Janarth is involved in Rural and Urban Development.

    The Rural Project is located around 350 kms north east of Mumbai in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra. We cover around 45 drought prone villages of Gangapur block of Aurangabad district. The weather is dry and the climate extreme. Rainfall averages 20 inches a year but is erratic and prone to failure. Temperature soars to 43 degrees C in summer and drops to 7- 8 degrees C in winter. Tree cover is almost absent. The soil is rich and fertile in most areas, but for want of adequate water, crop yields are poor. Just 6000 of the 37000 acres of cultivable land is irrigated and that too only seasonally. The main crops are Jowar [ millet ], Bajra, pulses [tur] and dry land cotton. Wheat and horse gram are taken where there is seasonal assurance of water. The villages chosen for intervention, being away from the main road are poor in infrastructure and government service coverage. Only 12 of the 45 villages have a middle school. Government health centers are at an average distance of 6.5 kms.

    The People : The population of the villages is approximately 40000. Nearly 80% of the families are either land less or small and marginal farmers. The primary occupation of the people is farming. Very few are engaged in trading and that too at local village level. The vagaries of nature have a direct and crippling effect on their economic condition. Literacy is low. In the initial phase of the project, it was as low as 13% among women. Continuing from this and the fact that they are interior villages, awareness levels regarding all matters relating to daily living were also low. Women were limited to their home and fields.
 

    The Urban Project area - the Aurangabad city, is a new and still growing city. Industrialization has been the major spur for its growth. Nearly 3 lakh of its 10 lakh population live in slums, both legal and illegal. We were working in 7 unauthorised slum settlements. Although illegal, all are stable as they have been there for more than 12 years and these slums are increasing in size everyday. However, civic amenities are poor. Houses are temporary sheds as the sense of insecurity prevents people from spending on them.

    The People residing in the slums of Aurangabad - including the ones we were working with are mostly first generation city dwellers. Almost all came to the city in search of livelihood, being pushed out by the hostile economic and social environments of their villages. Socially nearly 90% belong to the backward disadvantaged communities. Economically they were either land less or had marginal land holding. Unequipped with any skills required in the city, most work as unskilled labour - under contractors on buildings and factories, as house maids, rag pickers or small traders in their own slums. Literacy again, is low, among men, women and children.

    The Sakhar Shala project  is a fourth facet of our work which began in 2001 in Ahmednagar District. This is located in the zones of Sugar Factories where the migrant sugar cane cutters reside during the period of their migration. in 2002 we are working with 6 sugar factories, 5 of which are in the Ahmednagar district and one in Gangapur, Dist Aurangabad.

    The People come from different districts of Maharashtra, mostly belonging to Marathwada. They are families who are forced to leave their villages in search of labour during lean agricultural months. They stay away from their villages for nearly 6 months from October to April each year. As a result their children miss school and eventually drop out.