inception, the program has been unsuccessful at generating a surplus and has been operating at a loss.

An NDMC-sponsored rickshaw is parked outside of a home as the wastepicker rings the doorbell to collect the waste.

With each additional day spent shadowing wastepickers, interviewing residents, and talking with the program’s supervisors, I became more and more aware of the inner workings and operational problems of this program.

I began most of my mornings by leaving the Vasant Kunj apartment at dusk to meet individual wastepickers at the start of their collection route. Collection routes begin anywhere from 6:00am to 10:30am. According to the reasoning of Prakash, the Door to Door program manager, waste collection for VIP neighborhoods, those which house high-level government bureaucrats, starts later as residents generally wake up later in the day. On the other hand, waste collection for middle class neighborhoods tends to start earlier as residents are generally up at dusk.

A peaceful back lane in Sarojini Nagar, a middle class neighborhood

For each of the twenty-four wastepickers that I followed, I made a map that documented the schedule and direction of their route such as the one below. Such documentation had not yet been done, a bit of a red flag for a program that is running in its sixth year. (On a side note, perhaps Delhi Transport Corporation, could learn a thing or two from this as well. DTC is one of the largest bus service operators in the world but has not yet published a comprehensive route map of their system!) The collection of maps I made for the Door to Door program will be used in the following ways: (1) to quickly track down each wastepicker if need be, (2) in publicity materials as an example of how the collections generally operate, (3) to highlight inefficiencies in the route or potential locations for service expansion (ie: a school or a hospital close to a row of homes), and (4) to facilitate in the turnover of data and information in case Prakash ever decides to leave his job, a likely occurrence given the low retention rate of staff in India’s non-profit sector.

In addition, the process of tracking the route of each wastepicker brought to light several observations about Indian neighborhoods. The homes in VIP neighborhoods are built with a main portion for household members and guests along with a back portion for the servants’ quarters. Wastepickers will either collect waste from the front door or from the servants’ quarters depending on each resident’s request. The differences between navigating through the front entrance and the back can be dramatic. The front entrance of VIP homes are accessorized with name plates, white Ambassador cars, and manicured gardens. Yet, this picturesque image dissolves with a quick circle towards the back of the home. The servants’ quarters, merely footsteps behind the front entrance, have more in common with a slum. In this land, clothes are strung across electricity posts to dry and servants squat to take bucket showers in the open. While the children of the masters play cricket in the neighborhood park, the children of the servants push around a rubber tire with a stick in the alleyway.

The conspicuous white Ambassador series car given to Indian government officials.

Along with mapping out the routes of each wastepicker, I also surveyed six households in each neighborhood for a customer satisfaction report. I quickly learned the stark differences between surveying in a VIP neighborhood and in a middle class neighborhood. Residents in VIP neighborhoods tend to have several “layers” of maids, drivers, and security personnel that have to be pierced in order to gain a direct audience with them. Needless to say, I learned to avoid surveying the gated homes with security towers (those men have guns!)—actually, I was more or less denied entry as I had “to have an appointment to speak with Madam” on several occasions. The middle class neighborhoods became a surveyor’s paradise. English-speaking residents were more likely to open their own doors rather than the Hindi-speaking servants in the VIP homes who wouldn’t understand my introductions. It was also much easier to strike up conversations with the residents of middle class colonies as many of them were likely to be found outside of their homes in the morning washing their own cars, reading the paper on the steps, or handing their waste directly to our picker. From the wastepicker’s perspective, collection is also a lot more efficient in the middle class neighborhoods as they can reach more doors in a given time.

As a surveyor, I found Sarojini Nagar, a middle class neighborhood, to be pleasantly welcoming.

Last but not least, I am currently compiling a final report complete with recommendations on how to approach the program’s core operational problems. As mentioned earlier, the program is not financially sustainable. The bulk of the program’s costs go towards the salaries of the waste pickers, the supervisors, and the manager. The only source of revenue for the NGO is the monthly collection fee that households are expected to pay. The collection of fees is not yet at 100% either. Right now, my approach will be: (1) to identify and close up any leakages in revenue, (2) to find new sources of revenue (collection fees) that we can tap into without increasing any of our current costs. An example of the second could be introducing the classrooms of a school or a dormitory of a hospital to an already existing route. That way, the waste picker would be able to benefit from additional sales of recyclables and Chintan will be able to benefit from additional collection fees without having to hire an additional wastepicker. That’s just a preliminary idea. I’ll iron out the kinks and give you an update when the product is finished.

Until then..

Michelle

"Right-to-Know Law Gives India’s Poor a Lever"

"[India] may be the world’s largest democracy, but a vast and powerful bureaucracy governs. It is an imperial edifice built on feudal foundations, and for much of independent India’s history the bureaucracy has been largely unaccountable. Citizens had few means to demand to know what their government was doing for them.

But it has now become clear that India’s 1.2 billion citizens have been newly empowered by the far-reaching law granting them the right to demand almost any information from the government. The law is backed by stiff fines for bureaucrats who withhold information, a penalty that appears to be ensuring speedy compliance."

True story. Read it here.

-Michelle

To Shimla We Go

How did I end up atop a Himalayan foothill? "Well I'm glad you asked."
(That's always Sam's line, but since he's neglecting to post on this blog, I thought I should interject some of his voice into my own.)

--

It is 8pm on Friday, and we have no travel destination. Yet, we are heading out the door to Delhi's Inter State Bus Terminal (ISBT) with our Lonely Planet guide in hand and a backpack for the weekend.

You see, we had booked train tickets to Varanasi online through Tatkal (last minute train tickets you can book 2 days in advance) only to get an automated email from them the night before our scheduled trip telling us that we had successfully canceled our ticket reservations (which we had not!). Needless to say, all five customer service numbers were busy..or if they did ring, nobody answered.. or if somebody did answer, he/she did not speak English.

By now, we are at ISBT and it is a mess. To get tickets for a local bus, one must 'line up' (clutch the person in front of you to make sure nobody cuts) at the counter. We station our friend Sean in line for tickets to Shimla. Sam gets in line for tickets to Chandigarh. We really just want to get out of Delhi for the weekend, and at this point, it doesn't really matter which bus we get on.


Crowds and chaos at the Inter State Bus Terminal.


Bus-ing it like the locals do.

We finally manage to get three bus tickets to Chandigarh, and then it takes us a bit of time to interpret them (local bus tickets come in fifteen different strips of paper with no bus number or time). A 5.5 hour local bus ride (no A/C, no sleeper berths) later, we arrive in Le Corbusier's planned city. As an urban studies major, I am rattling away to Sam and Sean (who probably aren't even listening) about the city plans of Chandigarh, a city modeled to fit India's post-independence democracy. We manage to hop on another local bus that will bring us to Shimla.

By the way, the Lonely Planet is the travel guide to swear by. It's got details about train and bus times down to the bone. Do not go on a destination-less Indian adventure without this baby.

On our way to the Queen of Hill Stations

Shimla was the official summer capital of the British Raj-- Delhi's summer heat just didn't cut it for them. A prominent remnant of the British presence is the Viceregal Lodge (below):


Thank goodness for their decision to establish a summer retreat in the mountains. Today, Shimla is a popular get-a-way for Indians escaping the summer heat. We enjoyed weather of < 30 degrees, and we were shivering! (Hey, when you've been wallowing in 40+ degrees for a month, anything below a 35 feels cool.)

Here are just a few of the things we saw:

For all the fruities of the world...

...and all the sweet-tooths of the world (gulab jamun is hidden in the mix!)

The stray dogs here have thicker hair than in Delhi! Their extra jacket keeps them warm in the winter.

We left tourist-trap-Shima...


...for the road less traveled, and saw much more interesting sights.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:









It was a good weekend.

: )
Michelle

A Backpacker's Delight

When we're not at work during the week, we try to make the most out of our time in this delightfully colorful country.


Our day in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, home to the famed Taj Mahal:

Anticipation builds as we squeeze our way past the flood of tourists...


There. It was absolutely stunning beyond all expectations. Unfortunately, the complete beauty of the Taj cannot be captured through a mere photograph-- so you will just have to see it for yourself!

After several unsuccessful attempts, we finally got a group photo in front of the Taj! Fun fact: the girls who took this photograph are now some of our closest friends in Delhi.


Our weekend in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India's most colorful state:

Jaipur is a city of intense color (and shopping!)


Crossing streets in the old city is a bit c r a z y. But once you've mastered the art of crossing Indian roads, you're set for life.

The Amber Fort, one of the highlights of my travels thus far.

Climbing up steps to the fort...

...for some spectacular views


More forting, more climbing, more views...


Stay tuned for more updates on our travels. Photos of Shimla will be up next.


Bye for now,
Michelle

New Delhi Railway Station

It's hard to believe that I've been in Delhi for a whole month already! Taking a step back, I'm beginning to realize just how much has happened during this time both in terms of our work with Chintan as well as our life in India. I believe a series of long and thorough updates are in order, but only after this apology: life in Delhi can move pretty fast at times, so when one doesn't stop to look around once in a while, one's bound to miss it. It becomes too easy to get stuck in the routine of 6:30am water tank-filling, 40 km/hr auto rickshaw rides, twice-a-day cups of chai, the daily tiffin lunch, and the necessary post-work shower. Having not written a post since arriving in India is pretty unacceptable, especially given all the new things I'm learning on a daily- no, make it hourly- basis. My hope is to make up for this in the month and a half that I have left here. Now, moving on to the said updates...

I want to dedicate my first post in India to the ball of chaos I'd like to call the New Delhi Railway Station. Sam and I certainly weren't there en route to Agra-- we were there for work, an intensive one-week audit of Chintan's pilot waste collection program at India's busiest train station.



The purpose of the project itself is rather straightforward. Chintan wants its waste-pickers to collect waste from each train arriving and docking at the station. The waste-pickers bring the waste back to the Chintan work station (behind the tracks) and segregate the recyclables before selling them to middlemen junk-dealers for x rupees/kilo. The revenue generated through the sale of water bottles, bottle caps, aluminum tin lunch containers, paper, cardboard, and roti (bread) is then used to cover the costs of building and maintaining the work station site, the waste-pickers' monthly salaries, their uniforms and equipment, etc. It's a relatively simple model of environmentally-responsible micro-waste management, but boy is it one big logistical nightmare! (Just imagine how chaotic an Indian train station can get or see the picture below for a visual reference. It is the norm for trains here to be delayed for 6-7 hours or even for up to a night!)


The first few days of our audit were all about logistics, logistics, logistics. Day and night, we ran back and forth between all 16 platforms counting the number of cars, passengers, and workers per train as well as recording down the passenger to bottle ratios, scheduled vs actual arrival times, and all conflicts and obstructions that were observed. I'd like to call this leg of the project extreme consulting (as in extreme sports). We were behind the tracks, inside the train cabins, and up and down all 16 platforms. There was no time to wipe the sweat off your brow and absolutely no time to return the many stares you get from Indian men (and believe me, as a foreign girl in a salwar you do get plenty!)



Another important component of our initial audit was merely to observe how the work was done. A lot of inefficiencies were discovered during this process. For instance, we timed how long it took for the collected waste to be transported from a train arriving at platform 1 to the workstation located behind platform 16. It took approximately one hour for two waste-pickers to push a barrow cart of garbage bags the distance of 16 platform widths. Bottles kept falling out the bags, the narrow paths were clogged with traffic from other transporters, and in certain bends, rocks had to be cleared by hand just so the cart could pass through. We are now looking into alternative routes for transporting the waste or carts with more utility (ie: walled bins on wheels that the waste-pickers can throw the garbage bags into as opposed to wooden wheel barrows that the garbage bags are strapped to with string).



Other noted observations included the extended length of time it takes for passengers to alight from the sleeper (overnight) cars. Because the waste-pickers can only enter the cars after all passengers have alighted, the time they have to collect from the cars before the train pulls out of the platform is significantly shortened; as a result they are able to collect less recyclable waste to sell. We have suggested increasing the number of workers at the platform of each arriving sleeper train (taking them from the reserve of workers segregating waste at the workstation) to ensure that the maximum amount of waste can be collected.

Towards the end of our initial audit, I was tasked with working out a business model for the project. I did my first ever cost - revenue schedule on an Excel spreadsheet to calculate the surplus/shortfall of the project up to year 1 (and I didn't even need an i-banking internship to learn this!) I was able to project several scenarios for the project aimed at increasing revenue and lowering costs-- this will mainly have to be done through increasing the efficiency of the 60 waste-pickers we currently have at hand. The crux will have to be the strategic deployment of workers to platforms to ensure we are maximizing our volume of recyclables.

Since this post is getting rather long (and this blogger rather sleepy), I'll end with a series of shots taken during our project. After all, a picture is supposedly worth 1,000 words (and with captions probably 1,500!)


The waste-pickers say their uniforms have helped them gain more respect from train personnel, passengers, and the general passerby.


There is a sense of order to the waste we manage (inside). Sam stands outside with a pile of trash that has been dumped irresponsibly by anonymous parties.

Contrast is stark between the professionalism of Chintan's waste-pickers and the lack thereof of individual scavengers. (Chintan screens its workers for a history clean of 'smack' addictions, a rampant problem among waste-pickers)

(1) Bottle caps are removed, (2) remaining water is dumped into a tank to be used for cleaning out food waste from aluminum tin - no waste - (see below), (3) bottle is crushed and set in a bag to be weighed and sold.

Workers cleaning and segregating the aluminum tin from train lunches before leaving them out to dry.

Segregated waste is then weighed and sewed into these white bags before being taken to the junk-dealer.

Our week at the station ended with a delightful surprise from the NYT. It seems that they too had sent representatives of their own to scout out our station while we were there. The article definitely framed our work at the station in a wider, more relevant context:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/business/global/16indiarail.html



With more to come,
Michelle

Pre-d prep... or lack thereof?

There are only two more days until we depart for India!


Here's a rundown of my pre-departure preparation thus far:

1. I have mastered the following words in Hindi: namaste, chai, and minral vaatar. Go me! I'll be working hard over the next few days to expand my Hindi vocabulary for obvious reasons.

2. I have gotten my visa through Travisa's New York branch (which > Travisa's DC branch for reasons that Sam can elaborate on later..) I dropped it off on a Wednesday, and it was ready to be picked up by Friday, surprisingly quick for a non-US passport.

3. I have watched the movie Outsourced (2006) on Netflix-- hah, this probably counts as half a point. It was, however, full of cultural lessons that I made sure to write down. Among them were: eat with the right hand and not with the left, cows are sacred, locals like to add a lot of sugar in their chai (tea), don't wear good clothes on Holi, take your shoes off before entering a temple, etc. I'll be adding to this list as our days unfold in India.

4. I have gotten a hold of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children which will be my first read for the summer. (Note "will be".. I haven't actually cracked it open yet, oops!)


This is probably the extent of my preparation. I haven't even begun mentally preparing myself for the 45 degrees (or the 90 if you're American). I feel like I should be doing more to prepare over the next two days like learn how to make samosas or how to wear a sari. Ehh, or maybe I'll just wait to learn everything first hand when we reach Delhi... did I mention in two days??


Namaste,

Michelle