Networking for creating special stream under Indira Prabha

Livelihoods centric development processes are posing new challenges to the practitioners and several innovative development models are being established in the process. Comprehensive Land Development Project (Indira Prabha) is one such livelihoods centric initiative which focuses on dalit families and their assigned lands. The innovative projects under APRLP are expected to create such models which are path breaking and could offer several lessons from the field. The Guidelines of CLDP offers immense scope to innovate and demonstrate a new approach in the developmental process of dalit families with natural resource management at the core.

Basic Details of the Project:

Comprehensive Land Development Project (Indira Prabha) is being implemented in all the districts in the selected blocks under RIDF. As this project aims at making comprehensive investments in the assigned lands of poor, the processes involved the project need to be very participatory and time consuming. Lands are fallow for long, people having these lands mostly migrate or depend mainly on the wage labor. It needs intensive efforts to enable the assignees to develop their land and cultivates to achieve the household food security. This also offers immense scope of demonstrating newer approaches on the ground and makes the vision of CLDP a reality. The Guidelines also have a provision for special stream of innovative projects, which are expected to be exemplary in several ways. It was also envisaged that this special stream would be exclusively in the domain of well established resource organizations from voluntary sector.

Network of Resource Organizations:
 

With this background, WASSAN, a network based resource organization facilitated the discussions among selected Resource Organizations from NGOs and also interactions with senior government officers. The main purpose of these deliberations was to conceptualize the role of NGO Resource Organizations in the special stream of innovative projects in the CLDP. These deliberations helped to define the role of NGO Resource Organizations and their contribution. Based on these consultation meetings, the need for formalization of the partnership between GoAP and these resource organizations was also identified. The expectations from NGO Resource Organizations and GoAP are put together to in the form of this proposal, as per the discussions during the meetings. In the light of these discussions, an MOU was also conceptualized to formalize the partnerships.

Selection of NGO Resource Organizations:

In these deliberations, very limited number of selected NGO resource organizations participated. All these organizations have strong field presence and have long experiences of working with dalit families and natural resource management related themes. The list of these NGO Resource Organizations is enclosed in the Annexure 1. These NGO Resource Organizations come from the following districts - RR District, Nalgonda, Warangal, Kadapa, Chittoor, Ananthapur and Vizag.

Goal and Objectives of the Proposal:
 

The main goal of the proposal is to create model projects under CLDP by invoking the provision made in Process Guidelines (Chapter 13) and forging partnerships between NGOs and GoAP in the context of CLDP.

The specific objectives of this agreement among the above four parties are mentioned below.

• Creating a stream of innovative projects under Comprehensive Land Development Project (CLDP) and develop them into a demonstration and model projects.

• To ensure the productivity enhancement and livelihoods diversification of the families in the selected CLDP blocks, as a result of developing the assigned lands.

• To provide feed back to the concerned officers at district and state levels based on the field experiences, for improving the over all quality of the project.

Expected End Results of the Project:
 

The following end results would be achieved by the end of project:

1. The spirit of the Guidelines is transferred on to the ground and poor families improve the productivity of their lands and diversify their livelihoods options.

2. An innovative stream of CLDP projects would be created at field level as demonstration projects and as sources of inspiration and learning centers to the district and neighbouring mandals.

3. Members of NGO Resource Organizations would be recognized as resource organizations/ persons for all the capacity building needs of the district on CLDP.

4. An autonomous flexible system would be evolved within the mainstream projects with the support of all parties.

Time Frame of the Proposal:

This project period is for a period of three years initially and is coterminous with the project period.

Area of Operation:
 

At present the proposal is applicable to the projects in 7 districts, where these resource organizations are functioning.

List of Districts in which the Stream of Innovative Projects is being operational. Addresses of these project offices need to be enclosed herewith.

• Ranga Reddy District

• Nalgonda

• Warangal

• Ananthapur

• Kadapa

• Chittoor

• Visakhapatnam

Operational Strategies of the Proposal:

Each of the NGO Resource Organizations is already functioning at the field level and is involved with the CLDP in an informal manner. This proposal intends to formalize the relationship between the NGO Resource Organization and GoAP. These NGO Resource Organizations come together to establish a set of common standards in implementing the innovative projects. WASSAN plays a critical role in establishing these common approaches and standards. Based on this, they facilitate the community level action and facilitate the entire project implementation. The broad framework of CLDP Guidelines would be followed. Each NGO would select a limited number of CLDP blocks and adopt them. In this selection process, they would take the guidance from DWMA. The main functions of these NGO Resource Organizations are mentioned below.

Proposed Roles and Responsibilities of NGO Resource Organizations:

The main roles and responsibilities of the NGO Resource Organizations are mentioned below. The responsibility of establishing a demonstration project is with the NGO Resource organization.

 

1. Designate a facilitating team from among its staff for facilitating CLDP in the selected/ allocated projects.

2. Identify potential sites for CLDP from their field areas

3. Develop a profile of these compact blocks of assigned lands and share that information with PD, DWMA.

4. Recommend to the PD, DWMA on the preparedness of VO/CIG on fund release related aspects and ensure that the funds are released to the VO/CIG.

5. Function as Project Facilitating Agency and be responsible for the entire project period.

6. Work in close collaboration with Mandal Mahila Samkhyas where ever they are actively engaged in CLDP and enhance their role in CLDP.

7. Ensure that the participatory processes are followed and spirit of Guidelines is operationalized, by undertaking the following specific tasks.

• Institution Development and Capacity Building of CIG/ VO/ project related functionaries

• Facilitating Action Planning process of the project and capacity building related aspects

• Hand holding during implementation

• Send the progress and process reports to First Party and Fourth Party respectively.

• Conduct the process documentation of the project

• " Facilitate the diversification of livelihoods of dependent families.

8. Coordinate with DWMA and other organizations and take up the responsibility of reporting.

Proposed Roles and Responsibilities of WASSAN:

As a state level network based support organization, WASSAN would take up the following roles and responsibilities.

• Facilitate interactions between/ among all the parties involved and reflective processes.

• Conduct independent process monitoring of the field level project implementation in the entire state (with in special stream and outside the special stream).

• Provide feed back on the performance of the special stream to the members of Consortium of Resource Organizations and other key players in the project.

• Document the best practices and innovations and share with wider audience.

• Collaborate with several other civil society organizations/ groups to ensure their contribution to the success of the project.

• Coordinate with the NGO Resource Organizations and facilitate cross fertilization of ideas and experiences from among the members of Second Party.

• Evolve systems that are necessary planning, implementing and review of the project developments.

• Support the NGO Resource Organizations for evolving capacity building action plans and implement the same.

• Develop necessary resource material and capacity building modules.

Proposed Systems:

For operationalizing the special stream of innovative projects effectively, the NGO Resource Organizations adopt the following systems. It is expected that the DWMA, CRD, APARD and SERP would provide necessary support in operationalizing the projects at the field level.

Planning Process:

• The planning process at Common Interest Group level is well described in the process guidelines and resource material prepared for the project. The NGO Resource Organizations would follow this process and improve the same by bringing in their own experience and expertise.

• Institution Development is considered as part of planning process. Identification of para workers and CIG formation are important components of this process. Second Party brings in its own expertise into this process and brings in much innovation at the CIG level.

• Conducting necessary training programs and other capacity building activities are necessary inputs for the entire process. With in the available budgetary support, NGO Resource Organizations develops capacity building action plans and effectively implements them.

• DWMA is expected to give the flexibility to the NGO Resource Organizations to facilitate a participatory action planning process at the community level. This enabling role of DWMA is very essential to establish role models at the village level. It is important to recognize that this process is different from top driven process of action planning in which tasks/ activities and contents of action plan are usually decided by the project authorities. The outputs of such participatory action planning processes (action plans) would be processed by the DWMA and be submitted to NABARD for approval.

• Timely releases of funds based on these action plans are critical. DWMA strives to release funds to Common Interest Groups/ Village Organizations on time.

• Action Plans for capacity building are also part of this action planning process.

Implementation of Action Plan:

1. Based on the action plans, the VO/ CIG releases funds to sub groups/ members.

2. B. The CIG members implement works that benefit them.

3. C. NGO Resource Organization facilitates the following tasks at CIG level.

• Wage Plans

• Material Procurement

• Financial records

• Quality Control and Supervision

• Monitoring

• Contributions

• Enforcing norms of sharing and resource utilization

4. D. NGO Resource Organization facilitates the evolution of roles of each functionary at CIG and village level.

5. NGO Resource Organization would also implement the action plan for capacity building.

Monitoring and Review:
 

It is important to develop necessary monitoring systems at different levels. Some suggestions are proposed here on this theme. It is expected that these suggestions would be considered by CRD and operationalized.

• NGO Resource Organization sends quarterly reports to DWMA. DWMA organizes quarterly review meetings, in which the NGO Resource Organization participates and shares its own experiences.

• The CRD takes the support of AMR APARD to organize review meetings for every six months. The representatives of DWMA, NGO Resource Organization, CRD, AMR APARD and WASSAN and other resource organizations would participate in these review meetings.

• The reports of independent process review and monitoring from WASSAN would be shared in these review meetings.

• Based on the review and feedback from process monitoring, the DWMA and CRD would facilitate the emergence of appropriate policy, administrative and financial arrangements.

Budget: Project Funds:

• The total cost of the project at the CIG level is about Rs 8. 22 Crores for comprehensively developing 10275 Acres of assigned lands. This budget is expected to be routed through DWMA from NABARD.

• To this project costs, about 10% facilitation and capacity building cost needs to be added. The facilitation cost needs to be mobilized separately for supporting the NGO Resource Organizations. The facilitation and capacity building cost of the project is at 10% of the project cost (About Rs 80.22 Lakh). This cost is expected to be directly released from AMR APARD to each NGO Resource Organization on annual installments.

• The total cost is about Rs 9.042 Crores.

• The total area to be adopted by 16 NGO Resource Organizations with approved budget. The budget for these blocks is likely to be revised based on the action plans.

List of Capacity Building Resource Organizations:

• The project cost is based on the action plans prepared by Common Interest Groups. These action plans would largely cover the development of land, water resources; livelihoods and productivity enhancement.

• These action plans would be submitted to DWMA by VO/CIG with a recommendation from NGO Resource Organization.

• DWMA releases grants to CIG/ VO, based on these action plans and recommendation from NGO Resource Organization. CIG maintains necessary records with the support of VO and para worker.

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