Sunday, February 24, 2013

LIFE project@Ajmer


LIFE project has been an innovative and first project based purely on RBM for Disha - RCDSSS, Ajmer in the field of promoting sustainable livelihood in 10 villages of 2 gram panchayat of Shrinagar block in Ajmer district. The focus of program was to increase agriculture and livestock production of poor and marginalized farmers, promoting non-agriculture and alternative livelihood options especially in youth and women and increasing community participation in governance to mobilize maximum benefits from of govt. schemes and programs (mainly those based on employment and income) for poor and vulnerable community. Along with compilation of results, learning and challenges; the approach of Result Base Management (RBM) was also incorporated in the project planning, monitoring and evaluation process it its 2nd year. And now the project has completed its final year successfully with 94% of result achieved.
Highlights of the project :
·         In the term of accomplishment of planned activities; 2044 (99.75%) were conducted out of which 1102 (54%) are unbudgeted activities including community meetings, formation of CBOs, interface with KVK and other line department, vaccination camps, village development micro-planning and quarterly network meeting with PRI and other stakeholders.
·         143.5% resources (Rs. 5706210/-) of project fund (Rs. 3975879/-) were leverage for 973 poor, widows, oldage, orphans, disabled and marginalized and small farmers through various schemes run by KVK, Ajmer, NABARD, Agriculture Department, Social Welfare Department (through Panchayat) and National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).
·         Services of Krishi Vigyan Kendra Ajmer has been extended to the villages of Life through effective liaison, support and interest: Total 348 farmers received benefit of Rs. 206105/-
·         372 farmers increased their agriculture and livestock production upto 15% through enhanced knowledge and practice of organic farming and livestock management methods.
·         53% sowing area of Rabi Crop (Oct. – Mar.) is increased in the project area after three years of intervention due to increase moisture, water efficient agriculture practices and good rainfall during even during winter.
·         172 Farmers including 58 female farmers were organized in 9 Farmers Club, conducted 271 monthly meetings and mobilized 90,000/- from NABARD for sustainability of clubs and enhance knowledge on improved farming and bank linkages.
·         79 Farmers become model farmers through Learning and practice in Life and doing sustainable agriculture in 109.2 hac. of land. Similaraly, 223 Farmers are adopting good practices recommended for organic and sustainable agriculture through Life in 258.72 hac. of land.
·         Total 122 youth were served through the project in terms of giving them training, knowledge, support and information and handholding support for enhancing their livelihood. Out of this 91 youth were trained and 35 youth have initiated self entrepreneurship.
·         287 women were organized in 19 self help groups, conducted 580 meetings to enhance their knowledge, saving and collective approach towards their social and economical issues they suffered off.
·     Village Developmet Micro-Plan were developed by CBOs for all villages and 4 approved by the Panchayat and being implemented. Total 39 proposed works were sanctioned and some are already implemented by the panchayat.
·      84 eligible people got benefit of different social security schemes. Out of this 71 are getting monthly pension regularaly ranges from Rs. 500/- to 750/- per month each. 13 BPL families got a good shelter through Indira Awas Yojana through our handholding support in application and followup.
Rojgar Dhaba has been an innovative product of this project which has awarded by IIM Ahmadabad for the field of Innovation in Rural Development. Four such centres were established in the project and at the end of project total 21882 people were served in 15 months through its various services. 57 Youth were trained out of which 4 got placed and 10 were self-employed. 4 persons got benefit of social security schemes and 24 other agriculture related schemes of value Rs. 154400/-.
Challenges and shortcomings are always deep-rooted with success.  We also faced some big and small challenges; we overcome with most of them but some remained in the form of shortcoming of the project.
·         Result of Pastureland development in two village having farmers club manage could not be achieved due to lack of community land and disputes over the available pastures. Encroachment over community land is widespread in all the villages though a farmers club of Surajpura has been able to remove it from over  24 hac. of pastureland.
·         Govt. has not announced any constitutional gram sabha for last 1.5 year, so as the gram panchayat. Therefore, we could not strengthen social audit process through our micro-plan and people’s participation.
·         The result part of Skill building and placement of youth has been also challenging due to very least educational qualification, early marriage and early engagement in work (labor, driving, mining etc.
In nutshell we can call Life project a big successful effort of Disha and CARITAS India – Spain that established another benchmark for working for promotion of organic farming and sustainable livelihood. The report would speak more about the results, achievements and  learnings of the project.

By RCDSSS-Ajmer LIFE project team on Feb 20th 2013

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