ACM GIDF in Partnership with IIPM also Supports IIPM's Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Kendra.
In the mid–nineties, Dr. Malay Chaudhuri, the Founder-Director of IIPM initiated the Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Kendras, in memory of his younger son Aurobindo Chaudhuri. Aurobindo was a highly passionate individual, who was eager to work for the poor, the marginalized and the downtrodden. He was actively associated with IIPM’s initial rural development and entrepreneurial training programmes. But, when at a young age of 19, he met with a fatal road accident, Dr. Chaudhuri pledged that he would do his best to accomplish whatever he had undertaken to do for the villages in India. That’s when the Aurobindo Chaudhuri Memorial Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Kendras were instituted in 1994. Additionally, he

also pledged to try and do whatever Aurobindo could have done, had he been alive. Today there are about 100 (at one time the number was around 450). Aurobindo Chaudhuri Memorial Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Kendras in the East Midnapore district of West Bengal and in the Balasore district of Orissa. The dream is to have one Kendra in each village of India.

One of the main activities at the Aurobindo Chaudhuri Memorial Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Kendras is to set up a newspaper board at a convenient location in the village, so that all villagers, especially women, who can read but cannot afford to buy a newspaper, develop the habit of reading newspapers. Every day a different newspaper is displayed on the same stand so that villagers get acquainted with different shades of opinion on an issue. If it is an important issue, there are provisions to display alternative thinkings at the bottom of the board. These boards have been named Mukta Patrika and Vikalpa. Most newspapers are influenced by the political views of one party or the other. They even print false or distorted versions of an event to suit their political lines. In this sense most newspapers are ‘view papers’. The newspapers on the newspaper boards hence carry alternative opinion/solution to share arguments with readers in order to generate debate and discussions. The scheme’s novelty has generated excitement among villagers. They really read, discuss and debate on issues.

Aurobindo Chaudhuri Memorial Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Kendra organizes Mukta Melas (Free fairs), where villagers of all ages come together and display their skill in music, song, dance, magic, elocution, etc. without any direct interference from any Director/Producer of the show. An audience gathers around a performer and encourages or discourages them. This opportunity to present oneself before audience without any restrictions imposed by the Director/producer helps develop confidence in these villages. Sometimes Mukta Melas are organized with participants and audience from three to five villages. Obviously villagers enjoy the atmosphere and reports mention the waves of joy that run through the villagers when Mukta Melas are held. The Kendras organize Mukta Chintar Asar (free thinking, gathering) for elderly villagers, who are, otherwise, lonely. They share their experience and social thinking with one another and with interested youth in the village. Sometimes experts are invited from towns and cities to lecture on a relevant topic.

Apart from the above mentioned initiatives, these Kendras have also initiated various health centres and mobile medical camps, whereby, once every week, a doctor from the nearest city or district headquarters is brought in to treat the villagers.

The Kendras are also strongly engaged in providing primary education to children, whose parents cannot afford to send their kids to schools outside the village. Teachers at these schools spend extra hours beyond the classroom sessions to provide free tuitions to students who need extra academic support. The kendras have also initiated various skill development programmes beyond the class Xth level, whereby candidates are offered courses in Computers and Entrepreneurship, with an intent to make them self-employed or get through basic jobs, which otherwise, they fail to get due to non-qualifications. To promote this cause, Institute of Computer and Entrepreneurship has been one of the most recent initiatives of the Aurobindo Chaudhuri Memorial Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Kendras.

The kendras at different points of time have also participated in various humanitarian programmes – Tsunami relief in Tamil Nadu, cyclone and flood relief in Orissa and Bengal, Earthquake relief in Gujarat and Uttarakhand and even taking up initiatives like the Clean Gaya Project (read below) to clean the streets of Gaya as a complete private initiative.