Selection of mandals

The LTA team along with the Program Manager, APDAI cell visited Anantapur and had discussions with the Project Director, DWMA on the brief of the program and also on the process of selection of the Mandals. It was decided that only two adjacent Mandals will be selected for the project. The criteria agreed for the selection of the Mandals is as follows: 

• Maturity of the MMS- preference was to one Mandal which was part of SAPAP program and one adjacent Mandal

• Experience of the MMS in taking up NRM programs

• High drought-proneness of the Mandal and its adverse impacts as indicated by several distress factors like migration

• High felt need of the community to work on drought adaptation related aspects

• Very low levels of development of irrigation potential

Two clusters of Mandals are progressively narrowed down to after a desk appraisal. The LTA team visited these two clusters and held interaction with the MMS - executive committees. After an intense process, Gandlapenta and Nallacheruvu Mandals were selected in Anantapur district for APDAI phase II.  The age and maturity of the Mandal and strength of the village level institutions was the main criteria followed for selecting the Mandals. This would enable quick grounding of the activities.  Gandlapanta is the Mandal where South Asia Poverty Alleviation Project was implemented earlier, and has well developed and has strong Community Based Organizations (CBOs); the Mandal Mahila Samakhyas (MMS) formed 8 years back. In Nallacheruvu, the MMS is formed in 2003, relatively new compared to Gandlapenta. However, AP MAS is a NGO supporting the Nallacheruvu MMS in its institutional strengthening with a full-time person placed in the field. Nallacheruvu Mandal is contiguous with, and has the same features as that of Gandlapenta.

Gandlapenta and Nallacheruvu are considered as severely drought affected Mandals in the district. Both the Mandals were declared drought hit. The average rainfall of the Mandals is about 600-700 mm. highly drought prone and relatively have less percentage of irrigated area. High incidence of migration and other social distress factors related to crop failures are seen in both the Mandals. Both the Mandals have experience in NRM related activities. There are several watershed development programmes taken up in the Mandals including APRLP watersheds. Both the MMS are implementing the NPM programme.

The Executive Committee meetings of these two MMS were oriented on AP DAI, their roles and expectations of the project. MMS of both the Mandals expressed the need for a program like AP DAI and had shown overwhelming acceptance to undertake the programme.  They were then asked to visit the pilot MMS in Mahabubnagar and after the exposure visit and interaction communicate their acceptance to be the implementing agencies for AP DAI Phase 2 in Anantapur. The exposure visit & training was organized by WASSAN from 10-11 January 08, subsequent to which the MMS communicated their willingness to partner in the program.

Selection of Village Organizations (VOs)

Pilot villages for Phase II will be selected based on the criteria jointly agreed between GoAP and the World Bank and include presence of (a) active and relatively well organized community institutions, such as SHGs and  farmers’ associations/societies; and (b) relevant on-going programs  (AP RPRP, NREGS, DFID-APRLP, and UNDP South Asian Poverty Alleviation project). The size of the Gram Panchayats in Anantapur is large consisting of several hamlet villages (pallelu). The administrative boundaries of Village Organisation, Gram Panchayat, Hamlet villages are also incongruous. In view of this, it was decided to take 5 Village Organisations (VOs) per madal instead of Gram Panchayats for easy grounding and monitoring of the pilots. Geographically, each VO consists of 1-9 small hamlet villages.  For selecting the VO, a set of criteria was evolved [Annexure - 3]. Selection of the VOs was done by MMS. Each MMS identified 10 VOs that have stronger institutions. The 10 selected VOs were compared against the criteria mentioned and five of them in each Mandal were short listed. Contiguity among the VOs was also given due attention while short listing. A resolution was also passed in the EC meting to take up the programme. List of selected VOs is presented in [Annexure -4]. Background information about the selected villages is presented in [Annexure - 5].

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