Kisan Mitra a Helping Hand for Farmers
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Kisan Mitra a helping hand for farmers 2017-2019 Centre for Sustainable Agriculture 12-13-485/5, Nagarjuna Nagar, Tarnaka, Secunderabad-5000 17 [email protected], http://www.csa-india.org Kisan Mitra Forward Dear all At Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), we are always concerned about the We were always worried about the broken governance of the agriculture support systems which is mainly responsible for the crisis in Agriculture. CSA in partnership with various institutions, civil society organizations and volunteers was trying to bring to the cracks in the system and how small and marginal farmers, tenant farmers, women farmers, tribal farmers etc slip off and fall a prey to the distress. To address this crisis, Centre for Sustainable Agriculture and Rytu Swarajya Vedhika (RSV) in partnership district administrations of Adilabad, Mancherial and Vikarabad have started an initiative to improve the governance of agriculture support systems and enhance the access to entitlements by removing the stumbling blocks at the departmental level. This report covers two years of the journey ‘Kisan Mitra’ team in extending a helping hand for the distress rural households. We tried to pickup some case studies to present the nature of the problems we came across. We are thankful for the district administrations of Vikarabad,Adilabad and Mancherial for the partnership and their financial support. We are specially thankful to Divya Devarajan, who was Collector of Vikarabad and later Adilabad for being the guiding soul. Thanks are also due to R V Karnan and Bharati Hollikeri Collectors of Mancherial whose help was immense in making this happen. The District Agricultural Officers, Bankers, Officials of Revenue Department and all others who constantly extended their support helped us to improve the systems. We are thankful for the district administrations of Vikarabad, Adilabad and Mancherial for their financial support along with AID India. The effort of volunteers specially Ravi, Kiran, Asha Latha, Naveen, Kondal from Rytu Swarajya Vedhika are commendable in solving the issues and following up with officials. With these learnings, we are planning to scale up the initiative and would be very happy to partner with any organization, institution, network. Individuals who want to volunteer please contact us. Ramanjaneyulu Centre for Sustainable Agriculture PAGE 2 Kisan Mitra What is Kisan Mitra A helping hand for farmers Last mile delivery of farmers’ support services and entitlements is a challenge and majority of the small and marginal farmers do not have access to credit, insurance, subsidies, extension, market and other Kisan Mitra aims to improve access to services from the governments. Access to support systems and entitlements for rural the entitlements like NREGA, PDS, Pensions population, by facilitation at the individual and others are also not reachable to the level, setting up systems for improving governance and a grievance and redressal needy. This is mainly due to fragile system at the district level institutions, weak regulatory frameworks and inadequate administrative capacities. The departments work in silos and the information is not available in public domain and decisions taken are not transparent. We took three-pronged approach to improve the governance of agriculture to improve access to support systems and entitlements for rural population. One, Kisan Mitra a helpline which takes calls from farmers and does a problem diagnosis, register it with the concerned official. A volunteer, field staff of NGOs/FPOs are trained to facilitate the process at the grassroot level. Two, defining good practices to resolve the cases, setting up roles and responsibilities and key performance indicators at the department level, and Three, grievance and redressal system at the district level under the leadership of the District collector to review and resolve pending cases. PAGE 3 Kisan Mitra Kisan Mitra Helpline was initially set up to address the problems faced by distressed farmers of Vikarabad district in the state of Telangana in 2017 when the incidents of farmer suicides was high. This helpline was launched on Ambedkar Jayanti, on 14th April 2017 by Centre for Sustainable Agriculture with the support of the district administration and volunteers of Rytu Swarajya Vedhika. Kisan Mitra has now expanded to two other districts Adilabad and Mancherial in Telangana. PAGE 4 Kisan Mitra How Kisan Mitra Call Centre Functions Centre for Sustainable Agriculture has developed an ERP system to connect all the stakeholders and the Centralized Help Line is the key coordinating link. The cases are entered into a databased, analysed and passed on to the respective officials for resolution. The Kisan Mitra team facilitates with the caller as well as the concerned official to resolve the case. If the case is pending beyond the agreed timelines, is escalated to the district administration level to resolve. The District administration takes up review every fortnight to resolve the pending cases. Kisan Mitra Advisory Team Coordination team: Two (Coordinator and Case analyst) Call Centre Team: Two per district District level Team: Coordination team: Two (District Coordinator, Assistant Coordinator) Field Team: 5-6 (Field staff, volunteers or staff of NGOs/FPOs etc) PAGE 5 Kisan Mitra The current status Since inception Kisan Mitra Helpline has received 9980 cases from the three districts of Adilabad, Mancherial and Vikarabad. The field team also visit villages, organize camps, discussions to collate the problems and provide information on how to access entitlements and support services. The team also facilitate the individuals or groups in problem diagnosis and submit to concerned official in the departments. In the last two years 60.3% of the cases could be resolved (some of them were pending for more than two years). In rest of the cases, either issue was complex or some of the policy changes may have to happen. District Date of Cases Resolved Pending Name Launch Received Adilabad 7-02-2018 3540 1903 1637 Mancherial 29-03-2018 1205 411 794 Vikarabad 14-04-2017 5235 3702 1533 Total 9980 6016 3964 Source: Review reports as on 31st December, 2019. PAGE 6 Kisan Mitra Kisan Mitra Impact Areas ● Distress/Suicide Farmer Families ● Pesticide Poisoning ● Distress Case Counselling & Relief ● Education for children & Livelihood support ● Ex-Gratia & other beneficiary schemes ● Welfare schemes being targeted to Distressed & Needy ● Improving Access to Credit ● Resolving land title related issues ● Feed back to the district and state level bankers committees ● Facilitating ~5000 Loan Eligibility Cards (LEC) cards & Joint Liability Group (JLG) Loans for Tenant Farmers (three Districts) ● Crop Loss & Compensation ● Improving Policies like PMFBY(Crop Insurance) by feedback ● Analysis and presentations on natural disasters like drought, floods, Hailstorms etc ● Improving access to markets ● Open procurement centres ● Timely payments ● Other support systems ● Electricity issues like Transformer Issues, Loose Wires, New connections to villages etc., ● Water supply and Irrigation/Canal related issues proactively resolved ● Grouping of Issues of FPOs, SHGs and collectively representing & Solving ● Revenue & Rythu Bandhu Issues followed up & communicated ● Improving Regulations: Seeds, Pesticides etc District Agriculture Revenue Marketing Total Resolved Total Resolved Total Resolved Adilabad 1699 479 1012 502 329 293 Mancherial 478 143 448 129 29 18 Vikarabad 1827 1402 2143 1203 250 249 Total 4004 2024 3603 1834 608 267 Source: Review reports as on 31st December, 2019. PAGE 7 Kisan Mitra With A Single Phone Call Farmers Are Getting Help From Government Officials, Thanks To Kisan Mitra Helpline https://thelogicalindian.com/my-social-responsibility/kisan-mitra/ How a rural distress helpline in Telangana is preventing farmer suicides Set up in 2017, Kisan Mitra provides counselling to distressed farmers and acts as a bridge between them and the government. https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/how-rural-distress-helpline- telangana-preventing-farmer-suicides-101218 PAGE 8 Kisan Mitra What Next? With the success of initial pilot in three districts of Telangana, CSA is planning to scale up the Kisan Mitra with a twin objectives of improving the governance of agriculture support systems and improving the access for rural poor for entitlements and support systems. Institutionalizing the systems, defining the key performance indicators and establishing an independent monitoring system are part of the future plans in scaling up. Farmer Producer Organisations, SHG groups, Farmer Service Centres at the village level can become good anchors to facilitate the processes at the grassroot level. Central Team District Level District Level Coordination Coordination Farmer Farmer Farmers direct Field Field Women SHGs Service Producer calls coordinators coordination Centres Organisations The problem diagnostic tools developed are open sourced and any organization interested in partnering or replicating the process are welcome. Independent assessment of performance of the agriculture support systems is an important agenda and Centre for Sustainable Agriculture in partnership with National and International organisations is in the process of setting up ‘Agriwatch’ a civil society monitoring system on the performance of district, state and central governments on certain indicators on the ecological sustainability of the farming, economic well-being of the farmers and the health and nutrition