April 2007 Progress Report

The main activities undertaken in the reporting period (April 2006 to March 2007) include:

•Selection of beneficiaries for MANTRA:
29 villages, covering a total of 2134 households have been identified for this project. These villages were chosen after the entire village (without even a single exception) agreed to be a part of the programme. The villages also had to make a clear financial commitment of raising a corpus fund, with an average of Rs. 1000 being raised from every household.

Among the households covered, 62% belong to the BPL category. Further, 9% of the families are dalits and 35% are adivasis. The demographic details are in Annexure 2.

•Formation of general body of all adult men and women:
In all villages, a village society was formed, with the elected representatives to the Executive Committee as members, which is registered as a legal body. This involved a series of interactions and discussions with village leaders, groups and the entire village community in all villages. The general body of each village constitutes the Palli Sabha and is the basic unit of the Panchayati Raj system in Orissa. The general body of every village elected a representative committee, with equal number of men and women, headed by the President, Secretary and Treasurer. The proceedings for the legal registration of the village bodies have been started and in 11 villages, the society has been registered. The applications for registration of committees in other villages are pending at the block level.

During the 3-5 years that Gram Vikas will remain in these villages after completion of the entry point activity of water and sanitation, communities learn how to deal with conflicts and act as pressure groups against vested interests within their village and outside. Villagers learn the ropes of maintaining public accounts, organizing the general body meetings and elections.

•Formation of women’s general body and savings groups:
To elicit greater participation from women, a separate general body for women is constituted in all villages. Here, women opened up and began to participate in the discussions pertaining to various issues of general concern. Considerable efforts go into the accompaniment of women general body members and executive committee members, before they could sit as equals with men at the same meetings and to express their opinions without any fear or inhibition.

Groups of women are also encouraged to start small savings. These fora are used to discuss issues of common concern, and gradually draw women to participate actively in community level decision-making.

Over time, women have taken over the responsibilities of maintenance and monitoring of water supply and toilets, in resolving conflicts, organising mass protests, enforcing programme codes in the village and in advocacy beyond the village. They are also confident and firm in their interaction with government officials, banks and other outsiders.

In 16 villages, women’s savings and credit groups have been formed. These groups are facilitated by Gram Vikas at present and on completion of six months of regular transaction, will be linked to banks.

•Generation of maintenance funds:
Surveys were carried out in all villages to identify appropriate sources of community income. These include ponds, community forests and common agricultural land. Steps are being taken to develop these resources so that there are regular incomes to the community fund. This fund will be used to manage common assets and undertake other development activities. Villagers are being encouraged to bid for public works contracts in their village awarded through Panchayats and Blocks.

•Emphasis on personal hygiene:
Gram Vikas staff engage with women to impress upon them, the importance of personal hygiene. Small, but instructive messages about using some form of soap (or detergent or ash) to clean the hands after one uses a toilet, bathing regularly and wearing clean clothes are passed on during the regular meetings. Due to the availability of a bathing room, women would find it easier to take care of their personal cleanliness and hygiene. In addition, children are repeatedly guided, in schools, about the importance of hand-washing, keeping their hair clean, keeping nails short and clean etc. Between the mothers and the children, there is often a mutually reinforcing cycle at work, making the need for personal hygiene an ingrained one.

•Status of construction:
Nearly 100% of the households covered have completed all the brickwork of their respective toilets and bathing rooms.

Arrangements are being made to secure funds under either Swajaldhara or RSVY (Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana), which are government schemes for establishment of the water supply systems. Either of these schemes would be availed to fund about 70% of the costs of establishing the water supply system.

In nine villages, funds have been sanctioned for establishing water supply systems.

•100% families have agreed to be a part of the programme, with all its precondition and responsibilities in 29 villages, covering 2134 households

•In all villages, village general bodies have been formed and Executive Committees have been elected.

•In 11 villages, the registration of village societies has been completed. In all other villages, the application for registration has been submitted with the block level officials

•Corpus collection has been completed for all households

•80% of all works of construction of toilets and bathing rooms are complete

April 2008 Progress Report

This report follows on from the previous report for the period 2006-2007. 29 villages, covering a total of 2000 households, had been identified for this project. These villages were chosen after the entire village (without even a single exception) agreed to be a part of the programme. The villages also had to make the clear financial commitment of raising a corpus fund, with an average of Rs. 1000 being raised from every household.

Among the households covered, 59.45% belong to the BPL category (living below the poverty line). Further, 9.4% of the families are dalits and 39.55% are adivasis.

The main activities undertaken in this reporting period (April 2007 to March 2008) include:

Formation of the general body of all adult men and women:

In all villages, a village society was formed, with the elected representatives to the Executive Committee as members, which is registered as a legal body. This involved a series of interactions and discussions with village leaders, groups and the entire village community in all villages. The general body of each village constitutes the Palli Sabha and is the basic unit of the Panchayati Raj system in Orissa. The general body of every village elected a representative committee, with equal number of men and women, headed by the President, Secretary and Treasurer. In 25 of the 29 villages, the legal registration of the village bodies has been completed and in the remaining 4 villages, registration is under process.

During the 3-5 years that Gram Vikas will remain in these villages after completion of the entry point activity of water and sanitation, communities will learn how to deal with conflicts and act as pressure groups against vested interests within their village and outside. Villagers will learn the procedures for maintaining public accounts and for organising the general body meetings and elections.

Emphasis on personal hygiene:

Gram Vikas staff have and continue to engage with women to impress upon them the importance of personal hygiene. Small, but instructive messages about using some form of soap (or detergent or ash) to clean the hands after using a toilet, bathing regularly and wearing clean clothes are passed on during the regular meetings. Due to the availability of a bathing room, women will find it easier to take care of their personal cleanliness and hygiene. In addition, children are repeatedly guided, in schools, about the importance of hand-washing, keeping their hair clean, keeping nails short and clean etc. Between the mothers and the children, there is often a mutually reinforcing cycle at work, making the good personal hygiene habit an ingrained one.

Formation of women’s general body and savings groups:

To elicit greater participation from women, a separate general body for women was constituted in all the villages. Here, the women opened up and began to participate in discussions pertaining to various issues of general concern. Considerable efforts went into the support of the women members of the general body and executive committee, before they could sit as equals with men at the same meetings, participating actively in community-level decision making and expressing their opinions without fear or inhibition.

Now the women are taking a more proactive role in village affairs and community decisions. They have already made themselves responsible for monitoring village cleanliness and ensuring that villagers adhere to the standards expected of them.

If the experience of other villages is replicated, it is expected that in time women will take over responsibility for the maintenance and monitoring of the water supply and toilets, for resolving conflicts, organising mass protests, enforcing programme codes in the village and for advocacy beyond the village. They will become confident and firm in their interaction with government officials, banks and other outsiders.

A total of 696 women’s savings and credit groups were formed in 16 villages and were facilitated by Gram Vikas. Following a minimum of six months of regular transactions, 52 links were forged with banks.

Generation of maintenance funds:

Surveys were carried out in all villages to identify appropriate sources of community income. These include ponds, community forests and common agricultural land. Steps are being taken to develop these resources so that there are regular incomes to the community fund. This fund will be used to manage common assets and undertake other development activities. Villagers are being encouraged to bid for public works contracts in their village awarded through Panchayats and Blocks.

To date, householders have not yet contributed to the maintenance funds, as with a few exceptions they do not have a functioning system to maintain. The level of contribution has been set at Rs 10 per family per month, payable in two 6-monthly instalments at harvest time.

Construction of a toilet and bathing room for every single household in the 29 villages has been completed.

Arrangements were being made to secure funds under either RSVY (Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana) or Swajaaldhara, Government schemes for the establishment of water supply systems. Either of these schemes would be accessed to fund about 70% of the cost of establishing the water supply system. The Swajaldhara scheme has since been modified and is now called Jaladhara. Instead of contributing 10% of costs as in Swajaldhara, Jaladhara is completely free; however, availability of funds seems to be extremely limited.

Sadly, progress in this area has been frustratingly slow:

Water supply systems have been established in 5 villages (3 using gravity flow).
In two villages the water tank has been completed but not yet connected to an electricity supply for pumping.
A water tank is under construction in one village, the bore well having been completed.
21 villages have applied for Government funding

Gram Vikas will wait a little longer in the hope of obtaining Government funding for the water supply but if this approach fails, Gram Vikas will utilise recently accessed funds from other sources and its own reserves.

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