Strengthening community to avail government schemes!

Government welfare schemes are one of the vital options for sustainable livelihood, but sad part is that because of unawareness and highly rooted corruption in the government machinery, poor villagers are denied of getting the benefits. We could understand the importance of government welfare schemes by knowing who has received and how it has changed their life as:

…Sita at Kajalpada (Banswara) has shelter to secure her family in rain

Sita ( from Kajalpada villages, LIFE project village, Banswara) , with the effort and guidance from  our field animator ( Ms. Priya) has received amount for constructing house under Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) and she has constructed the same; now also planning to construct toilet & bathroom,  when we have asked to her, that if this house would not be with her what would be her situation? She has only reply  that she and her family has to worried about where we would stay during rain! Any ways She is happy now and it can be easily observed when someone interacts with her and she has smile on her face.  In case of Sita our LIFE team at Banswara worked as:

“We did application of monitoring tools last year in March-April 2011 and we have identified the target community and listed out those who all are deprived of the benefits of govt. welfare schemes and our LIFE team has started working with those (considering the eligibility criteria). In case of Sita our LIFE project field coordinator ( Ms. Priya) has worked extensively to guide her family on the scheme and make them to apply for the IAY, initially there were hurdles like sanctioning it from Panchayat...and for the same not only for sita like her others who all are eligible for IAY in Mundadi & Kajalpad LIFE project villages have submitted written complain application for the delay ( it was not RTI) and continuously approached the Panchayat, adding to this we have organized village level training programmes to those who all are our target community for IAY..and this all effort finally reaped in to 6 IAY for our target community in Mundadi , Nathpura and Kajalpada, Sita is one of them!” Second the utmost important thing....these are the first IAY in kajalpad and mundadi in last 10 years as its not easy to get and the process is quite complicated and takes time. In case of Sita it has taken 6 months.....

…Pratapi of Luxamipur ( Ajmer) has shelter….and security for food!

Pratapi wife of late Ghasi has no idea about her age, but village people said that she has crossed 80 years. Now she is not able to see properly, but somewhere she is happy!...Pratapi is from Luxamipura village (Mavashiya Panchayat, Shrinagar block, Ajmer, Rajasthan) and live in a small mud house along with his disabled son Ranga. This family is one of the targeted family of the LIFE project in Luxamipura as they marginalized farmer with mere 3 bigha of land that too rain-fed. To strengthen the livelihood option of the Pratapi family LIFE team has intervene with the family to make her aware about different government social security schemes like old-age pension, disability pension , Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) and make the family to apply for all said schemes. Pratapi and her son has applied through the LIFE project intervention and now they have received amount to construct house under IAY, also Pratapi son disability pension has started as monthly Rs. 500 and Pratapi old age pension is also in pipeline. Now Pratapi is happy…she is sharing that last night it was heavy rain, and we were not able to cover our self in this tent shared mud house, now within few months our own house would be there and we would get the shelter to save our self from rain and other calamities…also with the Ranga pension amount now there is some support for their food security…..Pratapi is thankful to LIFE project and its staff…

“If we change both these situations, we could probably able to see unhappy face of Sita, and surviving with her family in rain without any roof…engaged in amazing her family, try to earn and built home…it must take around 4-5 years…keeping money for house construction would probably lead to less consumption of food, poor clothing for children, tension in family and might be in debt! Where as Pratapi  and her son Ranga might have lost the hope for the life!”

This is the importance of government schemes, which secure the life of community in many ways some where it generates happiness with better survival, somewhere it generates life with dignity!

In total 598 target families have received benefit from the government welfare schemes with the efoort of LIFE project team. Effort of LIFE project team is in the form of the following:

• Generating awareness amongst the target community on various government schemes through training, rallies and personal interaction. This has helped the community to know about the schemes.

• Sharing the information on government schemes in CBO meetings, and through Rozgar Dhaba centers.

• Organizing small-small workshop with the community on social security schemes.

• Facilitating interface with PRI and other various departments with community so that there would be “know-how” happen between the departments and community.

• Strengthening linkages with the PRI and other government department

• Providing assistance to the target community in filling up the application form and required documents to justify eligibility.

We could see the status of major welfare schemes, for which LIFE project team has supported community as:

Major social security schemes	RCDSSS-Ajmer  facilitated the no. of community members	SJVS-Banswara  facilitated the no. of community members
Indira Awas Yojana ( IAY)	7	28
Widow pension	24	16
Old-age pension	34	5