Evolution of Model Village Organisations

Exposure visits, organized by the Prakasam district for MAC Society in Addakal Mandal of Mahaboobnagar district has created greater impact on the functioning of village organizations. Hence, 30 Village Organizations were selected for further nurturing and preparing them as models. A Training Programme was organized with the following objectives:

The sessions organized were in a participatory way in which women came out with good success stories and shown way to other village organizations. This year internal exposure visits were preferred to external exposure visits for the above said 30 village organizations.

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Enhanced Income given scope for Children's Education

Manduva Rosamma, 35 years, is a native of Manduvaripalem village in Prakasam district. She belongs to Scheduled Caste and is landless. She has three children and her husband is laborer. The family depends up on wage employment with an income of less than Rs. 10,000 per annum. Because of this situation there children were not sent to school and were also suffering from malnutrition.

Rosamma has become the member of village organization in 2003 with lot of efforts put forth by project staff. Rosamma received high priority in receiving loan as she belongs to poorest of the poor category. She has opted for rearing of Milch animal as Green Fodder and Milk Collection center is available in the village. She took Rs. 5000 loan from Village Organisation and another Rs. 5000 from the group and purchased improved breed animal with that amount.

The animal gives 5 liters of milk a day and is sold for Rs. 16 per liter. Now, her monthly income is Rs. 3000, by which she is able to send her children to school and giving them nutritious food.

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Livelihood Planning

The village of Vemavaram, an on-going watershed, has a number of caste groups with varied wealth positions. There are 412 households living in the village, of these 45 are Scheduled Caste (SC), 57 Schedule Tribes (ST), 78 Backward Caste (BC), and 232 Other Caste (OC). 100 households are without land and 15 are women-headed. 200 women in the village are organised into 20 SHGs. These SHGs mainly comprise women from BC and OC communities. Under the watershed programme, only 30 small and marginal farmers received any benefits. As part of the livelihood planning process, a wealth ranking exercise was carried out. Wealth ranking is a participatory tool for the identification of the poor in the village while simultaneously grouping different households according to their wealth. In order for this to be a successful exercise women from all sections of the community need to be involved. The SHG members were therefore persuaded to invite members from other castes. The participants were asked to identify the poorest of the poor households in the community (often this is in the order of 3-5 households), give reasons why they are categorised as the poorest. After this, they were asked to rank these households. This process continues until all households in the community are ranked according to their wealth and social status. In this exercise, the households were categorised under four major groups: ultra poor, poor, average, and better off. The categories will depend on how the community wishes to classify the groups. The wealth ranking exercise had two important outcomes: the community itself recognised who the poor were, and the need to organize them and secondly, the community took up collective responsibility to address the needs of the poor. The plan for intervention includes: inclusion of ultra poor women into SHGs; provide membership of the ‘ultra poor’, ‘poor’ and ‘average’ households into the Village Livelihoods Promotion Group (VLPG); and finally, that livelihood funds provided under APRLP will first flow to the households categorised as ‘poor’ then to households categorised as ‘average’. Those women currently organised into groups will have to undergo a six-month preliminary probation phase (in which time they will be trained on group and financial management) before they are entitled to loans.

Information Provided by Ms. Vijaya (DCBC-Prakasam)

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Convergence in Model Villages

Social and economic development is crucially linked to education and Health. In fact, human capital is one of the most important components of a nation's wealth. APRLP with a view of energizing the watershed programme is looking at issues of convergence. APRLP mainly is in convergence with Agriculture and Animal Husbandry departments in all the districts. Prakasam a step ahead had convergence with Health and Adult Education Departments and carrying out some campaigns for awareness and improving the status. Deputy Director, Adult Education is showing interest in taking up the activity in convergence with APRLP. The activity is being taken up in 30 Model villages selected for Gender Development. In these villages Prereks/Volunteers will be selected and trained by the Department on the Teaching methods of Adult Education. Literacy centers were opened in some villages in which women were attending the classes with zeal and enthusiasm. The Project and department are working with an objective to increase the literacy status of the organised women members. The Required training material is being provided by the department. The case study reveals the level of convergence with line departments in APRLP.

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