Meet the IIT Kharagpur Alumnus who gave up His Job to Help Farmers

Vishal Singh – an alumnus of the reputed IIT-Kharagpur and former Dean of Centurion University, Odisha, decided to devote his life for the welfare of people. Vishal started his NGO – Kaivalya Vichar Seva Samiti (KVSS) after he left his job in 2016.

Coming from a farming background, Vishal pursued agriculture engineering from Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT). After completing his graduation, he was determined to help the farmers in reducing their labor.

After some ground-breaking research in Orissa, Vishal realized that lack of proper farming means was not the only issue. Children of these villages have no access to education, food and even clothes. Moved by the plight of the people Vishal decided to pursue a post-graduation course from the Agricultural and Food Engineering Department of IIT-Kharagpur.

He got his NGO registered in 2012 and started working to provide basic education to the deprived children of Soladahar and Gopali villages, Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal.

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With the support of his professors, alumni and friends from IIT-Kharagpur and OUAT, Vishal was able to expand KVSS and its services to cover Mayurbhanj, Bargarh and Gajapati district of Odisha along with Chandauli, Etah, Aligarh and Lucknow in Uttar-Pradesh.

By the time Vishal got a job offer from an MNC in 2013, KVSS was joined by over 400 volunteers from institutes like IIT-Bhubaneswar, Banaras Hindu University, NIT Jamshedpur, Allahabad University, OUAT, Jharkhand Central University and various other reputed educational institutes in India.

In 2014, KVSS was successful in providing direct services to 2,500 children. These services included free food, clothes distribution, education and health checkup. After achieving these basic goals, Vishal decided to work for his primary initiative, i.e. farming.

Vishal and the rest of the KVSS team met with various tribal communities to offer them help regarding food, clothes, etc. They counselled them to start a self-sustained livelihood for themselves by farming and selling their produce.

KVSS attempted to resolve the farming issues and promoted organic model of farming for the marginal and semi-marginal farming communities in order to help them earn a living. The team educated these farmers regarding the production and use of compost to get a better yield and benefits of organic farming.

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Vishal, who wanted to dedicate his life towards the betterment of society, was in a dilemma when his parents did not support his decision to leave his job. He understood that being the eldest son of a middle-class family, it would be difficult to switch from earning a lakh a month to nothing.

KVSS has helped 5,000 children and 8,000 farmers so far and continues to come up with solutions for uplifting the underprivileged people of the society.

Image Courtesy: The Better India