SHG Model under TRIPTI Scheme - 1

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 representation from all CLFs at the GP level.

I have the privilege of working closely with TRIPTI block level team and SHG Federation at Kharidpipal GP for 21 days in Balasore. Bhograi is one of the blocks in Balasore that falls under the TRIPTI project. It consists of 32 Gram Panchayats out of which I was placed at Kharidpipal. Kharidpipal GP consists of eight villages. The GPLF federation of SHG is constituted of 13 CLF and 152 SHG. The detail of the structure is given in the diagram. That gave me a decent understanding of the SHG model that will be implemented in NRLM scheme with a slight tweak. I will draw the conclusion that the creation of dedicated machinery (staff support) &  Universalisation of SHGs has made it more sustainable than SGSY.

Looking on the data of Annual Exp of Average Poor – Rs.40-60K; 35-55% Food; 10-30% Health; 15-20% Education; 10-20% C&E (MGNREGS 2011). Most of the schemes related to the poor fail because the poor spend their money on urgent needs such as health rather than asset building. It is not only economic poverty but lack of financial planning that also plays a crucial aspect. Hence, TRIPTI focuses on the Micro Investment Plan (MIP) which is a household investment plan prepared by individual households and their consolidation at the SHG level.

MIP has socio-economic information will include critical factors such as income, assets and liabilities, needs and problems, number of earners and dependents, single woman, physical/mental disability amongst the members in their family if any, health problems, livelihoods and opportunities, skills, saving capacity, social backwardness, literacy, etc. It will look for the income and expenditure statement of members. The SHG at the outset ranks its members according to their wealth. The Self Help Groups will then be facilitated to prepare a list of all SHG members along with their loan requests indicating both activity/purpose and loan amount. The group would appraise each loan request and determine the loan terms like the amount of loan, installment amount, repayment period, etc. Here, the group would take into consideration the potential for chosen activity in the local area and the competence of the members to carry out the same gainfully.

Governance and Accountability: A to Z

This Governance and Accountability (GAC) is taken directly from the PPT of world bank team.

A: Awareness on GAC - Good project management is promoted by adopted governance and accountability. However one needs to generate awareness on GAC .

B: Benchmarking - The benchmarking on what can be delivered has to be done with due consultations with stakeholder who would deliver the service.

C: Capacity Building - A training module needs to be developed which empowers the entire project staff and participating institutions at all level with basic activities under GAC, tools to be used under GAC.

D: Deterrence - A clear cut policy which includes measures for prevention, detection and punitive action needs to be defined.

D: Documentation - Documentation of procured assets, field processes, accounts, book keeping etc. are integral part of GAC.

E: Effective Service Delivery - The deviation against the benchmarks have to be captured regarding the service delivery.

F: Focal Point for GAC - It would be necessary to identify a focal point for GAC at each level right from State, district, block and community.

F: Feedback System - An effective feedback system has to be evolved in the project. Community Score card is one such feedback tool.

G: Grievance Redress System - GRS will include complete redress mechanism, which can be used by community members also to report on any form process deviation , corruption and complain.

H: Human Resource Policy - Human Resource Policy and Codes of Conduct needs to be defined.

H: Help desk - Help Desks are necessary to provide help / information to stakeholders.

I: ICT - ICT will serve the backend support for improving governance and accountability.

J: Joint efforts - The GAC initiatives have spread across multiple sectors and verticals hence all efforts have to be jointly done by the project staff at the respective levels.

K: Knowledge Management - Knowledge Management helps in learning , sharing and thus necessary for better governance.

L: Learning - Doing by learning is necessary for GAC by a gradual learning-by doing approach.

M: Monitoring for GAC - Monitoring systems have to be in place good governance.

N: Non–Negotiable - Project non–negotiable are key to GAC.

O: Operational guidelines - It would require operational guidelines to be prepared and disseminated at all levels for the staff and community institutions to understand the entire gamut of GAC.

P: Process Audit - Process assessment can become a participatory method to understand the processes adopted at the community level.

P: Public Disclosures - Public Disclosure will be ensured with desired frequency, medium and responsible units.

Q: Quality Control - Quality control is necessary for improved service delivery.

R: Right to Information - RTI emphasizes on complying with provisions on suo-motto disclosure of information under RTI Act, 2005, rather than limiting to only on-demand access to information.

S: Sanction Policy - Clear sanction policy for fraud, corruption, and other malpractices needs to be outlined. Reporting cases from the field and mandatory checks needs to be institutionalized.

T: Transparency - Transparency will have to be ensured strictly at the procurement, financial and project implementation level.

U: User Report Card - The user report card can be done annually or at a regular frequency to capture the feedback from the SHG members through a survey or group discussion method on service delivery in the livelihood project.

V: Verification mechanism - A foolproof verification mechanism has to be developed under GAC for verifying key risk areas like social inclusion, adherence to non negotiable, transparency in project etc. and to identify the loopholes.

W: Window for GAC - A window for GAC concept has to be promoted to provide insight into the practices and innovations in GAC.

X: Xtra Ordinary efforts - Governance and accountability requires an Xtra Ordinary effort.

Y: Yes to GAC - Governance and Accountability is mandatory part of the project and cannot be termed as extracurricular activity, hence each stakeholder has to fall in the line of saying Yes to GAC.

Z: Zeal for GAC - Taking up measures related to governance and accountability requires a Zeal for GAC, amongst the project decision makers and management.

Change the World !

My Belief - “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ― Rumi

Little is not little, enough is not enough.

I have decided to loan 25$ each month from my salary to the people in need of credit. This will be done through KIVA. KIVA is a platform of lending that has a 99.03% repayment rate for 340,986,325 transactions in ended loans. This loan repayment rate is much higher than any bank. I will decide later with repayments that how much part of my money will be further used either as loan or development aid. This is my Profile at KIVA so that one can always check the authenticity of the claim.

A story of how a small loan from you can change the life of a family

How Kiva Works (http://www.kiva.org/about/how)

1- Make a loan : You make a loan on KIVA. All KIVA loans are made possible by our Field Partners, who vet, administer, and disburse each loan.

2- Get updates : Throughout the life of the loan, you will see progress updates from Kiva through your email, and if you come back to the site.

3- Get paid back : As the borrower repays the loan, the money becomes available in your account. This is called your Kiva Credit.

4- Repeat : You can now use it to fund another loan, donate it to Kiva, or withdraw it to spend on something else.

Why did I choose KIVA?

Development aid has been flowing for decades, but the results have been absolute dismal. Instead, recipients have merely become dependent. There is a long chain of "middlemen" i.e. the consultants and the companies involved in this "trade" between donor and beneficiaries. Hence, I find microfinance as a better instrument to alleviate poor than a poorly designed development aid. People should decide how to help those in need. It needs a very big database of demand and supply of credit with the purpose of loan clearly mentioned. KIVA is doing just that thing. Hence, we will far less likely to complain that their money is being wasted or misused if we chose where it went.

I believe that our society cannot sustain , unless we contribute back in someway or the other. I strongly feel if even one person does his bit towards social good, there will be positive change. I am not giving anyone lot of theories, clever strategies or concepts. I am asking for direct cash transfers to the needy as a loan. In helping others - Little is not little, enough is not enough.

Restructuring of SGSY as National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM)

Launched on 1st April 1999, Swaranjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) was an integrated scheme for providing opportunities of self employment to the rural poor. Like any other government schemes, this was also prone to corruption and failure. Swarna Jayanti Swarozgar Yojna (SGSY) has been renamed as National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) with added provision. I was reading notification of RBI on National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) issued way back in June 2013.

Uneven spread of SHGs, defunct SHGs and high attrition rate of members were the main issues faced in functioning of SHG in SGSY. This has been tackled through Universalisation of SHGs. Setting up of federations of SHGs is the salient feature of NRLM that can ensure monitoring and validation at community level.

Identification of Swarozgari was major source of corruption for Bank, Block and District level officers. A lot of money was taken as bribe for clearance before proper credit reached the beneficiary. Even non existing beneficiaries were created for embezzlement of grants. No Capital Subsidy will be sanctioned to any SHG from the date of implementation of NRLM. SHG Federations at GP level will be given grant under Community Investment Support fund, which will be used by the Federations to advance loans to SHGs. There is provision of interest subvention to Women SHGs, enabling them to avail loans up to Rs. 3 lakh at an interest rate of 7 per cent per year.

Lack of dedicated implementation structure are identified as responsible factors by the draft for the poor performance of SGSY. There will be an autonomous, adequately staffed, professionally managed and empowered agency both at the national and state level to implement the mission under the Societies Registration Act. Creation of Dedicated Machinery will reduce burden on existing government machinery, hence reduces the chance of corruption!

There are some changes to National Rural Livelihoods Mission (Aajeevika) recently approved by Cabinet. Under the existing framework of implementation of N.R.L.M, only rural households included in the official BPL list could be targeted under N.R.L.M. This list was prepared in 2002, has not been updated and has many defects. The target groups under N.R.L.M will be determined by a well defined, transparent and equitable process of Participatory Identification of Poor (PIP), at the level of the community. This is welcome approach but can surely increase number of members of Extreme Poor and Vulnerable Group (EPVG) during PIP process. I always believe that identification of the poor is a political gimmick not a statistical exercise at ground level.

National Rural Livelihood Project (NRLP)

Government of India has availed a credit from the International Development Association (IDA) for implementing the, National Rural Livelihood Project (NRLP), under NRLM. The NRLP would be implemented in 13 high poverty states accounting for about 90 percent of the rural poor in the country. Intensive livelihood investments would be made by the NRLP in 107 districts and 422 blocks of 13 states (Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu). Distribution of project funds among the states would be based on the relative share of rural BPL population in the total states. NRLP will broadly support the following components:

(i) Institution and human capacity development at the national, state, district and sub-district level such that support institutional structures are created,
(ii) State livelihood support towards establishment of institutional platforms of the rural poor for improved access to financial, livelihood and public services,
(iii) Innovation and partnership to identify and partner innovative ideas which address the livelihood needs of the rural poor and help pilot or scale them,
(iv) Project management and monitoring and learning systems.