Thread by @alok_bhatt

I came across a beautiful concept called “SheHaat”on Nahan-Kumarhatti highway. Brainchild of then Sirmour DC and a localite; this project helped reinforce my belief in the “son of the soil” theory delivering results, when it comes to bureaucracy!

Best part is that the walls of the facility have the pic of the man- whose brainchild it was- displayed prominently. Every women I spoke to, swore by him. His name is Dr Raj Krishna Prithu and he is a Himachal PCS officer promoted to IAS.

The facility came up on a panchayat land and was built by the Govt. It was then given to a group of 25 local women for running. All the women are trained in kitchen work, handicrafts, accounts and running the stores. There is a skill development unit attached to the facility

Food that is served is mostly local Sirmouri cuisine and is cooked by local women. Facility opens at 7am and remains open till 7 pm. Women involved in running kitchen/restaurant do 4 hour shift while those running stores/accounts do an 8 hour shift

The facility has a spotlessly clean bathroom complex - better than Cheetal that redefined highway experience on Doon-Delhi highway.

Woman on right drives this electric auto to fetch water from the near by spring- yes they don’t serve bottle water for drinking - so what u get is pure mountain spring water. This auto is also used to procure local veggies from nearby villages

That cart u can see on right - can’t find my pic of the cart- is used for displaying local veggies that is sold by the group to add to their profit…

Food that is served is mostly local and is cooked in traditional way

https://twitter.com/alok_bhatt/status/1484868103716544512

There is a store within the facility that sells products made/ produced by this group and other women SHGs. One of the woman proudly told me how they sold salt worth 70,000 last year. We may not value this figure but for a rural woman, sense of pride was written all over her face

Since land has been given by the panchayat, they get to keep 5% of monthly profits, 25% goes to Govt to help them recover their initial costs of setting up and 70% is distributed amongst 25 stakeholders

But natural for a CA in me to ask about their profits and how thet calculate it. So the cashier told me how they have moved to Busybee from tally & now all they have to do is to close the stock to arrive at the profit fig-she was confident abt her cost of production being right!

They have 2 guest rooms as well and whenever they hee a guest, a local male caretaker comes and attends to them. So male intervention is only limited to dealing with guests and that too after 7 pm- he is paid by the group. Room was well maintained and they charge 1500 per night

Since local tehsil is attached to the facility, so they have an assured income in the form of guests who come to tehsil for work. Food was reasonably priced - a Sirmouri thali costs 150- was peanuts for the kind of food they serve!

Although the group is reinvesting in their business, but they told me that their per person average take home is 3500 per month. The sense of pride in her voice was no less than that of a BSE listed entrepreneur declaring his/her company’s bumper results!

All in all an amazing concept that can be replicated across Ukd on every highway- sadly we have no one like RK Pruthi!

Uttarakhand need not look anywhere - just replicate everything that works in Himachal as it is & enjoy the fruits of the hardwork and that includes using more n more of local bureaucracy for transformation……but in the end, our society too need to change its outlook as well!