Diary of a Rural Manager!

The informal economy in India is run by entrepreneurs providing products and services to the customers. These low-skilled occupations require low financial investments and thus have a relatively low threshold for entering. The street vendors have created a carefully constructed beehive of economic activity in the public space. They have created a functional system for themselves without waiting for government to provide them the legal permission, space and subsidy. In the series of street entrepreneurs ( first part ), I am presenting here a blog post by Anishok Mishra from the 2016-18 batch of XIMB: The Cost behind the Taste - The Chaiwalas of Bhubaneswar . Tea, or as we fondly call it "Chai" is one of India's most preferred hot beverages. Almost every person in our country has had a sip of this drink once in their lifetimes. Some prefer it black, some with milk, some with a splash of lemon and those looking to get healthier by drinking it prefer it "Green...

Let us start from Migration Series - 1 . Once there was a popular myth: in the Government and Development Sector: Migration of 'poor' rural population is bad idea. Even when higher caste population was migrating towards cities for education, the government was launching various schemes on poverty reduction in the villages to prevent people from moving to the urban areas. So, why is the Migration Issue ? Migration – when it is safe, legal, and voluntary – is the oldest poverty-reduction and human-development strategy [ Migration, Development and Poverty Reduction in Asia ] . As per Wiggins & Keats [ Stepping out of agriculture ] - "Migration takes various forms, distinguished by:   Destination – international versus domestic, rural to urban, rural to rural and urban to urban; and,  Length of absence – permanent moves of a year or more, and seasonal moves – to which might even be added daily commuting." Many moves are not permanent, but vary from seasonal ...

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" !

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...

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...

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....

What is a social audit ? It is better to have an idea of the concept in the first place.  Social_Audit_Report is uploaded to the NREGS website. But almost all of the community seems to be completely unaware of the documentation part. The best part of these meetings is the opportunity to meet office bearers and government officials on the same day. When the government makes the schedule for a social audit in October, it reviews work done/in progress from April to September. SA was originally scheduled in October, but due to a cyclone, it was completed in December. Advertisements were given in three Oriya newspapers, giving dates and locations of the social audit meeting. Local NGO was invited to attend the meetings, yet no provision of funds was available for community mobilization through local NGOs. This was all done when Gram Rozgar Sevak (GRS) [working personnel for NREGS at the Village level] were on strike. Their online petition is worth a read on the problem faced at the...

I reported at DRDA office, Ganjam district on 18th November 2013. I was relived from previous duty for PHAILIN rehabilitation work. Emergency relief work had already been finished in most of the block. Hence, rehabilitation work is not included in my role at Ganjam District. I was assigned to work at Bhanjanagar block exclusive for Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM).  Bhanjanagar block is a non intensive block as per OLM guidelines. A new proposal to change this into intensive block has been sent to the central government. That means a lot of action under coming months but not now. Revolving fund to SHGs, e-NRLM (MIS)and SHG Bank Credit Linkage are the focus area  in job profile. OLM  , Panchayat Samiti Office, Bhanjanagar Work Station Every person worth its salt always knows how to correct itself, and eventually does. I feel vulnerable against myself. The trait of punctuality is leaving me even with the minor load of the government job. Hoping to maintain this...

"I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something."- Richard Feynman ; That is why, despite knowing  the theoretical concepts on the Producer Groups , there were some practical lessons gained in the field. I had worked with Producer Groups farming Groundnut, Onion, & Pulses (even one group was doing business of NTFP) at Balanagir district, Odisha. I was guided under the able supervision of Kamalendu Paul, Zonal Manager, ORMAS (Orissa Rural Development and Marketing Society). The document Community Enterprise System Manual prepared by Prof. Amar KJR Nayak came helpful during work. All producer groups were having women members only. No producer group has been registered under any act till now. However, credit was given to them based on mutual trust between the government and Producer Groups. The legal process will be initiated soon. We were also unable to do protect farmers under the crop insurance scheme till this year. Or...

"Where the poor participate as subjects and not as objects of the development process, it is possible to generate growth, human development, and equity, not as mutually exclusive trade-offs but as complementary elements in the same process." --- Meeting the challenge, Report of the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation, 1992. The problem with the modern outlook of business education is to view rural/urban citizens as target consumers. Instead, if we enable them as producers, that will surely boost the economy and well-being of our producers. Most of the producers are caught in the vicious circle of poverty and even fully dependent on the monsoon for a good harvest. The government has reworked its strategy of helping marginal and small producers in breaking out of the cycle of poverty by organizing them into producer groups. The concept of Producer Group has been lifted from the cooperative societies. This concept is based on voluntary cooperation as the r...

The official stint at Balangir is over after 175 Days. I have been transferred to Ganjam district that will be effective from 18th November 2013. Life will be turbulent, may be good in coming weeks. Since, Ganjam district has been badly affected by the PHAILIN and followed by flood due to incessant rain, it was decided to relocate eleven Young Professionals for the rehabilitation and restoration work. Transfer Order is little puzzlinh while looking at overall context of the decision. Currently, there are 36 Young Professionals employed at Odisha Livelihood Mission. There will be thirteen Young Professionals working at Ganjam district now with this official order. There are districts like Mayurbhanj, Kendrapada, Balasore and Bhadrak affected by cyclone and flash floods. No Young Professional is placed there for rehabilitation work. Hence, this skewed decision appears bias to me. Change is constant but its hard to guess pace of the change. There is an expression that “failing to pla...

NREGA funds are used for natural resource management activities by generating wage employment for the poor as well as strengthening their livelihood resource base. I will ask readers to go through these two articles :[ Rural job scheme: Can we get it right? and NREGA social Audit: Myths and Reality ] on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) before going forward. There is a social audit of MNREGS going on in Balangir district from 22-10-2013 to 26-10-2013. I attended three such meetings as an observer only. I attended social audit at Kutenpali, Jharmunda and Kandajuri Gram Panchayat of Loisingha Block. Loisingha Block consist of 18 G.Ps with 108 Villages and is 22 km away from district headquarter. The officers, Sarpanch and GRS were present for the meeting on time. Yet, there was lack of people attending the meeting held at Panchayat Bhavan. The registered person data is taken from NREGA website for the financial year 2013-2014. I have given distance ...

I saw two vans simply parked around in block office compound at Balangir district. I don't know which department/agency own the vehicles. Both are marked with the sign of UNICEF. And they are rusting like a junk. Our tax money and foreigners aid money, earned though hard work, in this case are hardly put at work. These vehicles are mere extension of wastage of public goods by our government. Vehicle at Muribahal Block Office Vehicle at Titlagarh Block Office, The most reliable way to save an asset at government workplace? Make sure it is used. End Notes : *Photographs are taken by personal phone camera in July 2013. **No offence to the local governance ! :)

I joined OLM office as YP at Balangir on 27th May 2013. I completed 100 working days today. Let me redirect reader to details of the place where I am working : Balangir District . Balangir/Bolanagir lies in KBK (Koraput Blangir Kalahandi) region and is considered as one of the country's 250 most backward districts. KBK itself has attracted the attention of policy makers, development planners and the poverty critics due to its persistent underdevelopment from last few decades. As per my observation, this place is working with slow/numb administrative activity supported by overt political agitation. There is no resource block under OLM (Odisha Livelihood Mission) strategy for this financial year 2013-2014 in Balangir. Hence, I have to solely work with ORMAS (Orissa Rural Development and Marketing Society). Motto of ORMAS is simple- Creating competence and values in rural Orissa . ORMAS was constituted to facilitate for a sustainable livelihood of the rural poor by working with S...

India’s most enduring heritage since independence is poverty. Poverty can't be fought by throwing doles and subsidy in the name of government schemes. It can only be done by creating suitable ecosystem for innovative and risk taking individuals. These persons need not to be engineering and management college students. A street vendor with no education is taking more risk and still pursing business is an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is more prevalent and still damn difficult to pursue for people working in unorganised sector. A NCEUS report estimates that in 2005 out of the 485 million persons employed in India, 86 percent or 395 million worked in the unorganised sector, generating 50.6 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product. Someone once told me to understand how businesses runs, interact with an entrepreneur, even if it is a pawn shop. I didn't get the point back then. Once in the college, I had read few chapters of book Grassroots entrepreneurship : entrepren...

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS:- The social inclusion process will include two steps; first to identify the left out poor, those who are not a part of any SHG/ other CBOs, and second to ensure their participation in different community-based organizations [SHGs, GPLF, etc.] at the village/ Gram Panchayat level. In this process, the project also needs to identify the extremely poor and vulnerable groups (EPVG) in the community that typically suffer from severe economic and social impediments. For this purpose, the project adopted a community-based participatory approach to identify and prioritize project beneficiaries, including ‘extreme poor and vulnerable groups, persons with disabilities, and the ‘left out poor’. The proposed methodology for the same is called situational Analysis in the project which will comprise of the following exercises: 1- Participatory identification of Poor(PIP): o Social mapping/ collection of baseline of beneficiaries o Well Being Grouping 2- SHG Grading 3- Instit...

Targeted Rural Initiatives for Poverty Termination & Infrastructure (TRIPTI) aims at enhancing the socio-economic status of the poor, especially women and disadvantaged groups, in ten districts of Orissa over a period of five years, beginning 10 February 2009. The project is assisted by the International Development Agency of the World Bank and implemented by Orissa Poverty Reduction Mission, a society under the Panchayati Raj Department of Government of Orissa. TRIPTI project under World Bank Assistance is running in 38 blocks in 10 districts that will be treated as pilot blocks for NRLM. The SHGs are at the first tier of the community institution structure. One SHG is formed constituting 10-20 women members (in case of disability or dispersed location the group size may be 5 to 20). The second tier of the structure is called Cluster Level Forum (CLF) which is an aggregation of 5 to 15 SHGs at the village/hamlet level. GPLF is the third tier of SHGs which is formed taking represe...

"No man is a fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot I personally identify and like to attach with the cause of the underdogs in general. There is a dilemma involved with this choice because by descent, upbringing, education and needs; I am a person belonging to middle class society. I am fond of middle−class comforts (like 3rd AC train compartments),a bit of liberal values and even risk free career aspirations. And now, I have undertaken a job in the OLM (Odisha Livelihood Mission) as a "young professional" (a word designated by World Bank for their fresh joiner) so that my work can directly have a positive impact on the people. I had made a new path in the career by abandoning engineering to work in the rural areas for a brief time. The line that boosted my career jump was- If gamblers start worrying about the odds, they would never gamble. Our generation has an old mindset of scarcity (money) and risk aversion (care...