Cooperation, Coordination, Service & Success- Making Sustainability a way of life (Dayalbagh Way of Life)
Cooperation , Coordination, Service & Success — these terminologies are always being used in every organisation whether Huge Multinationals or Small businesses because we can only achieve success by implementing these principles. Every organisation has its own mission and vision to achieve and they have their organisational goal, but to reach to a grand success or final goal, we have to form some departmental goals and these are further divided as roles and responsibilities for an individual.To reach the final goal each and every person in the organisation has to work towards his/her goals, then departmental goals and finally organisational goal. This blog focuses on Dayalbagh way of life, where whole Dayalbagh community is using Six Sigma Q in their day to day life. Lets focus on each Six sigma Q factor with reference to Dayalbagh way of life to understand much better.
Innovation- Many of the programs at Dayalbagh and DEI are designed to get children to be early explorers. one of its initiative is “Tod-Mod-Jod”(De-construct, Bend, Re-create) program which helps children to build curiosity and help them become innovators, creators & inventors.
Human Values- Human values in a Dayalbagh way of life is all about purity, commitment, dedication, hard work, honesty & simplicity. People in Dayal bagh believe in simple living & high thinking and, they are living in Economic way of living, where there are all facilities for a healthy life. Dayalbagh community people neither live in village or a city but are very responsive about environment, sensible about education, safety, energy, physical, mental and spiritual health and finally conscious about service to others. The Dayal bagh colony is a self-sustained ,and people here lead active, disciplined & co-operative community life.Their daily routine starts from offering prayers in the lotus feet of ultimate god and then they perform field services. Surprisingly we can find everybody in the fields including their Spiritual leader, President, Director, professors & students. After field services people in Dayalbagh follow their respective profession and finally the day ends with evening prayer. One of the important factor is people in Dayalbagh are non-voilent and they have love for every human being and mutual harmony with all living beings. Dayalbagh community has its own land for Agriculture, Small model industries for manufacturing their daily need goods like clothes, shoes, basic medicines etc and basic fundamentals for each & every transaction that takes place in the community is “NO Profit, No Loss”.
Water Quality- The portable water in Dayalbagh is obtained from Mubaarak Kuan (Well)in Dayalbagh (where the foundation of Dayalbagh was laid by the 5th spiritual leader of Radhasoami faith)to Dayalbagh people. The non-portable water in Dayalbagh is used in two ways, one rises from kitchen, bathing, washing clothes & other household chores. This flows into a network of drains that discharges into open ponds and is used for irrigation and ground water recharge.Other rises from sewers and toilets of each household and this gets collected into septic tanks behind every house. In these septic tanks due to bacterial degradation the BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand which is a measure of organic content) is reduced by 60%. The overflow of effluent from septic tanks is led through the sewerage system to a common collection tank. From here the effluent is pumped into an oxidation pond where BOD decreases to nearly 10 ppm as the water is further treated. Such independent processing system exists for each Mohalla of Dayalbagh. The treated water is used to irrigate land for agricultural produce. In addition, effluents collected from a large area within northern part of Agra are sent to a Sewage Treatment Plant located at Jaganpur, about 5 KM north of the Dayal bagh Colony. A 14 MLD (million litre per day) STP was commissioned in 2011 under an agreement between Agra Nagar Nigam and Dayalbagh, where Dayalbagh provided land for setup of the STP at a nominal cost. The plant provides 14 MLD (Million Litre per day) of treated effluent for the Agricultural Farms of Dayalbagh. Excess water from STP is released to the River Yamuna for downstream usage. The whole process of recycling of water ensures lesser water demand from the Yamuna river and also ensures that the Yamuna does not get polluted through untreated effluents being discharged into it.
Agriculture & Dairy- In Dayalbagh area, there are nearly 1531 acres of agricultural farms where cereals, pulses, oil seeds, vegetables, fruits, cash crops (potato, sugarcane, etc.) and fodder are cultivated. Farming activities are eco-friendly and based on organic farming techniques that helps in soil conservation and enrichment. Both traditional and modern agricultural practices are adopted here. Agriculture is supplemented by Gaushala wastes for meeting out its manure requirement. Cooperative efforts are made in performing different agricultural activities and no chemical substances like insecticides, fungicides, weedicides or chemical fertilizers are used. The agricultural produce of Dayalbagh is sufficient to meet the requirement of the residents and the pilgrims who come for short visits. Dayalbagh agriculture also includes Horticulture, there are orchards of mango, Jack fruit (Artocarpus spp.), Guava (Psidium) and various citrus species along with many other fruit trees to provide large canopy cover as well as a supply of some fruit. Dayalbagh has its own cattle yard with over 800 head of cattle which fulfills the milk requirement of the residents. Its fodder requirements are met internally round the year. Animal waste is recycled and used as manure in fields. The dairy produces pasteurized milk and several milk products employing the most advanced techniques. These products are also sent outside the country.The construction of green-belts has been an important feature of land use planning in Dayalbagh. These are in the form of a tree corridor all along the Yamuna river bank, in agricultural and farming areas, and, areas earmarked for timber plantation. The western part of Dayalbagh eco-village has triangular patches of dense plantations reaching the bank of the Yamuna. While most of the uneven land has been leveled and converted into well-formed green fields, in some areas the uneven topography remains. This area is being used for cultivating crops such as taramira, growing trees such as amla and some timber plantation. An orchard of citrus fruits has also been established in this area.
Air Quality — People in Dayalbagh breathe fresh air this is because there is no pollution.The Dayalbagh Campus is completely green campus and government declared it as eco –village. The Peacocks and many other birds can be seen in the campus. Due to restrictions in oil operated vehicles in the campus, there is no air and sound pollution.To make Dayalbagh residential area pollution free, the mineral oil or gas operated motor bikes are strictly prohibited, and the car usage is also restricted. The mode of transportation in Dayalbagh is bicycle, solar van and e-rickshaws. The old age people use solar van or battery operated vehicle. Most of the people prefer to use the bicycle, because with the use of bicycle environment is protected, it is a good exercise and keeps you close to nature. While doing so people inhale fresh air and brain and heart become strong, healthy and active .
Education & Health care — For all round developments of human being education at all three levels are important namely, physical, mental and spiritual. The founding principle of Dayalbagh Educational Institute says- Institution is “In service of the lowliest, the least and the last of mankind. DEI opened its first school in 1917 and developing further it came up with Middle shool, Higher educational and for the cause of Women’s education, Prem Vidhyalaya was started in 1930, wherein 80% of the students come from extremely poor families and regions within India. In one of his blog’s Dr Budd Hall( UNESCO Co-Chair on Community-based Research & Social Responsibility in Higher Education, Professor Emeritus, University of Victoria, Canada) stated that Of the many stories of higher education innovation that were presented, the story of Dayalbagh Educational Institution, provided the most complete example of a contemporary higher education institution incorporating practices that could be said to reflect Gandhian principles. I was reminded of the visit that they had made to Agra for a field visit to Dayalbagh in April of 2015. What was fascinating is that Dayalbagh Educational Institute was founded in the early 20th Century by followers of the Radhaswami faith, many years before Gandhi’s own ideas on education were to be articulated and practiced. The goals of Dayalbagh are to reach the least, the last, the lowest and the lost. This corresponds well with the Gandhian concept of Antyodaya, or service to the last or lowest person. Fees are kept low so young people of little means may attend.In the present educational system everyone talks about physical and mental education for better outer self, but no one talks about better inner-self i.e. spiritual education. In Dayalbagh, The education is offered at all three levels and tried to maintain a balance between outer self and inner self to develop a complete person. From nursery and play center level to university level, low cost quality education integrated with proper blends of ethical, moral and spiritual values, to make people more duty conscious and develop patriotism. The university education is multidisciplinary and work experience based education. University has signed MoU and collaborations with many national institutions (such as IIT, Delhi, Tata Institute of Social Science Pune, DRDO, Delhi etc.) and international universities like University of Waterloo, University of Marryland, etc.) University is offering vocational courses in synchronous and distance mode to remote rural areas to uplift rural people. It has 94 such centers in India. DEI is awarded „A‟ Grade by National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). We believe in innovation. A lot of experimental work and research are going on in the area of solar power generation, efficient utilization and storage.
Coming to the Healthcare aspect everyone in Dayalbagh follows a set routine, which makes a person healthier and disease free. All the people in Dayalbagh are pure vegetarian, because non-vegetarian food is heavy and increase calories. Furthermore, it creates problems in settling up the mind during meditation. Scientifically also it is proven that non vegetarian food is not good for health as well as slaughter houses contribute a lot to greenhouse emissions. Below are the facts & figures from https://climatenexus.org/
There is no meat shop in the area. For day-to-day problems person prefer to take alternate therapy such as physiotherapy, homeopathic and ayurvedic medicines, whose side effects are not there. If it is essential, then only go for allopathic treatment. Normally, the person here eats simple non-spicy food and takes care of calorific intake and calories burnt, which shows their health consciousness.
This is all about the self-less service Dayalbagh community is performing. in my view this is the sum of Dayalbagh way of life. I found it really interesting because it not only adds human values but also spiritual values for inner peace. I have personally been there for 5 years and have completed graduation and post graduation inculcating all these values.
And I am more than happy to share that in recent times during this Covid-19 pandemic, not a single case has been observed in Dayalbagh Community, because of early precautions & measures taken such as social distancing, Sanitizing practices, wearing mask & helmet in day to day life.
References :-
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277016120_Dayalbagh_Way_of_Life_for_Better_Worldliness
climatenexus.org/climate-issues/food/animal-agricultures-impact-on-climate-change/
