Firecrackers of Sivakasi - A peacock story

Till the year 2010, a peacock box had always accompanied my dad’s Diwali bonus while my dad had always concerned about how to split the bonus money for various purchases, my brother and I had always concerned about how to split that peacock box which had separate cracker boxes inside. Being an elder one, my brother forever did the inauguration, where boxes of flower pots, chakras, poppers, sparklers, bombs will be laid down open followed by a crucial splitting.  When it comes to splitting it has never been a happy story for me as there is a strategic game rule framed by my brother that never favored me in history and the rule goes like this; Within 30 seconds one has to grab as much as they can with both their hands when the timer ends whatever one posses will be their share to burst. Eventually, my brother always won a bigger share since he always had bigger hands than me.

Today thinking about Diwali arriving next month unleashed abundance of real stories within me and it has also made me to think about “what might be the story that our favorite peacock box could tell us if it can speak”. Won’t it tell us its story being born in Sivakasi, jam-packed by thousands of workers and travelled all the way to our home to brighten our festival? So let us decipher the supply chain of Sivakasi crackers to understand the value that each peacock box carried and carries.

The Location Advantage 

Sivakasi, a land often hit by drought, often left with no water for agriculture potentially turned out to be an ideal location for manufacturing any fire related goods. Though it might seem to be a man made choice, the land of Sivakasi is naturally gifted with the abundance of sunlight letting it to happily cherish the cracker making and match stick making unlike any places in India. Especially, the cracker industry is so massive that it satisfies 90% of the India’s crackers demand.

The human force Advantage 

After location, availability of large workforce is the next factor that gives a supplementary boost to this industry. Major works in the fire cracker production requires physical tasks which suits the people in and below the poverty line of Sivakasi to ace manufacturing without the need of any formal education.

                                           

Clubbing the two primary resources the production process begins with the procurement of raw materials which varies with each type of cracker. Like iron rod for sparklers, strings for various bomb, paper rolls for poppers etc. yet the common chemical raw material that is used is the barium nitrate which is necessary for all sparkling night burnt ones. Following the procurement the manufacturing happens in the several cottage industries which is set far from the main town area to prevent substantial damages if any accidents might occur. Drying in the next stage after manufacturing and followed by which the packing happens. Finally, the primary selling happens between the manufacturer to distributor and the secondary selling happens between manufacturer to the retailer and lastly from retailer to customer.

Current Challenges 

Fire cracker industry in Sivakasi is an $800 million commerce that has been providing livelihoods to millions but in 2018 India’s cracker ban was an ultimate shock to the town which was relying on it for the next day meal. Though the ban focused on curb of air pollution the industry didn’t see it coming so soon. To bring in a win – win situation PESO (Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization) suggested Indian government on regulating the terms on production of fire cracker which avoided harmful chemicals like barium nitrate. PESO also enforced to initiate the production of green crackers rather than the conventional one. 

Green crackers require altogether a different chemical binding which causes less air pollution and the chemical mixture is yet to be proven at the labs. For Sivakasi, a town which found life out of barren land won’t see green crackers as an end but a new challenge to rise even higher than yesterday.  On the other hand, Sivakasi crackers union believe that Tuticorin port with an improvement on infrastructure will be a potential place to kick start the export of their crackers to speak the story of finest handmade crackers across the globe. #Happy_learning9

                                                                                       -Roobaswathiny A (Amrita School of Business)

                                                                                                                              

Supply Chain Of India's Mid Day Meals Scheme

 

“Centralization and Decentralization” are two sides of a supply chain coin, which influences the decision making of a SC manager. Centralization is a location strategy where supply chain majorly performs being located at one central location; on the other hand decentralization is where the supply chain operations are dispersed across various locations. These uniquely attributed models have their own style of creating credibility in the value chain; that eventually brings in more challenge for the SC manager while choosing one over the other. And today, India’s Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) will be our learning companion that will help us to understand the centralization and decentralization model better.

India, a fruitful young country with 39% of its population being below 18 till date fights against one giant monster called poverty.  As a country India cannot afford to lose these young inquisitive minds or the nation’s future promise to the threat of starvation and undernourishment. The “Mid Day Meal Scheme” introduced around the year 1960’s at Tamil Nadu brought in a new ray of hope in the improvement of school children’s nourishment as well as  in the increased enrollment  of children in the school. Following Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Gujarat were the other two states who also officially initiated the scheme around 1980’s. Currently across India more than 12 states have successfully implemented the MDMS.

The main operational objective of the Mid Day Meal Scheme is to prepare and deliver the tasty nutritious food to all the Government school children till upper primary class. The model which was followed first and foremost was the “decentralized kitchen” where every school had a kitchen setup either within or at a closer proximity and a monitoring person takes care of raising the orders, purchasing the orders and distributing the orders to the culinary staffs. The kitchen should make sure that meal is ready before the clock strikes 12pm for the children to come have their lunch. Having said about the simplicity, the decentralized model suffered from major disadvantages like;

• Lack of standardized food quality
• Complexity in monitoring the MDMS as the numbers of silos were high
• More operating costs
• Lack of appropriate infrastructure at schools to set up the kitchen (2004 Kumbakonam kitchen fire accident is one unforgettable tragedy which took away lives of 94 children due to poor infrastructure which wasn't suitable for possessing a kitchen the school had)

State government saw “centralized kitchen” as a potential solution for the challenges of decentralized model. And this centralized kitchen is usually a public-private partnership where NGOs worked with the government to prepare and distribute the meal; relatively these NGOs rely on governments, foundations, corporations and individual donors to run their operational expenses. These centralized kitchens are built to handle larger capability with automated and semi automated machinery set up. Along with capacity the centralized model also aimed at;

• Standardized process of food making which ensure right quality of nourishments
• Better hygienic practices
• Better data management system by reducing the number of silos
• Achieving the economies of scale
• Maintaining a standardized infrastructure with all precautionary safety measures 

                                                    Value chain of centralized kitchen model

Unlike the decentralized kitchen in centralized kitchen the necessity of transportation makes it more suitable for urban areas with more densely located schools. The closer the schools lay the better the timeliness and farther schools lay greater the response time will be. 

Across India there are various NGOs who act as MDMS stakeholder in food preparation and distribution unit and some of them are; Akshaya Patra Foundation,  Ekta Shakti Foundation, Naandi Foundation, and Jay Gee Humanitarian Society & People's Forum. Though MDMS scheme have been partially introduced before independence it has taken it's complete structure after independence and since then the scheme's contribution towards chasing the classroom hunger is massive. Passing the ups and downs today for some parents it is the motivation to send their children to school. #Happy_Learning 8 

                                                                                                            -Roobaswathiny A