Verghese Jacob of Byraju Foundation addresses the CEO Forum at XLRI on Tuesday. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, Aug. 19: It was time for slide presentations and discussions at XLRI.

Verghese Jacob of Byraju Foundation addressed the CEO Forum on the importance of resource allocation today. Jacob delivered an intriguing presentation and discussed the core values of resource allocation.

“Knowing the contingencies of resource allocation is important for those pursuing human resource development,” said Jacob.

He explained this with examples from the Andhra Pradesh Byraju Foundation, involved in applying knowledge. “The foundation works for rural transformation and has adopted 199 villages of Andhra Pradesh.”

One has to start with identifying and then involving the people. Recent studies show 3,000 to 4,000 people of each hamlet are below the poverty line. Through resource allocation Byraju aims to transform the rural scenario.

Applying knowledge comes next. “The principles learnt in this institute will help if knowledge is applied with it,” said Jacob.

Theoretical knowledge is a waste if not applied in the right direction. Jacob said students are being taught the trickling-down effect according to which resources are transmitted from the cities to smaller areas but here proper application of knowledge is essential.

The foundation inverts the pyramid and shuns the traditional paradigm. It believes in resource allocation from the village, for the village and then to the rest of the world.

Jacob strongly opposes labour arbitrage and motivates each village to develop itself in a self-reliant way. He runs 40 programmes in 199 villages for primary health care. Every third village has a water treatment plant and each house has a proper sanitation facility.

At the Byraju Foundation the objective is to make things happen. “A man may have the heart to do something but not the hand to make it happen,” said Jacob. In the rural MBA programme villagers are being taught entrepreneurship — the easy way.

Besides this, the foundation is also raising funds to set up a community television and radio, which will be managed by villagers themselves. A livelihood skill programme is also at work through which unemployment is being eradicated and each villager, including women, is being allocated work.

Centres for vocational training are also being set up. The literary programmes are also running successfully. Jacob said programme Ashwini — a rural BPO programme —is a cut above the rest.

Students got an in-depth idea about the execution of ideas at the grassroots level. They sure were bubbling with effective ideas and solutions for resource development.

“We learnt so much during the session. It will surely help us to run similar campaigns,” said Rahul Sinha, a student of the human resource development at XLRI.

Smriti Gupta, who was also pursuing a degree in the same study, said: “The host of initiatives taken by the foundation has motivated us to design such projects once we complete our studies.”