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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 8:56:24 pm

Growing Against the Grain

Part - 4 Name: Priya Salvi Where: Done, Thane district As Maharashtra’s villages face mounting pressure from chemical-intensive farming, water shortages, and rapid conversion of agricultural land to other uses, one woman farmer in Done (in Thane) is transforming her five-acre ancestral property into a working model of sustainable living. For Mumbai-based Priya Salvi, 56, the answer to the growing environmental crisis lies in returning to nature’s systems. On her farm, bananas, mangoes,...

Growing Against the Grain

Part - 4 Name: Priya Salvi Where: Done, Thane district As Maharashtra’s villages face mounting pressure from chemical-intensive farming, water shortages, and rapid conversion of agricultural land to other uses, one woman farmer in Done (in Thane) is transforming her five-acre ancestral property into a working model of sustainable living. For Mumbai-based Priya Salvi, 56, the answer to the growing environmental crisis lies in returning to nature’s systems. On her farm, bananas, mangoes, cashews and guavas thrive without synthetic chemicals, while fallen leaves, crop residue and pruned branches are recycled into manure and mulch. Armed with a Master’s degree in Horticulture from the Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Salvi’s journey to farming was unusual. She spent years tackling Mumbai’s daunting waste-management challenges before ‘retiring’ to a rural setup around 2008, to implement her ideas about sustainability into practice on the chunk of land owned by her family Done in Thane district. Today, the ‘Salvi Farm’ is regarded as an experiment in biodiversity, soil conservation, water harvesting and need-based living, besides providing food. Though far away from urban comforts, Salvi describes herself as a prosperous, happy and satisfied person in her tiny lush green paradise where she pursues her passion for farming minus any chemical inputs. “A lot of chemicals are used in modern agriculture which are causing environmental degradation and affecting human health,” Salvi tells The Perfect Voice. So far, she has directly or indirectly inspired and trained over 3000 farmers, including many women. After her graduation, Salvi joined the ‘Save Bombay Committee’ to promote solid waste management, and within four years the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) took her on board as a consultant on waste management. Perturbed by the utter lack of civic sense among both authorities and citizens, she launched awareness camps, introduced vermi-processing, helped develop the Advanced Locality Management (ALM) concept to create a functional network involving citizens and the civic body, earning global attention. Yet, despite years of work on waste management and agriculture, Salvi felt cut-off from Mother Nature – a feeling that eventually led her to take up full time farming. In the last 17 years, Salvi has run her family farm virtually solo, earning the respect of the villagers, the farming community, and the society at large. Her agro-philosophy is returning to the soil what comes from it, be it fallen leaves, crop straw, pruned branches and other biomass, by converting them into mulch or manure through vermi-processing and other natural processes. She adheres to optimum tillage – scraping only the upper layer of soil instead of repeatedly turning it over – for utilizing its natural potential rather than forcing it to produce through chemical inputs. “Sustainable farming must go with sustainable living… Once you live in a sustainable way, your needs are reduced and are met by farming,” she points out.

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Writer: Mangesh Kulkarni
Mangesh Kulkarni
Sep 9, 2024
3 min read

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Being the first person from the private sector to be appointed as chairperson of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as part of the government’s lateral initiative, Madhabi Puri Buch also holds the honour of being the first woman to hold the top post as capital market regulator.

But the laurels that the former private sector banker enjoyed in her earlier stint with ICICI Bank, was marred with allegations that she and her husband were having a stake in offshore entities, which were used to artificially inflate shares of Adani group companies.

Terming the allegation as `character assassination, Buch clarified that all disclosures have already been furnished and the fund in question did not invest in any securities involving the Adani group.

When it rains, it pours. This allegation was subsequently followed by Congress Party allegation that Buch had received salary and post-retirement benefits from ICICI Bank after she quit the private sector bank.

In its clarification to the stock exchanges, ICICI Bank asserted that the payments made to Buch were purely retirement benefits after her exit from the bank and they were neither salary nor employee stock options.

Prior to these allegations, Buch tenure at SEBI was all about bringing in quick reforms on operational issues by changing the format of consultation paper to bring in larger responses digitally. Being data savvy, the rationale of her decisions were democratic based on big data analysis derived from the responses received to the consultation papers.

Further she bifurcated the duties of the SEBI staff between operations and enforcement, which were done by the same persons earlier. Having worked for the private sector in the capital market domain space, Buch had a better understanding of the subject compared to officers from the administrative service in the past that reflected even in her orders as a whole-time director at SEBI before becoming the chairperson. As a whole time director at SEBI, her orders on adjudication issues were more directional to the capital market space, according to experts in the compliance space. She was also quick to revamp the old provisions of the 90s at SEBI.

Being tech and data savvy, Buch enhanced regulatory surveillance and detection of market manipulation, insider trading and fraud while also emphasizing on strengthening corporate governance by introducing stricter rules for independent directors and enhancing disclosures for related-party transactions.

To put in perspective, the annual report of the capital market regulator in the just concluded financial year revealed that the number of investigations related to insider trading jumped to 175 in 2023-24 from 85 in the preceding year while probes related to front running jumped over three times to 83 from 24 in the preceding year.

Transparency in mutual funds by implementing measures to protect retail investors along with tightening norms for initial public offers, particularly in the SME platforms were some of her other positive initiatives including confirmation of denial of any market rumours within 24 hours for the top 100 listed companies which will be extended to top 250 companies from December 1. However increased transparency and compliance with tightening regulations led to increased operational costs for the market participants and hence faced resistance from certain quarters. Born in 1966, Buch completed her primary education in Mumbai and graduated with specialization in Mathematics from Delhi and later obtained a management degree from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In between, she got engaged to Dhawal Buch, a director at a consumer goods multinational at the age of eighteen and got married at the age of 21.

Besides ICICI Bank, Buch also worked as a lecturer at a college in England, worked at Greater Pacific Capital in Singapore and ICICI Securities as its CEO. She also worked as executive director on several private sector companies and as a consultant for New Development Bank (Brics Bank).

What now remains to be seen, is whether Buch, who survived the 26/11 terror attack when she along with her husband, was attending a meeting at Taj, be able to overcome the current ordeal. Keeping fingers crossed for the times to come.

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