Diary of a Rural Manager!

“Civilization is the distance we put between ourselves and our own excreta.” - Brian Aldiss, The Dark Light Years Indians are strange creatures as when we think of skills we are obsessed with IITs; when we think of health care we can scarcely think beyond doctors. At present, generally, the Indian has cleaning to the household level but is apathetic to the community where he lives. Even governments typically overspend on very high on expensive machines used in healthcare, at the expense of public goods such as community toilets, sewer pipes, low cost sanitary napkins etc. Despite of bad image of World bank among left in India, they will also agree with their suggestion of increased spendings of government on sanitation issue. India has already popular PPP model of community toilets and washroom in Sulabh Shauchalya . November 19th is celebrated as the World Toilet Day to raise awareness on the use of toilet, sanitation and clean water. I was invited to a primary school with Block D...

I always remember the words of Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping - "It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice." So, now NGOs and the government are finally coming to the phase of acceptance of market forces in the development sector. The cooperative movement is already a failure except for a few notable examples. The government has never managed to manage any scheme efficiently. The government is partnering with various professional organizations for setting up a new institution in the country - Farmers Producer Company (FPC) / Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO). The legal framework is ready under the Companies Act. According to this new law, only farmer–producers can be members of the FPC and the farmer members themselves will manage this company. It takes care of the flaws in the cooperative societies but has also borrowed the strengths of the corporate companies. FPO/FPC will be dominating future debates on livelihood and its suc...

Udaipur Agro Producer Company Limited, UAPCL, is a social-enterprise company focused on strengthening the livelihoods of the community. The organization was registered on June 29, 2010. The company’s main concentration is building the surrounding community through direct collaboration. The company is comprised of 1635 members. Each member is a local farmer mostly small and marginal who owns a share of the company. UAPCL Annual General Meeting Share Certificate Distribution ACCESS Team with UAPCL Board of Directors ACCESS Development Services is working in the area of livelihood with FPOs (Farmer Producer Orgainzation). Here is a glimpse of Annual General Meeting organized by one such - UAPCL attended by 700 members. Here we see smallholder farmers not as marginal recipients of charity instead as customer entrepreneurs. I will be updating more on FPOs in this space.

Let me start with a joke: I have a MBA degree and wanna be consultant in future! Does any development organization need consultant ? Yes, they do. Analyst and Consultant form a core area of jobs created in the knowledge economy. Whereas a leader can win people over in an instant due to oration and vision, an analyst can do same with the technical wizardry. But the most over-hyped and over-mocked job belongs to consultant.  Consultants are not brought on to be unbiased. They are hired to confirm a particular bias. There is a popular one line gag on consultant - "If you are not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem." There is always a lot of conferences and consultations on ‘labour rights’ that continue to be held at five star hotels — which for one are known to underpay their employees — without a hint of irony. It may seem wrong, pragmatic, or indecisive and confused? Take your pick. A consultant must focus on collecting data and...

It's fine to have people working in development sector with degrees from the elite colleges. But even if they are good at statistics and analysis, they cannot be decision-makers without a grassroots experience. Problem with today’s education is that it doesn't have any relationship to the real world. Images get reinforced over time with newspaper, media and cinema. Innocent Villagers, Shrewd Businessmen, Corrupt bureaucracy and Selfish Political leaders become stereotype. Such perception breaks with each intersection and performance in the field. Living in the village with no other business but to follow native life in the present day of social media buzz and 24*7 connectivity seems bizarre. But one sees the traditions, ceremonies and transactions over and over again. What it leaves one with temporary chaos in the beginning. In addition to fostering mutual understanding, perpetually curiosity and occasionally confused volunteer start to see the way of living of a community....

Government is so agile to implement e-governance solutions for improving its tax collection system, but prefers neolithic methods for cash disbursal decisive and purposeful governance.  The government’s budget is a mess. Subsidies have been overdone and not properly targeted. In the current year, total subsidies will be over 2.8 trillion rupees. Instead of making the direct cash transfer, all of the welfare scheme has been turned into a giant procurement exercise. That is why, Reserve Bank of India governor  Raghuram Rajan made a strong pitch for direct cash transfers  to the poor, saying this would help reduce corruption by breaking the "cycle of dependence". A cash transfer is a development project stripped of any active management costs, and its performance tracks the success or failure of the individual recipient. Cash Transfers are examples of certain transfer payments include welfare (financial aid), social security, and government making subsidies for certain busi...

India's new prime minister, Narendra Modi's slogan "minimum government, maximum governance" is a serious goal. Its implementation on the grass root level will be tried and tested, and that is where most of the government’s schemes fail. There are myriads of difficulties faced by the government in properly designing and implementing of the public policy. Continuing from the previous article: ' Why Government Schemes Fail? ', I will examine same question from another angles. Design:  Let us start with the design of the government schemes. What works well in the coastal belt of Kerala is unlikely to work in the Terai region of Uttar Pradesh, or for that matter, hilly lands of Garhwal. Hence, one size fits all schemes must be carefully reviewed. There is a strong tendency for planners to go in for prestige and grand projects. Through this they can leave monuments to their activity, even if defunct. The visibility is major emphasis than actual proposed work. It ...

“By means of deep meditation and magical power it may be possible to sleep on fire, but it is impossible to sleep with an empty stomach in a situation of poverty.” - Thiruvalluvar (50 B.C.) New poverty line has been redrawn by Rangarajan Committee. It is Rs 32 for rural India and Rs 47 for urban India . The earlier poverty line figure was Rs 27 for rural India and Rs 33 for Urban India.  Columnist T N Ninan has given us glimpse on the approach taken for defining poverty line - "The Rangarajan committee, set up two years ago to take a fresh look at poverty issues, has according to a newspaper report recommended a radically new way of deciding who is officially poor. New in India, that is, because the approach that the committee has reportedly recommended is already in practice in the US and Europe: poverty is defined, not as an absolute level of income, but relative to the average levels of income. The US says all those whose income is 40 per cent or less than the average (median...

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has inaugurated the Xavier University on the outskirts of the Capital city of Bhubaneswar. Report by Odisha Diary bureau can be read in the  weblink here . Congratulations to my Alma Mater for inauguration of "The Xavier University, Bhubaneswar" !

I have landed a new job with Access Development Services at Udaipur. That is new news. So why this cartoon? I broke 'Golden Rule of Quitting' that is quoted by NaMo above in the cartoon. I have also came to believe that nobody should quit job before working at least one year in a new sector. I faced a short term of unemployment as a rural manager. In retrospection, decision of quitting seems courageous but was made in haste and ill advise. The courage of moment is often over-rated and short of time, the word perhaps should be temperament to show mental strength. The days without job are long and depressing. Many rounds of interviews, rejection and low salary offers were part of this phase. It is easier said to follow own conviction than done. Not only the market treat a labour without job with low packages offering, cost of living in NCR dents the saving. Job hunt also showed me skewed distribution of opportunities, of how inequalities, relevant experience, and notion like ...

"I don't believe in charity; I believe in solidarity. Charity is vertical, so it's humiliating. It goes from top to bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects others and learns from others. I have a lot to learn from other people." ~ Eduardo Galeano Have you heard of KIVA ? Kiva is a non-profit micro-lending organization that connects folks around the world who need a loan with people who are willing to make those loans, often at $25 increments. I am giving my tiny share, and one year of my activity with KIVA has been completed. I have contributed an amount of 25$ as a loan ten times from June 2013 to May 2014. Hence, a total fund of 250$ is acting as seed money on KIVA today. 100 $ has been returned by the borrowers and is in circulation again as a revolving fund. I too got a 50 $ bonus for introducing two friends on KIVA. You may doubt what I say, but you will believe what I do with the proof. This is  my Profile at KIVA  for verification purposes. The complete...

The word “training” is a cliched jargon used in the corporates. There is another buzz word used for this in the development sector. That word is termed as "Capacity Building" (CB) and it is an endless process. Development professionals and government believe that we have this new knowledge, and we need to teach communities how to do stuff. I have seen such special sessions focused on  inauguration, speech and a boring lecture where participants are waiting for the lunch. Most of the times, workshop had limited interaction and few important questions raised regarding project. The worse use of "CB" word doesn't stop there. It has extended into "empowerment" for poor or "sensitization" for educated government officials. Makarand Sahasrabuddhe  has aptly said: “Many a time capacity building is just a euphemism for cramming 30 people in a room for a few days and trying to kill them with power-points and flipcharts and group work (that also takes...

One can't escape the plight of migrant labour while living in the KBK region. Most of the semi-skilled workers migrate to Gujarat. A large chunk of the migrants from Western Odisha are landless labourers and marginal farmers, not having access to any kind of irrigation facilities. They are employed in the brick-kilns of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh. Nuakhai is the festival of eating newly-harvested paddy, celebrated in September or October. That is the season of mass migration of the seasonal workers. The recruiter and transporter are paid a commission by the brick kiln owner. The recruitment of labour in the brick kilns is done with the help of contractors/local sardars. They offer a token amount of a thousand as first-time advance to these people and confirmation of going for migrants. A family of three or four usually migrates after receiving the full payment, ranging from Rs. 30,000-40,000. It is quite normal for the labourers to use the cash advances...

Migration is the least developed aspect of globalization today as compared to foreign investment or fair trade. Here is a funny take on migrant and natural citizens in middle east society by comic Maz Jobrani, an Iranian-American and a founding member of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour. Have a great weekend and more posts will be coming on migration issue!

Communication for development (C4D) in rural areas employs the same tools as MNCs but serves different purposes. Rural Communication campaign for awarding people by NGO/Government has to put forward facts before target audiences to appraise them with the Government scheme or value of Sanitation, Education, Health, Gender, and Public Rights. The use of ICT like government department websites in distributing information is limited to English rather than the local language. Searching and cutting parts of data from the website is not easy for villagers using telephone-based connectivity. Mid-media activities such as street plays, mobile vans, screening of video films, and even Puppet shows are used as a medium of communication in rural areas. Hoarding, Wall paintings & danglers in the local vernacular language also form an important part of the marketing communication strategies. They come at a low cost and the visibility is high, and so is the stickiness. Booklets, Pamphlets, and new...

I always put greater faith in “I am a Nigerian widow with 10 million dollars to give you” emails than in corporate presentation or welfare scheme of government. Its funny to talk to very successful youths championing mythical 'free markets' who inside the bubble tend to assume, instinctively, that what is good for them is good for India. But, a conversation with government employee becomes mental assault who has 'natural' tendency to micromanage, curb, control, and even stifle any entrepreneurial activity leading to loss of their power. I am wandering between these two worlds currently. A World Bank consultant ( Shouvik Mitra ) once informally remarked that “Subsidies are like toothpaste coming out of the tube, once it is out, it is virtually impossible to put it back” . Hence, any decision on subsidy must emerge from public policy rather than political appeasement. Lately, I found so many voices among these mentioned group opposing Food Security Bill but having a d...

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments ushered in the Panchayati Raj in India. Panchayati Raj Institution(PRI) is a three-tier system in the state with elected bodies at the village, block, and district levels. The rural mathematics of the vote in the Panchayat election has become highly political in nature due to the channeling of government scheme funds through the PRI. There are voices emerging on corruption at this basic level. Budget expenditure for Panchayat elections runs in lakhs for no other reason. Many gram pradhans are becoming powerful by grabbing resources meant for the welfare of the people whom they represent. In my opinion, PRI has embarked on one thing for sure, i.e., decentralized benefits of corruption. Looking on the positive side, infrastructure development and money are returning to the village economy through this arrangement. PRI has brought more of a sense of local governance to rural India. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolu...

It is time to invest in agriculture, rural development and food security. That's where the future of India lies.There is lot of women's participation in agriculture and allied activities in addition to the household work. Manually women were not able to increase the productivity and some of the health problem occurs. Simple Machine and tools like Coconut peeler, fishinh net, sugarcane stripper always act in drudgery reducing technologies and help to reduce the incidence of the health issues. Odisha government launched an innovative scheme, “ Women SHGs for Drudgery Reduction ". The vision behind is to make a positive impact on the health of women folk of the state by reducing their physical exertion. As per the scheme, each SHG would get Rs. 10,000 as financial assistance through which they can buy different types of technical equipments and enhance their productivity. Mahila Vikas Samabaya Nigam, the Women’s Development Corporation, was established as the Nodal Agency f...

There is a lot of talk about inclusive growth through financial inclusion. The competition between banks has never brought credit to the poor; it only took new financial products to richer people. RBI policy has forced banks for priority sector lending and the opening of branches in rural areas. SHG Bank linkage model was developed by NABARD under the strategy to reach the poor in a sustainable way. I have written on this issue in a  previous post . SHGs are linked to the formal banking system or microfinance institutions for accessing credit. Self-help groups minimize the bank's transaction costs and generate an attractive volume of deposits. While bankers have to handle only a single SHG account instead of a large number of small-sized individual accounts, borrowers as part of an SHG cut down expenses on travel (to & from the branch and other places) for completing paperwork and on the loss of workdays in canvassing for loans. There are many practical issues in this scheme f...

The international standard for the definition of the poor i.e. a household that spends more than one-third of its income on food is followed in India, 95 percent of all households would be considered poor. Every country needs an inclusive political and economic institution to break out the cycle of poverty. The delivery of financial services at an affordable cost to the vast sections of extremely poor and vulnerable groups of people is a necessity for the development of India. Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. — Dwight D. Eisenhower Budgets help to determine how much money one has, where to invest it, and whether one can achieve your financial goals. A budget is a forecast of all cash sources and expenditures. MIP is a tool for financial planning that can be used for both SHG and its members. Socio-Economic Analysis of each SHG is performed as risk is involved in giving loans without any collateral. The format used in  TRIPTI  can be downloaded here. Indica...

SHGs were formed under Mission Shakti in Odisha. Odisha government started a validation and grading exercise to know SHG status in December 2012. The validation process aimed at confirming the existing status of SHGs, whereas the Gradation Process assessed their eligibility for receiving Revolving Funds. Validation In an ideal world, the Branch Manager/ Representative of the Bank, B.D.O/Representative from the block, and C.D.P.O/Representative from ICDS should visit the field and complete the process. This may take from 5-10 days depending on the size of the district. This doesn't happen in the real world where AWW sits with the President/Secretary of SHG for the complete assessment. DRDA and ICDS Balangir have a record of 11097 SHG existing in the district but validation led to only 7846 functioning groups. Hence, we can easily imagine with these figures, the difference between SHGs claimed and existing can run in lakhs. Defunct and far SHGs form a major part of the numbers c...

Disaster Management in Phailin was remarkable in its aspect of losing minimum lives when faced with challenge of massive proportion. India evacuated more than half a million people as massive Cyclone Phailin hit eastern ghats at Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. An early warning and timely actions saved countless lives. Earlier entire nation prays for the well-being of the people of disaster struck zone. Yet never care to plan. Things started changing with 1999 Odisha cyclone . And even world bank blog has put an article on the preparation by Odisha government. In the case of flood/tsunami/cyclone, torrential rains always play havoc and diseases are rampant due to decaying carcass. The relief center must be equipped with grains, deworming pills, Trampoline sheet, dhoti/lungi with saree, mosquito net, blanket, towel & utensil kitchen as an immediate requirements for the household affected with cyclone. My prior experience on preparation for disaster management was itself a big lesson....

The Government of India estimates that about 2.40 million Indians are living with HIV (1.93 ‐3.04 million) with an adult prevalence of 0.31% (2009). For the readers, there is a popular myth that HIV, or AIDS is an urban disease. As per the HIV Sentinel Surveillance (HSS) of 2007, it was identified that 57% of the HIV-positive persons in India are estimated to be living in rural areas. Under the NACP III, Link Worker Scheme was designed for rural prevention and NACO implemented this program with the financial support of Global Fund through Lead NGOs. Link Worker Scheme was launched to saturate the reach of HIV-related services to high-risk groups based in rural areas. The scheme aims to build a rural community model to address the complex needs of rural HIV prevention, care, and support requirements. Under this scheme, a person who has been trained and has been made responsible for carrying out specific activities is called a Cluster Link Worker. I visited the field office of Humana ...

SHG Model in India :  “The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.” ~ Malcolm Gladwell. This statement might have been just said on SHG (Self Help Group) movement in India. The rural landscape of India has mushrooming with SHGs. Formal credit system has, over the years failed to deliver in rural India. The transaction costs of the rural credit systems are very high and the system is plagued by non-performing assets. SHG were started as a  pilot project of 500 SHGs, by Nabard  in 1992, they grew slowly. SHG  are viewed today as an entry point in rural landscape for NGO, Bankers, government and even MNCs. Self Help Groups (SHGs) are informal associations of up to 20 women (their average size is 14) who meet regularly, usually once a month, to save small amounts (typically Rs 10 to 50) a month. Majority of SHGs are single-caste groups based on basis of neighbourhood and affinity...