Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Mumbai Supported
Sustainable Agriculture & NREGA
Volume II
Progress Report making & Sustainable Sustainable & making - May – July 2010
District, Karnataka District,
JANAKALYAN
A Team Committed for People’s Empowerment
inRaichur Shantinagar, R H Colony No.4, Sindhanur-584128 Raichur District, Karnataka State, India Tel: +91 8535-264488, 264140, email: [email protected] website: www.jankalyan.in Agriculture Profit Agriculture
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make to NREGAFunds Leveraging
Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
District & NREGA at a Glance
Raichur is the most backward (last ranked) district in Karnataka as per HDI and thus Government of India considered implementation of NREGA in the very first phase among the 200 districts brought under the umbrella of this ambitious scheme in India. Fortunately, Government of Karnataka assigned the responsibility of preparing 5-year Perspective Plans of all 34 Gram Panchayats (281 out of 830 villages) in Sindhanur taluk of Raichur district in this first phase to Janakalyan. The demographic details about the district is provided in the table below-
Blocks Area Area No of Urban Female (Sq. Km) No. GPof teracy (Male) teracy Population Population households ST Population SC Population No. villagesof Li Literacy (Total) Male Population Total Population Rural Population Literacy (female) Deodurga 1508 112245 110212 222457 200463 21994 44349 74910 173 28 36709 51.73 27.20 39.56 Lingasugur 1948 162628 158414 321042 247478 73564 68412 51332 186 35 54074 66.28 36.27 51.39 Manvi 1791 166063 164656 330719 293106 37613 62239 77956 164 36 59904 54.79 30.71 42.78 Raichur 1541 220675 214705 435380 208976 226404 82649 52129 147 31 81205 66.28 45.45 56.05 Sindhanur 1598 180229 179935 360164 298902 61262 59630 46715 160 34 65763 65.46 37.81 51.56 Total 8386 841840 827922 1669762 1248925 420837 317279 303042 830 164 297655 62.02 36.84 49.54 % 50.42 49.58 74.80 33.70 19.00 18.15
Raichur district lies in the north-eastern part of the State and falls in ’North Dry Agro climatic Zone’. It is seventh largest district in the State and consists of 5 taluks. It is facing drought due to erratic rainfall for several years. It is predominantly agrarian with not many major / medium industrial units. The total geographical area is 6827 sq. km with 1.579% covered by forests. The district has 5 taluks with 830 inhabited villages; Population (2001 Census) is 16.70 lakh with 12.49 lakh in rural areas; average population density is 245 per sq. km. It is known for rice crop with a total area of 1.6 lakh ha under the crop. Jowar and Sunflower are other important crops. Raichur is last ranked district in the state mainly due to educational backwardness and health services and employment generation and industries as per the HDI.
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 1 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
The following tables provide the details about the block-wise data on job cards, demand for employment, employment provided, number of person-days of employment generated along with the details on families completed 100 days of works, disabled beneficiaries, land reform/ IAY beneficiaries, etc. The table also gives the caste-wise bifurcation on job cards as well as employment generated during the fiscal year 2009-10.
Employment generated during the financial year 2009-2010 (up to March 2010) 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 8 9 10 a b c d a b c d e
th
)
Cumulative No. of HH
Cumulative Person-days generated issued job cards (Till the
(Till the reporting month) reporting month) S.No Block No. Disabledof of land reform/IAY Cumulative No.of HH Cumulative No.of HH provided employment ompleted days 100 demanded employment (Till the reporting month) (Till the reporting month) beneficiary individuals Cumulative No.of HH c during the reporting mon
SCs STs Others Total SCs STs Others Total Women (Till the reporting month No. HH of workingunder NREGA No. HH of which beneficiaryare
1 DEVADURGA 5249 11846 17913 35008 34086 33247 4650 302903 737435 1121172 2161510 987932 2828 330 167
2 LINGSUGUR 5071 4025 22718 31814 29922 29320 4072 240619 218936 1513003 1972558 747893 1262 22 69
3 MANVI 9889 11498 27610 48997 46984 45240 1999 558997 584813 1537867 2681677 1114715 1535 673 1228
4 RAICHUR 5854 6114 15299 27267 24364 23830 2223 263144 263718 714982 1241844 567975 1089 157 163
5 SINDHNUR 6223 5538 19038 30799 40587 40002 1457 438814 391811 1429817 2260442 822719 3959 1377 111 Total 32286 39021 102578 173885 175943 171639 14401 1804477 2196713 6316841 10318031 4241234 10673 2559 1738 19% 22% 59% 98% 17% 21% 61% 41% 6% Percentage
It is clear from the table that about 19% SC and 22% ST households have received the job cards which is proportionate to the total SC (19%) and ST (18%) population in the district. However, participation in works has slightly reduced to 17% for SC and 21% for ST and that for women is 41% as compared to men. The important aspect to be noted that only 6% families have completed 100 days of works during the reporting period.
Similarly, the table below provides the information block-wise data on number of households demanded for job cards and the number of job cards issued; similarly, demand for employment vis- à-vis employment offered and provided to the families. One can also find the person-days of employment generated during the fiscal year 2009-10 and up to 30th June 2010 along with number of persons actually worked under NREGA.
Employment Generated during the Year 2009-2010 up to the Month of June 2010 State : KARNATAKA District : RAICHUR No. of Employment Employment No. of Employment Provided No. of Registered Job demanded offered Families On filled Blocks Card Complete going House House House House Person- Muster Persons Issued Persons Persons Persons d 100 works Hold Hold Hold Hold days Roll days
DEVADURGA 37051 151869 35008 34086 140474 34086 140474 33247 136591 2161510 5328 2828 3136
LINGSUGUR 33096 122477 31814 29922 116217 29911 116177 29320 113357 1972558 3469 1262 2220
MANVI 50170 207489 48997 46984 213366 46984 213366 45240 204383 2681677 6707 1535 5244
RAICHUR 27869 101494 27267 24364 86835 24364 86835 23830 84801 1241844 2845 1089 1619
SINDHNUR 32568 107909 30799 40587 136077 40587 136077 40002 133491 2260442 5131 3959 2973 Grand Total 180754 691238 173885 175943 692969 175932 692929 171639 672623 10318031 23480 10673 15192
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 2 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Part I
Quarterly Progress Report (May – July 2010)
Journey of Janakalyan through National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 has been considered across the globe as one of the best plan ever made by Indian planners; one can see the physical as well as financial progress on the government website exclusively meant for it. But the reality is something else remained as open-secret that nobody is ready to talk about. There are many questions that arise in one’s mind- Are the objectives set by it achieving? Are the benefits reaching to the real target groups? What are the practical problems in making it fruitful? What are the feelings of implementing authorities? What the newly elected Gram Panchayat members are expecting from NREGA? What the communities feel about this beautifully designed project? How the officers are making undue advantages from the project? And several other questions are bothering everybody but remained unanswered.
Efforts have been put to find answers to some of these questions while implementing the SDTT supported “Leveraging NREGA funds to create productive assets for the farming communities” project in 3 GP of Sindhanur taluk of Raichur district. This report is prepared at the end of the 2nd quarter of the project period and documented the progress achieved during May-July 2010.
Achievement during 1st Quarter: With the support of SDTT, Janakalyan initiated an intervention in 3 GP of Sindhanur taluk to leverage NREGA funds for creation of productive assets to secure livelihoods of farming communities in February 2010. Objectives of this innovative intervention is to- a. To empower community skills to articulate their needs (issues), demand for deserved rights under NREGA, prepare plan (using micro-planning tool) and lead its implementation to help themselves b. To support community action to make effective use of NREGA funds for creation of irrigation and soil health improvement assets through community capacity building initiatives c. To make agriculture profit-oriented to make the lives and livelihoods of communities Sustainable
The major activities completed between February and April 2010 are listed below- Team building and capacity enhancement of project team Selection of operational villages to take up productive asset creation activities with NREGA funds; detailed analysis of these villages was done to understand demographic situation, agricultural scenario, status of NREGA activities implementation, potential for taking asset building activities, etc. Conducted rounds of gram sabha in these villages and documented the process adopted, major issues raised by villagers, important questions raised, major problems encountered in conducting gram sabha and expectations of communities from Janakalyan. Promoted AIG in all 17 villages and documented the process adopted, problems faced in promoting AIGs, and feeling of communities about AIGs. Situation Analysis of all these 17 villages were done very systematically and realized the problems in growing crops and the efforts put to understand whether and how NREGA could address these issues. Microplanning was carried out in 10 out of 17 villages using PRA tools and identified the potential asset-creating activities in these villages. Reactions of the elected representatives were also documented in the said report.
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 3 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Problems of tail-end farmers and Solutions through NREGA
Raichur is an agriculturally predominant district and almost 73% of the total working population is directly dependent on agriculture as their source of livelihoods. At the same time, the asset-base of the district is very poor, especially the productive assets required to improve the agricultural productivity. The following table gives some basic information about the dependency of the district on agriculture for their livelihoods. AGRICULTURE DEPENDENCY Major Occupations / livelihood Options of the People of Raichur District Working Population Non-working Total Agricultural Household population Cultivator Other Services Population laborers activities 937000 206680 328491 14473 183118 1669762 56% 28% 45% 2% 25%
On the one hand, the livelihood analysis of demographic data depicts that about 45% of total population of Raichur is agricultural wage-earners, who needs additional employment (1st objective of NREGA) while another 28% of the population is cultivators, who needs the durable and productive agricultural assets to secure their livelihoods (2nd objective of NREGA).
On the other hand, the NREG Act, 2005 set the dual objectives to address both these issues of providing additional employment as well as creating durable productive assets using the same amount of funds as under- 1. To provide livelihood security to the households in rural areas by providing not less than 100 (one hundred) days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household, whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled and manual work. 2. Creation of durable assets and strengthening the livelihood resource base of rural poor.
This means, a penny spent shall bring double benefits to the people for whom the scheme is meant for. The wage-earners shall get employment while the farmers shall get the durable productive assets to improve agriculture productivity.
However, the tail end farmers have some peculiar problems to optimize their productivity. These problems are of special cadre and thus need special attention to resolve. To state some of these problems are- 1. Inadequate Irrigation water: Hardly 20% of the land is irrigated and 15% land is used intensively (more than one crop per year) which is very bad in the present context (after green revolution). 2. Salinity & alkalinity: About 10-20% of the land in the low-lying areas is saline & alkaline, where nothing can be grown. Choking of drainage line & use of water from the drainage lines (which drains the water from upper reach farms – leached out water) are the major reasons for salinity & alkalinity. 3. Chemical-heavy farming leading to degraded soil fertility and thus least productivity: Overdoses of chemicals left the residues in the soil degrading the soil fertility over a period of time. Therefore, the productivity has gone down to any extent. Lack of biomass and litters in the farms has also contributed to soil degradation. 4. Undeveloped land: There is still lot of lands belonging to the bottom strata of the society which have not been developed so far. 5. Lack of connectivity: Physical connectivity of the land to the residential areas is very poor causing problem for timely transportation of inputs (causing reduction in yield) as well as produces (causing post harvest losses). Further, the farmer cannot even think of going for high-income crops which are perishable in nature.
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 4 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Now, if we look at the priorities of NREGA as stated below, all these above 5 problems of tail end farmers could easily be addressed by NREGA. The focus of the Scheme shall be on the following works in their order of priority: 1. Water conservation and water harvesting. 2. Drought proofing (including afforestation and tree plantation). 3. Irrigation canals, including micro and minor irrigation works. 4. Provision of irrigation facility to land owned by households belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes or to land of beneficiaries of land reforms or that of the beneficiaries of Indira Awas Yojana of the Government of India program 5. Renovation of traditional water bodies including de-silting of tanks. 6. Land development 7. Flood control and protection works, including drainage in waterlogged areas. 8. Rural connectivity to provide all-weather access. 9. Any other work, which may be notified by the Central Government in consultation with the State Government. In order to ensure that the adequate investments under Employment Guarantee Scheme are channelized for plantation programs, a minimum of 20% of the value of works taken up in a Village shall be on plantation program. Roads can be taken up as last priority not exceeding 10% of the value of all the works.
A comparative statement below shows how the problems of tail end farmers could be addressed by NREGA priorities. Sl. Problems of Tail end farmers NREGA priorities which can address the issues of tail end No. problems 1 Inadequate irrigation water Water conservation and water harvesting (Priority-1) and Provision of irrigation facility (Priority-4): By excavating farmponds to store rainwater during rainy season and use for life-saving irrigation during peak season 2 Salinity and alkalinity Drainage in waterlogged areas (Priority-7): Sub-surface drainage as well as open drainage and widening / deepening of natural drainage canal could resolve this problem 3 Chemical-heavy farming leading Drought proofing including afforestation and tree plantation to degraded soil fertility and thus (Priority-2): By increasing biomass contents of the soil, the fertility least productivity could be improved. 4 Undeveloped land Land Development (Priority-6): Develop all undeveloped land using NREGA funds for the poor farmers 5 Lack of connectivity Rural connectivity to provide all-weather access (Priority-8): Make/repair the connecting roads to the land to transport the inputs as well as produces to make agriculture profit-making
The above table clearly depicts that NREGA could be a boon to the tail end farmers, especially for the farmers of this part of the country, provided the scheme is implemented in its true spirit. What is happening in reality is something different and in this context, Janakalyan initiated this intervention with a hope to sensitize the PRI members, government officers and communities to make its best use.
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 5 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Achievement during May-July 2010
While the previous report was prepared in the order of logical sequence of activities, the report of the 2nd quarter is prepared to present the facts as per the program heads proposed in the proposal. The proposal focuses on 3 major activities – 1) Sensitizing the people responsible for implementing the NREGA activities in the villages, 2) Empowering wage-earners and farmers to demand for their rights under NREGA and 3) Demonstration of interventions to make agriculture profitable. It is wise to tell here itself that though all the preparatory works have been completed planned the reporting period but the actual implementation of shelf of works remained incomplete due to several reasons dealt in this report in the later sections. The major obstacles to complete all these activities were – Election process initiated in Karnataka for lower level of PRI members, the Gram Panchayat which is the implementing agency for NREGA activities; execution of all developmental activities was stopped due to Election of Code of Conduct. The Plan of Action for subsequent years is prepared and submitted by GP to government in the month of December while our program commenced in February; the plan of action was already approved thus experiencing lot of difficulties to get approval for the shelf of work prepared by the communities during the microplans.
Despite all these issues the team has succeeded to complete most of the planned activities and the subsequent sections of the report details the activities completed so far since inception of the program in February 2010 in 3 GP of Sindhanur taluk in Raichur district of Karnataka.
1. Sensitization Campaign for (3 tiers) PRI members with special focus on Gram Sabha members to sensitize the importance of irrigation tanks, plantation, drainage and physical connectivity of the land and the scope of covering these under NREGA: It is an important activity in order to make the program successful; unless and until the implementing authorities are convinced about the importance of these asset-building activities, it would become really difficult. Therefore, utmost care is taken to implement these set of activities and many rounds of scheduling and rescheduling is being done to see to it that, the team does not complete the activities for the sake of completing these tasks and achieving the target. Yet, there are few activities which have been postponed time and again for the want of suitable time so that it bears desired impacts on the target groups for whom the activities are planned for.
1.1 District Level Workshop for Zilla Panchayat Members, President, Vice-president, Standing Committee President for Agriculture, Social Justice, etc. and also the government officials at district level like CEO, PD, DS, etc. This was planned to be the first activity in the sequence but due to several reasons, it has remained as an incomplete activity, though planned several times during the reporting period. The major reasons are illustrated below- Ear-end Target: The project was launched in February and all the district, block and village level officers including CEO, PD, DS etc were busy with achieving the March-end targets of exhausting their available budgets and thus they remained engaged throughout February, March and April 2010.
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 6 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Election Code of Conduct: Soon after completing the ear-ending target achieving activities, government declared election code of conduct and suspended all the activities. All the officers become busy with election process and engaged themselves until end of election process.
Therefore, the sensitization workshop for these officers is kept on postponing and is now planned in August 2010.
1.2 Taluk level Workshops for Taluk Panchayat members, Presidents, Vice-presidents, Standing Committee Presidents and Block Project Officers at block level This workshop is also scheduled for August 2010 in the chairmanship of the local MLA due to the above set of reasons. However, many rounds of individual interactions have taken place with the Officers of various departments and legislatures in this regards and they have expressed their interest to make 3 Gram Panchayat at model NREGA panchyat.
1.3 Gram Panchayat level orientations to the GP Presidents, Vice-presidents, Secretaries and Members The newly elected Gram Panchayat members’ orientation program was conducted on 27.6.2010 at Janakalyan Office wherein about 49 newly elected Gram Panchayat members from 17 villages of 3 Newly elected GP members’ training Gram Panchayats participated in the orientation meeting. The day-long meeting introduced the salient features of NREGA followed by the issues of tail end farmers and how these could be addressed through the involvement of PRI members. The contents of the training in brief were listed below while the detailed power point presentation could be viewed following the link. Major topics covered are- 1. Orientation on NREGA and its salient features: a. Objectives of NREGA 2005 and its relevance to our present context. b. Five non-negotiable in execution of the Act c. Thirteen RIGHTs and Entitlements of the wage-earners and farmers provided under the Act d. Procedure for registration and issue of job cards e. Procedure for application and allotment of works f. Procedure to claim for unemployment allowance g. Permitted TYPEs of works in their order of priority and how these could create durable productive assets for farmers in addition to creating employment for the wage-earners. h. Planning of shelf of works and its approval as well as execution procedure with responsible officers.
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 7 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur 2. Orientation on the Project: a. Established the fact that our communities are solely dependent on agriculture using the government data and how provisions of NREGA could help us to improve our livelihood conditions. b. Analyzed the factors contributing to make agriculture loss-making in our context, discussed about the alternate options available and how provisions of NREGA could overcome all these factors with their active participation. c. Set the objectives of our intervention
and defined the roles that each of the Newly elected GP members of Madasirwar GP stakeholders (including PRI members) need to play in order to secure the livelihoods using best use of the NREGA provisions.
3. What is the way out and what are PRI roles: a. The PRI members including the Presidents/ Vice-presidents present in the workshop convinced that lack of political will among the elected representatives is the sole reason for present status of the scheme.
b. Though, all the members had their Newly elected GP members of Alabanur GP own reservation about the project, finally they agreed to work as per our plan at least for year and if they get desired results / response, they would continue in future too. c. Each of the present members then agreed to take up at least few asset-creating during the year as per our priorities and set a target for themselves.
Questions of GP members: All the members have same set of questions which were asked repeatedly during the orientation workshop; some of them are listed below- If you implement NREGA activities through people, how about our percentage share? Newly elected GP members of Badarli GP The amount that we have already spent in getting elected as GP members, how do we recover the same? If you don’t allow us to use machineries in executing the works, it would be difficult for us to recover our investment in next one year.
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 8 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
All these questions were answered and the newly elected GP members were requested that you have been elected for 5 years; use this 1st year for the cause of the communities and if the community does recognize your service, next 4 years you can recover your investment. Let’s invest this one year to make our GP as model GP in the state so that others recognize our efforts. Janakalyan would not come on your ways. The members were then convinced and finally each GP member agreed to take up at least 4-5 activities under our heads in the next one year.
2. Developing the skills and empowering the communities to prepare their own plan using micro- planning tools, shelf of works and labor budget under NREGA for their Gram Panchayat and get it approved in the Gram Panchayat and subsequently include in the district level plan This set of activities is the most important activities in whole project and therefore due care is taken care while implementing these activities. Since, the orientation activities for the government functionaries and elected representatives were not possible in the 1st quarter of the program, community empowerment activities were completed during 1st quarter itself.
2.1 Conduct Gram Sabha in villages and sensitize the farming communities about the provisions of NREGA to make their livelihoods sustainable and create pressure group for the PRIs: Apart from the 1st set of gram sabha that were conducted to orient the communities about the project in the beginning of the project, the team has conducted many rounds of gram sabha in each of the project villages. These gram sabha were to discuss various issues Gram Sabha arouse from time to time in implementing the project activities and come up with the solutions to the respective issues. Though, there are still issues in bringing the whole community together on this issue, but we have succeeded to create a small pressure group among the villagers. Sl. No Village Date of Gram Participants in 1st Gram Sabha Total No of Gram sabha st 1 Sabha Male Female SC ST Total Number of GS Average Participants 1. Hedaginal 06-04-2010 42 - 20 10 42 3 60% 2. Udbhal EJ 06-04-2010 11 3 15 - 24 3 50% 3. Gomarsi 07-04-2010 18 - 10 - 18 3 40% 4. Haretnur 07-04-2010 18 - 07 10 18 3 60% 5. Alabanur 08-04-2010 33 - 10 1 33 3 45% 6. Gonniganur 08-04-2010 14 01 02 10 25 3 50% 7. Badarli 09-04-2010 36 - 10 15 36 3 40% 8. Kannari 09-04-2010 22 - 10 4 22 3 50% 9. Budihal 10-04-2010 18 2 2 3 18 3 55% 10. Maladinni Camp 10-04-2010 27 06 02 03 27 3 70% 11. B R Camp 11-04-2010 14 02 04 08 16 3 54% 12. Valaballary 11-04-2010 28 - 10 10 28 3 60% 13. Belagurki 12-04-2010 26 - 10 8 26 3 55% 14. R H Colony No.5 12-04-2010 23 - - 23 3 40% 15. Madasirvar 15-04-2010 25 - 6 10 25 3 55% 16. Giniwar 16-04-2010 26 - 10 5 26 3 60% 17. Timmapur 16-04-2010 34 - 8 4 34 3 45%
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 9 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
2.2 Situation analysis exercise using PRA tools to identify the needs of the farming communities and informing them the possibilities of getting these satisfied under NREGA by PRI members: Situation analysis is an exercise done with the participating farmers to understand their own village scenario (especially the agriculture scenario) using participatory tools. Analysis of all the 17 villages of 3 GP were completed in the 1st quarter itself and the report was presented in Volume I of the progress report submitted on May 4, 2010 and therefore not repeated here.
2.3 Micro-planning in the villages to identify, articulate and prepare plan of action in NREGA terms (shelf of works) and submit through proper channel:
Micro-planning is an exercise to empower the communities to identify their issues related to farming, preparing proposal in NREGA terms to get these issues resolved, approving it in the gram sabha and submitting these proposals to GP to get sanctioned under NREGA. The process adopted to conduct microplanning in the villages is furnished in the table below.
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 10 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Meeting opinion leaders, PRI members, SHG members, Youths, etc. in the village 8.00 - 10.00
General information collection – transect walk 10.00 - 16.00 Introduction of NREGA, our project and gram sabha 17.00 - 19.00 Day1 Planning for tomorrow 19.00 - 20.00 Selection of Agriculture interested people 08.00 - 09.00 Social Map 07.00 - 10.00 Resource Map 10.00 - 12.00
FGD to identify the needs and classification 12.00 - 13.30 15.00 - 17.00
Day2 Estimated budget preparation Draft action plan preparation 17.00 - 19.00 Approval of draft action plan in the gram sabha 19.00 - 21.00
Visit to land during microplanning Undeveloped land in villages Waterlogged areas in the villages
About 10 micro-planning exercises were completed during the 1st quarter and rest of the exercises is completed during the 2nd quarter. The details of these 7 micro-planning exercises are furnished in the table below- Sl. No. Name of the village Participants in the micro-planning exercise Number of Male Female SC ST Opinion GP Farmer Labors works Leaders member 1 Gomarsi 50 - 20 - 3 3 36 14 60 2. Ginivar 45 - 18 08 2 3 24 21 65 3. BR Camp 30 - 02 02 2 2 20 10 30 4. RH No5 50 - - - 5 3 30 20 40 5 Haretanur 40 - 20 10 2 2 20 20 50 6 Badarli 40 - 15 08 3 3 30 10 60 7 Timmapur 50 - 15 10 3 2 30 20 45
There was huge demand for the asset-creating activities by the farmers when they realized this is the only scheme which can really secure their livelihoods. It was really difficult by Janakalyan team to manage the demands of the farmers. The work estimates crossed few millions while the provision per fiscal year cannot cross hundred thousands rupees.
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 11 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
3. Implementation of sanctioned shelf of works to generate employment opportunities for their fellow villagers; at the same time, create water harvesting structures (irrigation tanks), improve connectivity, improve soil health and plant biomass generating species in the farms. Supplement these activities with demonstration of IIFS package to make agriculture sustainable. Achievement of the project objectives could be possible only with this set of activities. Some of the activities have commenced in this section while rest of these are still to be implemented in the months to come. There are many reasons why these activities have not been commenced so far and some of these reasons are listed below- The fund leveraging activities from NREGA was not possible on account of election code of conduct and delay in commencing the program in February while the action plan is prepared in December itself. The demonstration activities like SRI, Vegetables and IIFS are waiting for monsoon to commence. However, all preparatory activities to initiate these activities have already been completed and the team is on toes to take up all these initiatives as soon as the favorable times come. The activity-wise status is furnished in the subsequent sections of the report.
3.1 Promote Agriculture Interest Groups (AIG) among the farmers to take up agricultural interventions: Promotion of AIG (Agriculture Interest Group) is a strategic decision to mobilize the communities into teams, which will act as pressure groups for the PRI members as well as government functionaries. It is through these AIGs, all the planned activities to create productive agricultural assets would be implemented. Lot of efforts have been put by Janakalyan team to constitute AIGs; however, still we believe that some of the weeds have become part of these AIGs and need to be uprooted in the days to come. Lot of inputs to strengthen these AIGs is required and we believe that the success of the project lies with quality of the AIGs. The details of the AIGs promoted in these villages are provided in the table below- Sl. Village Name of AIG Date of Total Members in the AIG No. formation Male Female Total 1 Alabanur Sri Nandi Basava Krishi Samiti 23-04-10 42 0 42 2 Belagurki Sri Devi Krishi Samiti 25-04-10 45 0 45 3 Kannari Sri Rama Krishi Samiti 01-05-10 25 0 25 4 Maladinni Camp Sri Maruthi Krishi Samithi 27-04-10 5 R.B. Camp Sri Gajanana Krishi Samithi 30-04-10 21 0 21 6 Budihal Sri Nagalinga Krishi Samiti 28-04-10 15 0 15 7 Madasirwar Netravathi Krishi Samithi 26-04-10 33 0 33 8 Udbal EJ Sri Basava Krishi Samiti 21-04-10 19 0 19 9 Gomarsi Sri Someshwara Krishi Samiti 03-05-10 10 Haretanur Sangamanatha Krishi Samiti 03-05-10 13 2 15 11 Gonniganur Sri Maruthi Krishi Samithi 23-04-10 14 0 14 12 Valabellary Channa Basava Krishi Samiti 21-04-10 20 0 20 13 Hedaginal Tunga Bhadra Krishi Samiti 19-04-10 45 5 50 14 Badarli Sri Ayyappa Krishi Samiti 30-04-10 28 2 30 15 Timmapura Sri Shakthi Krishi Samiti 02-05-10 18 0 18 16 R.H.No-5 Sri Durga Krishi Samiti 04-05-10 15 0 15 17 Gonniganur Hasiru Krishi Samiti 06-05-10
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Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Meeting of AIG AIG members Several rounds of meetings with these AIGs have been conducted to strengthen these AIGs and empower them to demand for their services. The following table gives the details about such meetings- Sl. Village Meeting Date Subjects discussed Participants No. 1 Alabanur 17-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 23 03-07-10 NREGA Implementation 20 2 Belagurki 19-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 22 05-07-10 NREGA Implementation 18 3 Kannari 20-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 16 06-07-10 NREGA Implementation 18 4 Maladinni Camp 22-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 14 07-08-10 NREGA Implementation 14 5 R.B. Camp 23-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 12 08-07-10 NREGA Implementation 14 6 Budihal 17-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 28 03-07-10 NREGA Implementation 20 7 Madasirwar 19-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 24 05-07-10 NREGA Implementation 20 8 Udbal EJ 20-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 15 06-07-10 NREGA Implementation 13 9 Gomarsi 22-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 20 07-07-10 NREGA Implementation 18 10 Haretanur 17-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 14 01-07-10 NREGA Implementation 12 11 Gonniganur 18-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 12 02-07-10 NREGA Implementation 12 12 Valabellary 20-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 20 03-07-10 NREGA Implementation 18 13 Hedaginal 22-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 26 05-07-10 NREGA Implementation 22 14 Badarli 23-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 28 06-07-10 NREGA Implementation 16 15 Timmapura 24-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 20 07-07-10 NREGA Implementation 14 16 R.H.No-5 25-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 20 08-07-10 NREGA Implementation 16 17 Ginivar 26-06-10 SRI Paddy, IFS & Vegetables Crops 24 09-07-10 NREGA Implementation 22
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 13 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
3.2 Facilitate implementation of asset-building activities as sanctioned under NREGA (irrigation tanks, sub-surface drainage, widening-deepening of drainage lines and plantation of tree species) Success of entire project lies on asset-creating activities by leveraging funds from NREGA through Gram Panchayats. The focus has been on water harvesting, land reclamation, biomass generation and providing connectivity to the land. The farmers have been sensitized about the importance of these activities and how NREGA could help their dream come true. The AIGs have participated actively in village situation analysis and preparing microplans, which include all these asset building activities. The
Undeveloped land Waterlogged land Flood damaged land village wise shelf of works have been consolidated into Gram Panchayat wise shelf of works and approved in the gram sabha. The consent of elected representatives have already been obtained and submitted to appropriate authority for the approval of the shelf of works to be implemented by the villagers.
The major difficulty the team is facing to get the shelf of activities are- The normal time for submission of shelf of works to the Zilla Panchayat by Gram Panchayat through Taluk Panchayat is December every year and accordingly the shelf of works were prepared and submitted for approval. Though, we were expecting the project in September-October but due to some reasons it commenced only in late February and thus we could prepare and submit the micro plans report with shelf of works in the month of June, which was too late for the department to approve. The lower tier of the PRI i.e. Gram Panchayat was suspended in April 2010 for the want of electing a new set of members which completed only in June 2010. Therefore, all the works through Gram Panchayat (including NREGA) were also suspended from implementation during these months and thus submission of proposal; because, gram panchayat also needs to pass resolution for this shelf of works in their general body meeting after the gram sabha. Officers did not accept any application for job allotment from the wage-earners groups as the MIS system was locked by the government. After completion of the PRI member election, the officers were again busy with election of GP presidents and vice-presidents; therefore the work execution was suspended again till completion of election upto end of June 2010. All old job cards of the wage-earners were with the old GP members in absence of which the wage- earners do not possess the right to ask for job allotment. After completion of the election process, the government of Karnataka has issued an order for allotment of new job cards for all eligible wage-earners, which is uploaded on MIS. Government is putting all its efforts to recruit PDO (Panchayat Development Officers) for each GP and other measures to check misappropriation of funds under NREGA.
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Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
However, now that the newly elected gram panchayat members have resumed their office and the government officials have assumed their responsibilities of implementing the activities, it would be possible to take up our activities. The team has also taken the local villagers as well as newly elected PRI members into confidence to ensure the shelf of works are approved by the government officers. Further, the pressure has been created through elected representatives and legislature onto the government officers to approve this shelf of works.
In parallel to the above efforts, it has also been decided that shelf of works that has already been approved by the Government should be reviewed by the AIG and the activities / works which are common in both plans (our plan and government plan) shall be taken up immediately through AIGs. Accordingly, the list of activities have been collected from GP and compared with to identify common activities; such activities would start implementation with immediate effect.
3.3 Implement SRI (Paddy) to introduce water-saving cultivation practices in the tail end: Raichur district is blessed by 2 major rivers, Krishna & Tungabhadra. Although, Tungabhdra Left Bank Canal (TLBC) and Narayanpur Right Bank Canal (NRBC) have made the district green but at the same time fate of tail end farmers is equally bad. Among the many reasons for it, the major being – Silting up of the reservoir Relatively less rainfall in the district and also in the watershed areas of the reservoirs Large quantum of land being brought under the command illegally than the designed command Introduction of heavy irrigation crops violating the norms of irrigation project Conveyance losses due to bad maintenance of canal Head end farmers grow only paddy at the cost of tail end farmers
On one hand, the tail end farmers have inadequate water to grow paddy while on the other hand the land fertility has gone down to any extent by the use of chemicals and fertilizers as a result of green revolution. The current project area is a part of TLBC tail end and hence these farmers have a specific issue other than those described above.
What is the Alternative? It is clear from the above discussion that there are 2 major issues concerning the peasant communities of these villages. i) Paddy, the subsistence crop – how to cultivate it in the present context of tail end where irrigation water is inadequate for cultivation from TLBC? and ii) Two extremes of water availability causing damage to the standing crops.
SRI with farm pond- an alternative: Since paddy cultivation is a must for these farmers with limited water availability, SRI (System of Rice Intensification) can be introduced to take care of the first issue. Similarly a Farm pond can be constructed to store the surplus water, which inundates the land in the rainy season, which otherwise a waste, may be applied as Life Saving Irrigation in the peak period. Thus, avoiding both the losses stated earlier to take care of the second issue.
The farmers agreed the above fact in a day long workshop where about 18 farmers participated from the project villages on 16th June 2010 at Janakalyan Office. The farmers were oriented about the SRI method of paddy cultivation, the principles and steps along with advantages of SRI method (please refer the power point presentation).
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Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
The major questions asked by the farmers during the workshop- In SRI method of paddy cultivation irrigation is required every week, where do we get water? Labor requirement is very high in SRI whereas we have shortages; how to manage? Is it possible to transplant the 8-12 days old nursery in SRI? Is SRI possible in saline and alkaline land? Due overdoses of chemicals, would you advise SRI at the present context? Could you organize some demonstration / learning exposure in our vicinity to learn more about SRI?
Farmers Expectations from JANAKALYAN: The farmers have lot of expectations from Janaklayan which they have shared during the workshop with Janakalyan team. Some of these are- The farmers have strong desires to go for diversified cropping but none of the department officers, RSK or KVK have imparted them the appropriate technology / knowledge about these crops; they expect these services from Janakalyan. Few farmers want knowledge and technology about organic farming as their lands are turning infertile. They expect Janakalyan to excavate farm ponds in their land to harvest rainwater. Some of the farmers have expressed that none of the organization or departments have given them a comprehensive knowledge about NREGA except Janakalyan.
Finally, the following farmers have agreed the learning from the training onto the land in current cropping year- Sl. Type of intervention Name of the Village Sy Area in Expected date No No Acre of sowing 1 N. Pampathi/ linganna Alabanur 0.20 30.07.2010 2 Bandenavaz / Khazahusen Alabanur 1.00 30.07.2010 3 Pampanna / linganna Alabanur 0.20 30.07.2010 4 Hanumantha / Ayyappa Gonniganur 32 0.10 30.07.2010 5 Pampanna / erappa Gonniganur 39 0.20 30.07.2010 6 Ramesh / Malappa Gonniganur 19 0.20 30.07.2010 7 Eranna Valabellry 0.10 30.07.2010 8 Mallikarjungouda Gomarsi 0.20 30.07.2010
3.4 Implement LEISA with IIFS to diversify cropping pattern and distribute the risk of crop failure: Mono-cropping is always risky; bumper single crop might take the farmer to the heaven while on the other hand impact of failure of the same single crop cannot be imagined. The farmers are well-versed with this reality but do not have any other choice than going for single crop for the want of proper knowledge about the avenues and technologies. Janakalyan is putting its efforts to demonstrate that diversified cropping is possible in the present context too with the available resources. A day-long workshop for the farmers was organized at Janakalyan office. The following farmers have accepted and translated the theory into practice from the current kharif season. About 17 acres have been sown with various varieties of crops by 6 farmers as per the following table.
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Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 17 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Sl. Type of intervention Name of the Sy Area in Date of sowing No Village No Acre 1 Eranna / Ayyanna Madasirwar 2.00 10.07.2010 2 Mallikarjungouda Gomarsi 2.00 18.06.2010 3 Amaranna /Erappa Maladinni 79 4.00 10.07.2010 4 Adeppa / Amarappa Maladinni 4.00 10.07.2010 5 Veeranagouda Badarli 3.00 18.06.2010 6 Basanagouda / Siddanagouda Badarli 29 2.00 10.07.2010 Total 17.00
3.5 Supplement income generation by cultivating high-income crops such vegetable: Farmers need regular income on daily basis, which they don’t get from the present cultivation practices and thus many of them live below poverty line. Migration of able-bodied persons from villages to cities has root in this. This issue becomes more severe during summer season when the farmers do not have crops in their farms but require some income to meet their family expenses. There are several other reasons too and all these farmers put all their efforts to come out of this trap but rarely find avenues before them to come out of such trap.
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Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 19 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Cultivation of vegetable crops along with other crops and also during the summer season might resolve this problem and it is in this context, Janakalyan has planned to introduce vegetable cultivation in the tail end of Tungabhadra Irrigation Project. A day-long training for the farmers of these villages helped to convince few of the farmers and some of them has already taken up vegetable cultivation in 13 acres of land by 10 farmers during the season as listed below- Sl. Type of intervention Name of the Village Sy Area in Expected date No No Acre of sowing 1 Bheemanagouda / sharanappa Alabanur 20 1.00 12.05.2010 2 Kalyanappa / Sharanappa Alabanur 20 1.00 10.06.2010 3 Shivappa / Durgappa Gomarsi 2.00 18.06.2010 4 Kariyappa / Basappa Mulimani Madasirwar 1.00 18.06.2010 5 Shankrappa / Balappa Madasirwar 2.00 12.06.2010 6 Mahadeva / Durgappa Gomarsi 2.00 13.06.2010 7 Tippanna / Bheemanna Ginivar 81 1.00 10.06.2010 8 Rangappa / mudukappa Belagurki 1.00 12.06.2010 9 Yankappa / Rangappa Belagurki 1.00 10.06.2010 10 Timmanna / Mudukappa Belagurki 1.00 10.06.2010 Total 13.00
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Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
3.6 Introduce collective purchasing and marketing system among the farmers through AIGs: The seed for collective purchasing and marketing has already been sown among the AIG members but they are still not showing interest in this aspect. However, we have hopes that we would be able to convince the farmers in near future.
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Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Part II Learning from Experiences
A social project of this kind having direct impacts on livelihoods of the communities always come across lot of issues from all corners of society and stakeholders; whereas, this particular project has all levels of stakeholders in direct implementation of the project activities including communities, wage-earners, farmers, opinion leaders, 3 tiers of PRI members, elected representatives, government functionaries and also we as facilitator. These problems give us scope to learn from the field for future actions. This chapter tries to document all such issues and the efforts put to resolve the issues to go ahead with implementation of activities.
4 Problems faced: Problems are bound to come and we are there to overcome all such problems is the basic understanding of Janakalyan team. An effort to put all these problems in this chapter is not to tell the readers about the problems but to help them not to repeat the same.
4.1 Major Problems faced in implementing program in 1st quarter: Some of the major obstacles / bottlenecks are listed here which have major impacts on progress of the project activities- Reluctance of communities about NREGA activities as well as Gram Panchayat members was the foremost obstacle in implementing the project activities; it is difficult to change the mindset of communities about NREGA & GP members. The rights and entitlements of communities under prestigious NREGA were not known to the communities; they only knew that NREGA is for the GP members, they need to give their job cards to the GP members for implementing the works. GP members considered themselves as the contractors to implement NREGA activities as planned by the GP secretary. The GP secretary also fixes the target and timeline that the said amount MUST be spent within a prescribed time limit without even bothering the agricultural operations. Election process for lower tier of PRI i.e. GP members and subsequently election of Presidents and Vice-presidents delayed implementation of all NREGA activities. Demand of each farmer to take up his/her land for excavation of farm ponds / drainage in waterlogged areas / plantation of trees/ construction of roads, etc was another major difficulty before the team to finalise the microplans. All existing job cards have been rejected and the department is issuing new cards with photos; said to be uploaded in MIS for better monitoring. Many duplicate job cards have been created to draw funds after carrying out the activities using machineries. In every village, duplicate bank accounts have been created in the names of the wage-earners without their notice and amount has been drawn from their accounts with fake signatures / thumb impressions. Action Plan not prepared in Gram Sabha but by the GP members without even consulting the stakeholders and such prepared action plans are not being approved in time for proper implementation.
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Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Labor-oriented works are not being taken up in almost 98% cases. Almost all works are carried out by machines and materials; however, in the documents they have maintained the 40:60 ratio of materials: labors NREGA wage is less than the market wage rate in irrigated areas; there is huge demand for raising the wage-rate as per the market rate. Technical staffs are not recruited by ZP but outsourced causing delay in payment and work execution No systematic documentation at GP level delaying the payment process up to 6 months in several cases Mates are not recruited at GP level; those who have been recruited by labor group is also not accepted by the GP/departments Work site facilities to the wage earners are not provided at all; wage-earners are not aware of such entitlements Continuous 15 days works not given to any group in GP Insurance is not being provided to any workers who have completed 50 days of works Injured workers are not provided with hospital benefits as per the provision of NREGA.
4.2 Possible solutions to overcome these obstacles / bottlenecks: Finding solutions to all these above listed obstacles / bottlenecks / problems could only be possible by the government and communities while we have tried to find out the ways to go ahead with implementation of the NREGA in a better fashion. Some of these are listed below- “Government is taking all kinds of measures to rectify the misappropriations that has taken place in past while implementing NREGA and therefore, you can expect good results in the days to come” was a kind of assurance that Janakalyan team has given to the communities in order to remove their reluctance attitudes. Several rounds of training and awareness activities to the AIG members and wage-earners and potential farmers have made them aware about the Rights & Entitlements under NREGA along with all salient features of the said Act, which are in favor of the communities / wage-earners and farmers. Taking PRI members into confidence by involving them in each and every activity under the project was another strategy to bring them on track. Convincing the farmers that each of them will get the benefits from NREGA once it is streamlined as per the provision of the Act; they must cooperate to initiate few activities under these heads and thereafter, they will exercise their own rights to get the benefits for excavation of farmponds, plantation, drainage or road. The concept of “Model GP” has motivated the newly elected GP members and other elected representatives as well as frontline functionaries to involve themselves in the project activities. “Use 1st year for these asset creation activities and if the community does not recognize their service, then next 4 years they can use to get their investment back” has worked to bring the GP members on track. Facilitated the process of getting their new job cards from the authority on case to case basis. Action Plans are prepared in Gram Sabha for the 1st time in the history of NREGA using microplan tool and efforts are on to get these approved by the government.
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Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
4.3 How the planned activities could have been implemented in a better fashion? The planned activities could have been implemented in a better fashion and as per the action plan in the following context- 1. The project that has commenced in February 2010 should have been commenced little earlier than this, i.e. during September-October 2009, as proposed in our proposal; this could have helped us to finalize the shelf of works using micro-planning tool before December 2009 and submitted to the government for its approval. Now that the government has already approved an action plan for 2010-11, they are assigning the same reason and not accepting the plan prepared by the community to take up asset building activities. This being the major problem, we could have avoided by submitting the action plan before the due date. 2. We have planned for asset creating activities whereas the implementing authorities are neither equipped nor interested even in implementation of the project activities through labors. At the same time, the wage-earners are also not willing to take part in labor-oriented works due to various factors of NREGA implementation. We should have addressed these basic issues first before taking up larger issues like asset-building activities. At least 1 year should have been earmarked for the awareness building and community empowerment works in these GP before initiating asset- creating activities.
4.4 Future plan to implement the activities: The only positive hope that the team has is due to the new set of Gram Panchayat members; the fresh set is oriented about the project and how NREGA could make their future brighter soon after their election, before anybody else trying to poison their minds. All these newly elected GP members are motivated and on their toes to implement at least 4-5 asset-building activities in their own ward/ territory. Systematic planning and guidance to this work force might take us to the desired goal and the Janakalyan team is hopeful that the objectives would be achieved with their active participation.
4.5 Constraints anticipated: Some of the problems anticipated in future while implementing the activities are- Seasonal agricultural operations might come in the way of implementing the NREGA activities; shortage of labor in time would be a constraint. Approval of the shelf of works (prepared using microplan tool) by government would be a constraint (as the action plan for 2010-11 is already approved by government). This would become the major constraint in achieving our target of leveraging funds from NREGA for asset creating activities. Failure of monsoon would be a constraint in demonstrating the agricultural packages such as IFS, SRI and high-income crops. Delay in completing asset building activities would bear an impact on the demonstration activities, as these are directly related with the proposed assets such as drainage in waterlogged areas & excavation of farm ponds. The newly elected GP members might also become a constraint in the way of taking up asset creating activities under NREGA, if they are not self-driven. Policy level decisions by the government/ policy makers in relation to NREGA would become the major constraint in achieving the objectives.
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Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
4.6 Possible ways to resolve such constraints: While some of these constraints are natural while few of these are manmade; the natural constraints such as failure of monsoon is beyond our control but rest of these could be addressed if planned strategically. But, the issue like getting the shelf of works approved by government is both politically controlled as well as of policy matter, which depends on the persons holding the posts. Complementary approach would be adopted to take the government officers and elected representatives take along with Janakalyan team until we have the hope to get their support and cooperation from these groups. However, beyond certain point when we feel that the department as well as elected representatives is not in favor of achieving our goal, we would initiate the RIGHT-BASED approach through the empowered wage-earners group (AIGs).
4.7 Plan to ensure people’s participation: Without participation of the wage-earners and farmers, this project is a day-dream; the major strategies would remain- AIG is the central strategy to ensure wage-earners while demonstration of agricultural demonstration and Taking up asset-building activities would ensure participation of farmers in the project Regular meeting of AIG, Need-based training to the farmers and Routine gram sabha in all villages would ensure participation of the community in the project activities.
4.8 Plan to ensure PRI members participation: Participation of PRI members, especially the lower tier is essential component to make the activities implemented through NREGA. The major advantage we have is the new set of GP members, who have yet not been polluted by the polluted administrative and political practices. The major strategies that we plan to adopt to convince this PRI members are- One to one contact with these elected GP members to motivate them towards social cause, Exposure trip for them to the MODEL GP in the country where good NREGA works have taken place; Motivational training on regular basis would help us to bring the PRI members on track. Implementation of all activities under their leadership, Requesting them to chair all community functions, Exposing them as the person who has been responsible for making the activities successful would be some of the major strategies to motivate the PRI members.
4.9 Plan to ensure government staff involvement: Government functionaries are also important stakeholders in making the project successful; though, most of them have their own hidden agenda behind the scheme but still all of them also like to do some good works in their lifetime. However, they are driven by the context and thus can’t translate this into action. Further, they also lack in man power and political will. Given an environment, we strongly believe they will cooperate and support our intervention and contribute significantly in making the project successful. The major strategy convincing strategy would be- Do in your own way in all GP leaving only 3 GP for us to make these GP as “model GP” in making the objectives of NREGA achieved with your great cooperation and support.
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Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
5 Learning from field: Though 6 months is too short period to put down the learning from our experiences but efforts have been put to bring out the raw ideas for future course of action. Some of the interesting aspects that the team has learnt during the period are- Communities have very raw ideas about NREGA, its objectives, their rights and entitlements, how they can get benefits from NREGA, how it could help them to resolve all agricultural needs. Community feels that NREGA is meant for the GP members and they are the contractors to execute this shelf of works. Community does not see any role in implementation of NREGA shelf of works; neither they know who to plan the works and for whom? Communities have made to understand by the PRI members as well as government functionaries that they are supposed to hand over their job cards to the GP members. The innocent men / women from the rural areas have now learning corruption because of NREGA; they engage themselves in their farm-works while hand over their job-cards to the GP members @ 15-30% of the wage-rate. Janakalyan should not have planned the asset-creating activities for the 1st year rather it should have taken up awareness, capacity building and empowerment activities during the 1st year; the asset-building activities should have been taken up in the subsequent years. Project should commence in accordance with the NREGA cycle as per the government norms so that the micro-planning is completed in November and shelf of works is submitted in December to the government for approval. This kind of project shall be taken up in larger areas (more number of GPs) to create pressure on government. The intervention in small areas might not create the desired pressure on both political as well as administrative system. Policy level advocacy at district and state levels is equally important to make the project successful in parallel to the field level interventions. Demonstration of agricultural practices shall be planned only after creation of durable productive assets in the farms leveraging funds from NREGA. Without creating of assets neither SRI nor IIFS or vegetable cultivation is possible. For all these, we need to ensure availability of irrigation water on regular basis. The project concept is well taken by the communities and all of them are participating wholeheartedly as this can really make their livelihood secured in long run; the only issue is the duration of the project should have been at least 3 years to implement all these planned activities is their suggestion. One must predict all the possible obstacles well ahead of initiating the concept; e.g. in this case, we had never thought about the upcoming GP election which has direct relation in implementation of NREGA activities. Similarly, the case of project commencement and period.
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Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Part III Quarterly Action Plan (Aug – Oct 2010)
While most of the planning and preparatory activities have been completed in these quarters, the next quarter would be completely focused on execution NREGA shelf of works and demonstration activities. The only foreseeable problem that may come into the way of our execution could be agricultural operations and monsoon. The Action Plan for next quarter is presented below under various heads.
5.1 Plan of action to complete at least Rs.100,00,000/- works in 4+1 issues of Janakalyan under NREGA: During the 3rd quarter of the project period, it has been strategically planned to complete the shelf of works under NREGA. The micro plans have been prepared, revised and got the approval of the newly elected Gram Panchayat members and then placed before the government for approval. The major categories of works have been listed year while the detailed reports are hyperlinked to this document as microplans for Alabanur, Badarli and Madasirwar Gram Panchayat. Estimated Budget Shelf of works to be completed in all villages of the Gram Panchayat under NREGA Sl. (in lakh Rs) order of priorities to execute asset-building activities in order to make agriculture No. Labor Material Total profit-making Cost Cost Cost Alabanur Gram Panchayat 1 Drought proofing (including afforestation and tree plantation) : Priority – 2 3.54 2.36 5.90 2 Provision of irrigation facility to land owned by households belonging to the SC and ST or 5.40 3.60 9.00 to land of beneficiaries of land reforms or of IAY of the Government of India program : Priority - 4 3 Flood control and protection works, including drainage in waterlogged areas : Priority - 7 8.70 5.80 14.50 4 Rural connectivity to provide all-weather access : Priority - 8 6.48 4.32 10.80 Total of Alabanur 24.12 16.08 40.20 Badarli Gram Panchayat 1 Drought proofing (including afforestation and tree plantation) : Priority – 2 7.50 5.00 12.50 2 Provision of irrigation facility to land owned by households belonging to the SC and ST or 7.80 5.20 13.00 to land of beneficiaries of land reforms or of IAY of the Government of India program : Priority – 4 3 Flood control and protection works, including drainage in waterlogged areas : Priority – 7 17.10 11.40 28.50 4 Rural connectivity to provide all-weather access : Priority – 8 9.60 6.40 16.00 Total of Badarli 42.00 28.00 70.00 Madasirwar Gram Panchayat 1 Drought proofing (including afforestation and tree plantation) : Priority – 2 2.85 1.90 4.75 2 Provision of irrigation facility to land owned by households belonging to the SC and ST or 1.50 1.00 2.50 to land of beneficiaries of land reforms or of IAY of the Government of India program : Priority - 4 3 Flood control and protection works, including drainage in waterlogged areas : Priority - 7 13.05 8.70 21.75 4 Rural connectivity to provide all-weather access : Priority - 8 4.56 3.04 7.60 Total of Madasirwar 21.96 14.64 36.60 GRAND TOTAL 88.08 58.72 146.80
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Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
5.2 Give a village wise list of works and their estimated cost and tentative time line to complete these works before October 2010:
The village wise list of works to be carried out with NREGA fund in all these 17 villages have been planned as per the table below- Sl. Name of the Amount Labor-days Tentative date Tentative date Village No. works Estimated required of commencement of completion 1 Alabanur Plantation 150000 900 01-08-10 01-09-10 2 Belagurki Plantation 200000 1200 01-08-10 01-09-10 3 Kannari Plantation 40000 240 01-08-10 01-09-10 4 Maladinni Camp Plantation 50000 300 01-08-10 01-09-10 5 R.B. Camp Plantation 200000 1200 01-08-10 01-09-10 6 Budihal Plantation 50000 300 01-08-10 01-09-10 7 Madasirwar Plantation 150000 900 01-08-10 01-09-10 8 Udbal EJ Plantation 125000 750 01-08-10 01-09-10 9 Gomarci Plantation 150000 900 01-08-10 01-09-10 10 Haretanur Plantation 200000 1200 01-08-10 01-09-10 11 Gonniganur Plantation 200000 1200 01-08-10 01-09-10 12 Valabellary Plantation 50000 300 01-08-10 01-09-10 13 Hedaginal Plantation 250000 1500 01-08-10 01-09-10 14 Badarli Plantation 100000 600 01-08-10 01-09-10 15 Timmapura Plantation 100000 600 01-08-10 01-09-10 16 R.H.No-5 Plantation 300000 1800 01-08-10 01-09-10 17 Ginaivar Plantation 50000 300 01-08-10 01-09-10 Total 2365000 14190 1 Alabanur Form pond 150000 900 03-09-10 31-09-10 2 Belagurki Form pond 400000 2400 03-09-10 31-09-10 3 Kannari Form pond 200000 1200 03-09-10 31-09-10 4 Maladinni Camp Form pond 50000 300 03-09-10 31-09-10 5 R.B. Camp Form pond 100000 600 03-09-10 31-09-10 6 Budihal Form pond 200000 1200 03-09-10 20-09-10 7 Madasirwar Form pond 150000 900 03-09-10 31-09-10 8 Udbal EJ Land Leveling 250000 1500 03-09-10 31-09-10 9 Gomarci Form pond 150000 900 03-09-10 31-09-10 10 Haretanur Form pond 200000 1200 03-09-10 31-09-10 11 Gonniganur Form pond 50000 300 03-09-10 31-09-10 12 Valabellary Form pond 200000 1200 03-09-10 31-09-10 13 Hedaginal Form pond 300000 1800 03-09-10 31-09-10 14 Badarli Form pond 300000 1800 03-09-10 31-09-10 15 Timmapura Form pond 200000 1200 03-09-10 31-09-10 16 Ginaivar Form pond 50000 300 03-09-10 31-09-10 Total 2950000 17700 1 Haretanur Flood Control 170000 1020 03-09-10 31-09-10 2 Badarli Flood Control 210000 1260 03-09-10 31-09-10 Total 380000 2280 1 Alabanur Drainage 300000 1800 01-10-10 31-10-10 2 Belagurki Drainage 200000 1200 01-10-10 31-10-10 3 Kannari Drainage 300000 1800 01-10-10 31-10-10 4 Maladinni Camp Drainage 400000 2400 01-10-10 31-10-10
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 28 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Sl. Name of the Amount Labor-days Tentative date Tentative date Village No. works Estimated required of commencement of completion 5 R.B. Camp Drainage 250000 1500 01-10-10 31-10-10 6 Budihal Drainage 400000 2400 01-10-10 31-10-10 7 Madasirwar Drainage 600000 3600 01-10-10 31-10-10 8 Udbal EJ Drainage 335000 2000 01-10-10 31-10-10 9 Gomarci Drainage 840000 5000 01-10-10 31-10-10 10 Haretanur Drainage 50000 300 01-10-10 31-10-10 11 Gonniganur Drainage 400000 2400 01-10-10 31-10-10 12 Valabellary Drainage 420000 2250 01-10-10 31-10-10 13 Hedaginal Drainage 230000 1440 01-10-10 31-10-10 14 Badarli Drainage 340000 2040 01-10-10 31-10-10 15 Timmapura Drainage 390000 2340 01-10-10 31-10-10 16 R.H.No-5 Drainage 400000 2000 01-10-10 31-10-10 17 Ginaivar Drainage 365000 2000 01-10-10 31-10-10 Total 6220000 36470 GRAND TOTAL
5.3 Strategies to complete these works: The major strategies to be adopted to complete the above activities in time would be- Taking the elected representative into confidence and implementing the shelf of works in their leadership. A meeting of all the officers from all 3 tiers of PRI system in the chairmanship of the local MLA to give them an impetus is planned in August 2010, which would help us to get the support and cooperation of the elected representative as well as PRI members. AIG would be the central force to implement the shelf of activities planned under NREGA. Complementary approach would be adopted to ensure the planned activities are implemented with their cooperation; if it does not work, then the right-based approach through these AIGs would be initiated because by then our AIGs would also become enough strong through our capacity building initiatives.
5.4 Do you see any problem in completing these works? The major problems that may come in the way of completing these planned activities are – Seasonal agricultural operations might come in the way of implementing the NREGA activities; shortage of labor in time would be a constraint. Approval of the shelf of works (prepared using microplan tool) by government would be a constraint (as the action plan for 2010-11 is already approved by government). This would become the major constraint in achieving our target of leveraging funds from NREGA for asset creating activities. Failure of monsoon would be a constraint in demonstrating the agricultural packages such as IFS, SRI and high-income crops. Delay in completing asset building activities would bear an impact on the demonstration activities, as these are directly related with the proposed assets such as drainage in waterlogged areas & excavation of farm ponds. The newly elected GP members might also become a constraint in the way of taking up asset creating activities under NREGA, if they are not self-driven. Policy level decisions by the government/ policy makers in relation to NREGA would become the major constraint in achieving the objectives.
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 29 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
5.5 Plan of action to strengthen the AIG and preparing them to execute the planned activities: To empower the AIG members on their rights and entitlements, several rounds of meeting and trainings are planned in the next quarter too; in addition, the team is also planning to take the selected AIG members to the GP where good works have been done by the communities / GP members under NREGA. The details are presented in the table below-
Sl. Tentative Dates of Meeting for each Training / Name of the AIG Village No. AIG Exposure 1 Nandi Basava Krishi Samiti Alabanur 06-08-10 20-08-10 10-09-10 20-08-2010 2 Sri Devi Krishi Samiti Belagurki 07-08-10 21-08-10 11-09-10 20-08-2010 3 Sri Rama Krishi Samiti Kannari 09-08-10 22-08-10 12-09-10 20-08-2010 4 Sri Maruthi Krishi Samithi Maladinni Camp 10-08-10 23-08-10 13-09-10 20-08-2010 5 Sri Gajanana Krishi Samithi R.B. Camp 11-08-10 24-08-10 14-09-10 21-08-2010 6 Sri Nagalinga Krishi Samiti Budihal 06-08-10 20-08-10 10-09-10 21-08-2010 7 Netravathi Krishi Samithi Madasirwar 07-08-10 21-08-10 11-09-10 21-08-2010 8 Sri Basava Krishi Samiti Udbal EJ 09-08-10 22-08-10 12-09-10 21-08-2010 9 Sri Someshwara Krishi Samiti Gomarci 10-08-10 23-08-10 13-09-10 22-08-2010 10 Sangamanatha Krishi Samiti Haretanur 06-08-10 20-08-10 10-09-10 22-08-2010 11 Sri Maruthi Krishi Samithi Gonniganur 07-08-10 21-08-10 11-09-10 22-08-2010 12 Channa Basava Krishi Samiti Valabellary 09-08-10 22-08-10 12-09-10 22-08-2010 13 Tunga Bhadra Krishi Samiti Hedaginal 10-08-10 23-08-10 13-09-10 22-08-2010 14 Sri Ayyappa Krishi Samiti Badarli 11-08-10 24-08-10 14-09-10 23-08-2010 15 Sri Shakthi Krishi Samiti Timmapura 12-08-10 25-08-10 15-09-10 23-08-2010 16 Sri Durga Krishi Samiti R.H.No-5 13-08-10 26-08-10 16-09-10 23-08-2010 17 Hasiru Krishi Samiti Ginaivar 14-08-10 27-08-10 17-09-10 23-08-2010
5.6 Plan of action to orient the newly elected PRI members: The Gram Panchayat members who really want to do some good works under NREGA would be taken for an exposure to few Gram Panchayats where extraordinary works have been done by the GP members with cooperation of communities. Several training interventions are also planned during the next quarter in order to keep their tempo on. The details are furnished in the table below-
Sl. Gram Panchayat GP members of these Tentative Dates of Tentative Dates of No villages Training exposure visit 1. ALABANUR Alabanur, Belagurki, 20-09-2010 10-08-2010 Kannari, Maladinni Camp, R.B. Camp 2 BADARLI Haretanur, Gonniganur, 23-09-2010 10-08-2010 Valabellary, Hedaginal, Badarli, Timmapura, R.H.No-5, Ginaivar 3 MADASIRWAR Budihal, Madasirwar, 26-09-2010 10-08-2010 Udbal EJ, Gomarci
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 30 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
5.7 Plan of action to convince the government staffs at various levels: Tentatively the following plan is being prepared by the team to take the government officers into confidence. Sl. GP Level Venue Tentative Dates No of Training 1. Secretary & PDO Taluk Panchayat 28-09-10 Sindhanur 2. JE, AE, AEE, EO & CEO & other staff Zilla Panchayat Raichur 30-08-10 responsible for NREGA implementation
5.8 Plan of action to take up SRI: Though, some of the farmers have already taken up SRI as trial during the kharif season, we are planning to bring in more number of farmers during rabi season and thus another round of village level orientation is planned in the month of August Sl. Gram Village Tentative 2010. The training plan is furnished in the table. No Panchayat date 1. ALABANUR Alabanur 03-08-10 5.9 Plan of action to take up IFS: Belagurki 04-08-10 Farmers have already taken up IIFS activities in Kannari 05-08-10 their farms i.e. diversified cropping system during Maladinni Camp 06-08-10 R.B. Camp 07-08-10 the kharif season. All the components of the IIFS 2 BADARLI Haretanur 03-08-10 would not be possible during the current season Gonniganur 04-08-10 as the farmers do not have the farm ponds. Valabellary 05-08-10 However, all the efforts would be initiated to make Hedaginal 06-08-10 these farms as model IIFS plot. Regular field visits Badarli 07-08-10 by the staffs as well as providing all necessary Timmapura 08-08-10 technical supports from time to time to the farmers R.H. Colony No-5 09-08-10 would be the major activities during the quarter. Ginivar 10-08-10 3 MADASIRWAR Budihal 03-08-10 Madasirwar 04-08-10 5.10 Plan of action to take up vegetable Udbal EJ 05-08-10 cultivations: Gomarsi 06-08-10 Farmers have already taken up vegetable cultivation in their farms during the kharif season. Regular field visits by the staffs as well as providing all necessary technical supports from time to time to the farmers would be the major activities during the quarter.
5.11 Plan of action to introduce collective purchase and marketing through farmers: The concept of Collective Purchase and Marketing through AIG would be nurtured during the quarter through various meeting, training, exposure and other initiatives.
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 31 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur
Annex: I List of newly elected Gram Panchayat Members
Sl. Gram Name of the GP member Village Designation No Panchayat Alabanur Gram Panchayat 1 Nagamma Alabanur Alabanur G.P. Pres 2 E. Amaresh Alabanur Alabanur Member 3 Annapurnamma Alabanur Alabanur Member 4 Mallikarjun R Alabanur Alabanur Member 5 Manappa Alabanur Alabanur Member 6 Arunkumar Belagurki Alabanur Member 7 Pakiramma Belagurki Alabanur Member 8 Basavaraj Jinnad Belagurki Alabanur Member 9 Husenappa Belagurki Alabanur Member 10 Purnamma Belagurki Alabanur Member 11 Erappa Kannari Alabanur Member 12 Parvatamma Kannari Alabanur Member 13 Kadappa BR Camp Alabanur Member 14 Khadarbi BR Camp Alabanur Member Madasirwar Gram Panchayat 1 Shivareddy Gomarci Madasirwar Member 2 Jilanipasha Gomarci Madasirwar Member 3 Basanagouda Gomarci Madasirwar Member 4 Ramesh Gomarci Madasirwar Member 5 Nagamma Udbal Madasirwar Member 6 Gangamma Udbal Madasirwar Member 7 BasavaraJ Madasirwar Madasirwar Member 8 Bheemanna Madasirwar Madasirwar Member 9 Aratemma Madasirwar Madasirwar Member 10 Lakshmi Madasirwar Madasirwar G.P.Pre 11 Sivarayappa Budihal Madasirwar Member 12 Shankramma Budihal Madasirwar Member 13 Hanumantha Budihal Madasirwar Member 14 Somappa Budihal Madasirwar Member Badarli Gram Panchayat 1 Ranganagouda Valabellry Badarli G.P.Pre 2 Lingamma Valabellry Badarli Member 3 Shivalingamma Valabellry Badarli Member 3 Channabasava Badarli Badarli Member 4 Somappa Badarli Badarli Member 5 Durugamma Badarli Badarli Member
Quarterly Progress Report (May-July 2010) . 32 Sir Dorabji Tata Trust JANAKALYAN Mumbai
Leveraging NREGA Funds to make Agriculture Profit-making & Sustainable in Raichur Sl. Gram Name of the GP member Village Designation No Panchayat 6 Rajashekar Haretanur Badarli Member 7 Sagarappa Haretanur Badarli Member 8 Husenamma Haretanur Badarli Member 9 Adappa Timmapur Badarli Member 10 Amarappa Timmapur Badarli Member 11 Devendrappa Timmapur Badarli Member 12 Yankamma Timmapur Badarli Member 13 Sharanabasava Hedaginal Badarli Member 14 Kupendra nayak Hedaginal Badarli Member 15 Basamma Hedaginal Badarli Member 16 Govindappa Hedaginal Badarli Member 17 Amaramma R.H.no.5 Badarli Member 18 Narad bairagi R.H.no.5 Badarli Member 19 Sharalamandal R.H.no.5 Badarli Member 20 Sarala R.H.no.5 Badarli Member 21 Uppalappa Ginivar Badarli Member 22 Uppalappa Ginivar Badarli Member 23 Gurulingamma Ginivar Badarli Member 24 Sridevi Ginivar Badarli Member 25 Mallayya Ginivar Badarli Member 26 Basamma Ginivar Badarli Member
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