JUGAAD .... creativity from Northern Rural India

In Feb' 2009 I went to a marriage in Uttar Pradesh near Hathras city. It’s a rural area of Northern India. No malls, no multiplexes, no super bazaars, and no four lane road all things are just as typical like Indian rural areas. But suddenly I noticed one strange thing running on road, its an open engine vehicle having enough space for loading goods. This vehicle had really made a mark in mine memory. By seeing such a strange thing how one can stop himself from asking -"what is this item actually? Why it’s running on road? Is it legal? Is it running with petrol/diesel "?

Pic. I have taken this JUGAAD pic near Hathras.

I started collecting information for this strange vehicle, and my curiosity actually got multiplied when i heard its name, it’s called as "JUGAAD”. Jugaad a typical Hindi word used for making things working in given conditions by hook or crook. Luckily i met a guy who was driving JUGAAD from past 2 yrs. I asked him to tell me about Jugaad, he said "Jugaad comes with a diesel pump engine fixed on a suspension of army jeep chassis and a loading platform at the backside." He had purchased it in nearly 50,000 Rs. Jugaad price can vary between 50,000 - 85,000 Rs as it comes with variation like branded engines and tyres. When i asked him about license of Jugaad, he said "Jugaad has no license, no registration, and no other automobile standards constraint. All are so used to see it that nobody actually objects and to keep away cops we used to bribe them".
Jugaad is really serving many people livelihood in rural areas as they are used for carrying peoples (like city vans, jugaad can be seen carrying 30-35 peoples), loading crops from fields, loading fertilizer, seed and any kind of medium sized load similar to Mini Trucks. With Jugaad one can earn 5000-10,000 Rs per month. In Northern India, it’s one of the cheapest mode for mid size transportation.
Seeing JUGAAD one can’t ignore the creativity coming from rural India. They have very rightly developed a cheap alternate for costly four wheeler options present in Indian Market. On same lines one more name is coming to my mind, which Tata's Nano. It’s also a very creative approach towards making facilities available to common man. Jugaad is an iconic discovery of rural India, which really inspires us to thing radically.

Jugaad teaches us that invention did not need a huge setup, complex equations, sophisticated labs etc... But it needs only simplified and clear thought in right direction.

Posted in: Creative Thinking