annual progress report 2011-12 - ugvs.org data/report/uliph annual progress report...annual progress...

1

Livelihoods Improvement Project for the Himalayas,

Uttarakhand (ULIPH) 624-IN

ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT 2011-12

(April 2011 to March 2012)

Prepared by:

Uttarakhand Gramya Vikas Samiti (UGVS) & Uttarakhand Parvatiya Aajeevika Sanvardhan Company

(UPASaC)

272 C, Phase II, Vasant Vihar, Dehradun Phone & Fax : 0135-2762800/ 2762798

Email: [email protected], [email protected] Website : www.ajeevika.org.in Blog: www.uliph.blogspot.com

April 2012

2

Table of Contents

Particulars Page No.

Abbreviations used 3

Executive Summary 6

MAIN REPORT

1. Project Background 9

2. Component B: Empowerment and Capacity Building of Community Organizations and their Support Organizations

11

2.1 Poverty Analysis and Targeting 11

2.2 Community Empowerment 12

2.3 Formation of Empowerment of SHG Federation 15

2.4 Interventions to reduce women drudgery 18

2.5 Learnings of Component B 19

3. Component C: Livelihoods Enhancement & Development 20

3.1 Agriculture 21

3.2 Horticulture 24

3.3 Soil & water resources 27

3.4 Livestock 29

3.5 Forestry Development 32

3.6 Eco Tourism and other opportunities (off farm activities) 34

3.7 Learnings of Component C 36

4. Component D: Livelihoods Support Systems 39

4.1 Entrepreneurship Development 39

4.2 Rural Finance Interventions 42

4.3 Seed Capital 44

4.4 Learnings of Component D 44

5. Component E: Project Management 45

5.1 Financial Progress, , 45

5.2 Accounts & Audit 45

5.3 Human Resource Management 45

5.4 Procurement, 46

5.5 Convergence 46

5.6 Knowledge Management 47

5.7 Monitoring and Evaluation 47

5.8 Integrated Livelihood Improvement Project 50

Annexures

Annex I: Financial Progress Summary of project in 2011-12. 52

3

Abbreviations Used

AI Artificial Insemination

AWPB Annual Work Plan & Budget

AM Assistant Manager

BC Block Coordinator

BD Bio Dynamic

BDS Business Development Services

BLCMC Block Level Coordination and Monitoring Committee

BP Business Promoter

BRAC Bangladesh Rural Advancement Centre

CA Chartered Accountant

CAAA Comptroller of Aid, Accounts and Audit

CAP Centre for Aromatic Plants

CBED Community based Economic Development Project

CBOs Community Based Organisations

CBRE Community based retail enterprises

CBRT Community Based Rural Tourism

CCL Cash Credit Limit

CEO Chief Executive Officer

CHEA Central Himalayan Environment Association

CHIRAG Central Himalayan Rural action Group

CMRE Community Managed Retail Enterprise

COSOP Country Opportunity Strategy Paper

CRP Community Resource Person

DEA Department of Economic Affairs

DGS&D Director General of Supplies and Demand

DLCMC District Level Coordination and Monitoring Committee

DMU District Management Unit

DOC Day Old Chick

DPM District Project Manager

DRDA District Rural Development Agency

FFI Formal Financial Institution

F-NGOs Facilitating Non-Government Organisations

GoI Government of India

GoUK Government of Uttarakhand

GP Group Promoter

GTZ German Technical Cooperation

HARC Himalayan Action Research Centre

HH Household

HRDI Herbal Research Development Institute

HTM Horticultural Technology Mission

ICO India Country Office

ICIMOD International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development

4

IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development

IGA Income Generating Activity

ILDC Integrated Livestock Development Centre

ILSP Integrated Livelihoods Support Project

INBAR International Network for Bamboo and Rattan

IOC Input Output Centre

JRM Joint Review Mission

KVK Krishi Vigyan Kendra

LCB Local Competitive Bidding

LEADER Livelihood Promotion through Appropriate Drudgery reduction

LDPE Low Density Polyethylene

LRBME Local Resource Based Micro-Enterprise

MART Marketing and Research Team

MCM Management Committee Meeting

MNREGA Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

MAP Medicinal & Aromatic Plants

ME Micro Enterprises

M&E Monitoring & Evaluation

MFD Manager Federation Development

MIS Management Information System

MPAT Multi Dimensional Poverty Assessment Tool

NABARD National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development

NCB National Competitive Bidding

NGOs Non-Government Organisations

NRHM National Rural Health Mission

NRLM National Rural Livelihoods Mission

OSV Off Season Vegetable

PACS Primary Agricultural Credit Cooperative Society

PLA Project Loan Agreement

PMU Project Management Unit

PRA Participatory Rural Appraisal

PRIs Panchayat Raj Institutions

RED Regional Economic Development

RIMS Result & Impact Management System

RML Rheuter Market Light

RO AWPB Result Oriented Annual Work Plan & Budget

RTI Right to Information

SAPPLPP South Asia Pro Poor Livestock Policy Programme

SBMA Shri Bhubneshwari Mahila Ashram

SCM Steering Committee Meeting

SHG Self Help Group

SME Small & Medium Enterprises

SRCA Self Reliant Cooperative Act

SVCC Social Venture Capital Company

5

SVCF Social Venture Capital Fund

ToR Terms of Reference

TNGO Technical Non Govt. Organization

UBFDB Uttarakhand Bamboo and Fibre Development Board

UGB Uttarakhand Grameen Bank

UGVS Uttarakhand Gramya Vikas Samiti

ULDB Uttarakhand Livestock Development Board

ULIPH Uttarakhand Livelihoods Improvement Project for the Himalayas

UOCB Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board

UPASaC Uttarakhand Paravatiya Aajeevika Sanvardhan Company

UREDA Uttarakhand Renewable Energy Development Authority

USD United States Dollar

USSOCA Uttarakhand State Seed & Organic Certification Agency

USTDC Uttarakhand Seed and Tarai Development Corporation

USWDB Uttarakhand Sheep and Wool Development Board

VLCC Village Level Coordination Committee

VP Van Panchayat

VPKAS Vivekanand Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan

WBR Well Being Ranking

6

Executive Summary • The Government of Uttarakhand is implementing the Uttarakhand Livelihoods Improvement

Project for the Himalayas (ULIPH), commonly known as “Aajeevika”, from October 2004 with

financial support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

• The project is managed by the Uttarakhand Gramya Vikas Samiti (UGVS), and is supported by a Social Venture Capital Company (SVCC) known as Uttarakhand Parvatiya Aajeevika Sanvardhan Company (UPASaC) that provides business development services.

• The purpose of the project is to improve the quality of life and incomes of disadvantaged

households in a sustainable manner through the promotion of improved livelihood opportunities

and strengthening of local institutions that relate to livelihood and social development.

• The project intends to provide opportunities to create or enhance the livelihoods of the poor

households by applying the principle of self-help and utilizing the self-help groups (SHG) and

developing community institutions and investing in their capacity to take livelihood decisions by

providing a range of support services and linkages.

• The project is covering 959 villages of 17 development blocks in 5 districts of Uttarakhand where

approximately 40 percent of the total population in each selected block is covered under the

project interventions.

• The total project cost over eight years is USD 47.80 million (INR 239.76 crores), of which IFAD

loan is USD 22.39 million (INR 112.21 crores) which is 47 % of project cost.

• The cumulative expenditure of the project as on 31st March 2012 has been INR 107.2 crores

against approved AWPB of INR 154.1 crores (67 % achievement), while in the current financial

year, the expenditure was INR 21.52 crore against target of INR 39.61 crores, (54 %

achievement).

• The financial progress of IFAD contribution to project as on 31st March 2012 was INR 88.66

crores against total contribution of INR 112.21 crores, which is 79% of the proposed contribution

by IFAD.

• The project has following components:

� Component A: Pre-Project Implementation (completed before project start) � Component B: Empowerment & Capacity-Building of Communities & Support

Organizations � Component C: Livelihood Enhancement and Development � Component D: Livelihood Support System � Component E: Project Management � The component wise summary of progress made is given below:

Component B: Empowerment and capacity building of community organizations and

their support organizations

• The project worked in all identified 959 villages in 17 blocks and 5 project districts.

• As per the second round of well being ranking exercise of the project village, the households are divided into four categories. Out of 63,406 households in the project villages the category wise distribution is as follows: category I (vulnerable) 14%, category II (hard-core poor) 34%, category III (hovering above poverty line) 25%, category IV (well-off) 26%. Project interventions are being organized around these categories & focus is on category I-II households.

7

• A total of 3,924 CBOs including 3,559 SHGs have been formed by the project till date against revised target of 4,000 CBOs. 42,979 HHs against the target of 42,690 HHs have been organised into CBOs. Around 95% of the SHG members are women.

• During 2011-12, SHG saving was Rs.15.2 million (cumulative Rs. 75.7 million) and 83 SHGs (cumulative 2,146 SHGs) credit-linked for an amount of Rs. 7.4 million (cumulative Rs. 76.1 million).

• 751 SHGs having 2,081 members received seed capital support from project amounting to Rs. 0.75 million (cumulative Rs. 13.4 million).

• 19 NGO partners, 34 federations and one PACS provided social mobilization inputs in 52 clusters. A total of 322 NGO/federation/PACS staff provided field inputs in community mobilization to project communities.

• 71 SHG based federations have been established in project clusters. The savings and share contribution of the federations is Rs. 4.5 million. Out of these 65 federations are registered under Uttarakhand State Self Reliant Cooperative Act 2003. 3111 SHGs with 27814 members are linked to these federations.

• In Component B the financial achievement was Rs. 45.5 million against target of Rs. 59.3 million which was 77 % of annual target.

Component C: Livelihoods Enhancement & Development

• A total of 11,965 demonstrations covering 37,618 HHs were organised under the component covering diverse activities related to agriculture, horticulture, livestock, forestry, soil & water conservation and ecotourism & RNFS.

• Demonstrations tried out in various sub-sectors were as follows:

• In agriculture sector, 3,533 demonstrations covering 12,466 HHs were organized for organic farming, seed production, and apiculture.

• In horticulture sector, 711 demonstrations covering 14,014 HHs were organized for off season vegetable cultivation, spices cultivation, poly house etc.

• Under Soil and Water Resources sector, 798 demonstrations covering 851 HHs were organized for rain water harvesting LDPE and stone masonry tanks.

• In Livestock sector, 6,631 demonstrations covering 8,317 HHs were organized for Micro Dairy, breed improvement, Kuroiler mother unit, backyard poultry rearing, paravet development etc.

• In Forestry sector, 92 demonstrations covering 1,669 HHs were organized for MAP cultivation, community forestry plantation etc

• In Ecotourism and RNFS sector, 200 demonstrations covering 301 HHs were organized for rural non farm sector activities like spinning and weaving, community based ecotourism (home-stay development), community managed retail enterprises.

• A total of 492 training programs, 191 exposure visits and 172 workshops covering 30,697 households were organised for farm and off-farm activities in the identified sub-sectors

• Organic farming was practiced with 9,912 HHs in 2,898 ha. of land under certification. Seed production activities were carried out with 6,521 farmers in 667 ha. land with buy-back arrangements made with USTDC for 45 tons of seed.

• Off season vegetable cultivation was practiced in 902 ha land by 10,209 HHs, while 1,149 HHs cultivated spices in 73 ha of land. Besides, European vegetable cultivation was made in Almora district by 75 HHs in 5 ha of land.

• MAP cultivation was demonstrated in 65 ha land by 1,642 HHs of 43 villages mainly in Chamoli district.

• A total of 95 service providers comprising of government agencies, commodity boards, research and technical institutions and private agencies supported the project with technical backstopping, input supply and market linkages.

8

• Replication of project interventions was seen in activities like seed production, off-season vegetables, spice cultivation, kuroiler rearing, micro-dairy, MAP cultivation and non-farm activities.

• In Component C the financial achievement was Rs. 103.5 million against target of Rs. 189.1 million which was 55 % of annual target.

Component D: Livelihoods Support Systems

• A total of 117 Business Promoters (including 22 federation BPs) have been engaged by project for providing business facilitation to project communities.

• ULIPH promoted 30,094 Income Generating activities, 1,209 micro-enterprises and 183 service enterprises or SMEs during the reporting period.

• Under Rural Finance initiatives, 83 CCLs amounting to Rs. 7.4 mn were mobilized from banks (cumulative 2,146 CCLs worth Rs. 76.1 mn) in the reporting period.

• The project has facilitated disbursement of 668 term loans for micro-enterprise establishment worth Rs. 62.5 mn. ranging from Dairy (396), Off season vegetables (22), Rural Non Farm Sector (33) and others (211). The loans taken by individuals are 639 for Rs. 57.5 mn. and those taken by SHGs is 29 for Rs. 5.0 mn.

• A total of 2,731 KCCs including 2,662 individual KCC (for Rs. 67.8 mn.) and 35 institutional or SHG based KCC (for Rs. 2.4 mn.) total amounting to Rs. 70.2 mn. were mobilized in the reporting period.

• In Component D the financial achievement was Rs. 41.8 million against target of Rs. 76.8 million which was 54 % of annual target.

Component E: Project Management

• Quarterly project progress is reviewed at state, district, block & village level. In the reporting period 1945 VLCC, 35 BLCMC, 12 DLCMC, 12 MCM and 2 SCM were organised.

• Emphasis on Knowledge Management for development action was a thrust area of project and a series of experience sharing workshops with federations, SHGs and PRI representatives was held.

• The project website www.ajeevika.org.in is operational. Quarterly news letter ‘Aajeevika

Today’ at state level and ‘Aajeevika Khabarbat’ & ‘Aajeevika Raibar’ at district level continued to be brought out by the project and distributed to key stakeholders including community members.

• The project MIS was made operational and reports generated can be viewed in the link : www.ugvs.org

• The project participated as part of the Seventh Joint Review Mission exercise organized during June 2011. Recommendations of the Joint Review Mission have been followed and accordingly the implementation plans of the project have been operationalised.

• Convergence with line departments, NGOs and other institutions for technical & social interventions was worth Rs. 48.2 million benefitting 37246 households.

• Forthcoming Integrated Livelihoods Support Project (ILSP) related appraisal was done by scoping mission and report submitted to IFAD. Tripartite Project Loan Agreement got signed on 1st February 2012 at New Delhi. The overall objective of ILSP is to reduce poverty in hill districts of Uttarakhand.

• In Component E the financial achievement was Rs. 24.3 million against target of Rs. 42.1 million which was 58 % of annual target.

The overall financial achievement of the project during 2011-12 was Rs. 215.2 mn. (54%) against target of Rs. 396.10 mn. This include all components including the contingencies.

9

1. PROJECT BACKGROUND: The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has an overall mission for “Enabling rural poor to overcome poverty”. IFAD’s Country Strategic Opportunities Paper (COSOP) for India, was approved in December 2001 and directed significant interventions in the areas of growth-oriented farm and off-farm activities and natural resource management. In the above context, IFAD’s lending strategy for India envisages following: (ii) Empowerment of the poor by taking advantage of the opportunities created by the on-going

efforts to empower local bodies throughout the country (iii) Integration of self-help groups (SHGs) with local self government institutions as a means of

generating positive synergies between economic advancement, social and institutional development, and empowerment;

(iv) Priority to the development of areas where rain-fed agriculture is practiced, in recognition of the preponderance of poverty in these areas, activities to include micro-watershed development, water-harvesting and overall natural resource management;

(v) Targeting of rural populations, with a special focus on the scheduled tribes and scheduled castes, as well as on women, in recognition of the higher incidences of poverty and vulnerability as well as generally lower social status of these categories.

In line with this, an inception paper for ULIPH was approved by the IFAD management in July, 2002. The Appraisal Mission visited India from 6 May to 12 June 2003. Negotiations and signing of a Tripartite MoU between the State Governments of Meghalaya and Uttarakhand, Government of India and IFAD took place on the 15th of November, 2003 at Rome. And as a result the Uttaranchal Gramya Vikas Samiti (UGVS) was registered as a Society on 5th December, 2003 to implement the Aajeevika Project in Uttarakhand. The Government of Uttarakhand is implementing the Uttarakhand Livelihoods Improvement Project for the Himalayas (ULIPH), commonly known as “Aajeevika” (meaning Livelihoods in Hindi), from October 2004 with financial support from the IFAD. The project is managed by the Uttarakhand Gramya Vikas Samiti (UGVS), and is supported by a Social Venture Capital Company (SVCC) known as Uttarakhand Parvatiya Aajeevika Sanvardhan Company (UPASaC) that provides business development services. The Project’s primary objective is to improve the livelihood of vulnerable groups in a sustainable manner through the promotion of improved livelihood opportunities and strengthening of local institutions that relate to livelihood development. The project intends to provide opportunities to create or enhance the livelihoods to the poor households by applying the principle of self-help and utilizing the self-help groups (SHG) and developing community institutions and investing in their capacity to take livelihood decisions, and by providing a range of support services and linkages. The main objectives of the project are:

• To initiate a participatory process of target group and client selection that is based on panchayati raj participation in Uttarakhand;

• To undertake capacity building of village-based institutions, along with implementation partners in the public, private and NGO sectors;

• To test out ideas, approaches, activities proposed in the Project Plan in order to further clarify our understanding of what works and what doesn’t; what needs to be refined, what needs to be discarded;

10

• To demonstrate in realistic settings those livelihood activities that show good potential for wider promotion and adoption;

• To organize business development services to promote and support the selected microenterprises; these services include: microfinance, networking to generate scale economies, market research and development, product research and development, backward linkages and forward linkages;

• To demonstrate to financial institutions the financial viability and creditworthiness of various microenterprise activities to facilitate access to required credit.

The project is covering 959 villages of 17 development blocks in 5 districts of Uttarakhand where approximately 40 percent of the total population in each selected block is covered under the project interventions. The project has formed 3962 community-based organisations: Self-Help Groups, Van Panchayats & Federations. Details of project districts, blocks and villages is given below.

Project Districts

Project Development Blocks

No. of Villages

Almora Bhainsiachhana, Dhauladevi, and Lamgara

203

Bageshwar Kapkot and Bageshwar 207

Chamoli Dewal, Ghat, Narayanbagar and Dasholi

151

Tehri Garhwal

Jaunpur, Pratapnagar, Devprayag and Bhilangna

227

Uttarkashi Mori, Naugaon, Dunda and Purola

171

The cumulative expenditure of the project as on 31st March 2012 has been INR 107.2 crores against

approved AWPB of INR 154.1 crores (67 % achievement), while in the current financial year, the

expenditure was INR 21.52 crore against target of INR 39.61 crores, (54 % achievement). The

financial progress of IFAD contribution to project as on 31st March 2012 was INR 88.66 crores

against total contribution of INR 112.21 crores, which is 79% of the proposed contribution by IFAD.

The project has following components: Component A: Pre-Project Implementation (completed before project start) Component B: Empowerment & Capacity-Building of communities & support organizations Component C: Livelihood Enhancement and Development Component D: Livelihood Support System Component E: Project Management

The component wise summary of progress made in reporting period is summarized in the following pages:

11

2. COMPONENT B: EMPOWERMENT AND CAPACITY-BUILDING OF

COMMUNITIES AND SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS

The primary objective of this component is to build CBOs with ability to make an informed choice,

plan and manage livelihood activities in a micro-enterprise mode. CBOs would have two growth

trajectories i.e. social development and economic growth. The project mainly focused on the

economic growth trajectory. But, the initial capacity building and community mobilization is essential

to prepare the community to pursue both economic growth and social development growth

trajectories. In order to achieve this, effective mechanisms to foster democratic decision-making,

ownership and sustainability, and to demonstrate strengths in working as groups rather than

individuals were built. The project is working with 19 NGO partners, 34 federations and one PACS to

implement the activities of this component.

2.1 Poverty Analysis and Targeting:

Well Being Ranking or Wealth Ranking was conducted in every project village to obtain a core data, to be used to categorise the HHs in the project area as per their well being status. WBR is based on a composite index covering social, economic and infrastructure indicators and physical, financial, human, and social and natural resources possessed by the ranked household. The data is further analysed to benefit the ultra-poor and hardcore poor and those who are just above the poverty line. It has been observed that due to very smallholdings and the very low productivity of the land, most households in the project area live by maintaining a diversified pattern of occupations as no single activity provides sufficient resources to entirely insure their livelihood. In view of the existing economic differentiation and the added problem of significant social differentiation in the project areas it was found important that the project identifies the very poor and prioritises its actions focusing them. The Project serves the poorest household by selection of the families with a relatively high incidence of poverty and higher ratio of scheduled caste or scheduled tribe populations, using available natural resources more productively through appropriate small scale intervention with affordable technologies, and focusing demonstrations on households below the poverty line. The project completed the second stage of the well being ranking exercise for all 959 project villages. The exercise covered over 63 thousand households of the project villages. Nearly 46 thousand of these belong to the project target group and the project has covered the target 42690 households. Based on the JRM recommendations the project has categorized the project households into four categories and the details of the well being ranking (WBR) exercise compiled district wise are given below:

SN District Category of households as per WBR

Total

Project

target HHs I II III IV

1 Almora 1779 3304 2839 3331 11253 7922

2 Bageshwar 1745 4490 3205 3626 13066 9440

3 Chamoli 1951 3806 2849 4057 12663 8606

4 Tehri 2531 5990 3713 2417 14651 12234

5 Uttarkashi 1090 4015 3373 3295 11773 8478

Total 9096 21605 15979 16726 63406 46680

% coverage 14 34 25 26 100

12

Note: Category I = Vulnerable, Category II = hardcore poor, Category III = hovering above the

poverty line, Category IV = Well off.

The WBR category wise details of households covered in SHGs are summarized in the following

table:

District Project target HHs

HHs Covered

under SHG Category of HH as per WBR in SHGs

I II III IV

Almora 7922 7249 1027 2761 2221 1240

Bageshwar 9440 7371 546 3061 2248 1516

Chamoli 8606 6879 314 2594 2280 1691

Tehri 12234 9231 1033 4021 2848 1329

Uttarkashi 8478 6243 437 2639 2422 745

Total 46680 36973 3357 15076 12019 6521

% coverage 100 9 41 32 18

The sub-components implemented under this component are:

1-Community Empowerment,

2- Facilitation through NGOs and

3- Interventions to reduce women’s drudgery.

2.2 Community Empowerment:

Community empowerment is vital to effectively implement the project activities. For effective capacity building of community and CBOs, the selected FNGOs were trained on the best practices related to community mobilization to ensure mobilization of quality CBOs. In addition, the project also focus on the CBOs that exist in the project area. The project adopted SHG methodology to mobilize groups within the selected blocks in the project area. The first step in SHG mobilization include mobilizing the community around a low cost and community funded social action that would benefit the entire community. The project worked with existing SHGs wherever possible and mobilize new SHGs in other areas. This activity thus became an interface activity between the community, project facilitating agencies and the PRIs. The SHG mobilization methodology, promotes groups of 10-20 members, develops its capability to undertake savings and credit and then works towards SHG-FFI Linkage. The capacity of these SHGs were further developed for undertaking other livelihood and social development activities. The project area is characterized by compact villages with 50-60 households, social capital is high and the gender based work allocation is well entrenched. Drudgery to undertake household chores and especially tasks related to food processing is high. In order to improve the quality of life of women and to enable them to undertake micro-enterprise, efforts were made to reduce their drudgery. The project facilitated the NGOs through training, exposure visits and leverage fund to assist the SHGs in pursuing the social development growth trajectory. The empowerment and capacity building of communities and support organizations component has four major activities. They are: (i) identifying and building capacity of support organizations; (ii) community mobilization using SHG methodology; (iii) establishing linkage of SHGs to the SVCC to

13

pursue economic growth trajectory; and (iv) assisting the community to undertake social sector activities by sourcing funding from PMU/DMU. The selected FNGOs and federations were provided funding to establish cluster level offices and to employ Block Coordinators and Group Promoters to undertake SHG mobilization and other related activities. Adequate training were provided to the FNGOs in the key areas of assistance which include (i) SHG Development which would cover social mobilization, accounts and bookkeeping, monitoring and evaluation and institutional linkages; and (ii) participatory processes in community institution building and micro-planning.

SHG Development training covered the topics of Gender sensitization; Participatory processes and social mobilization; Methods of communication and importance of feedback; Wealth ranking and identifying resource poor households; Exploring the credit needs, credit sources and savings ability of the group members; Facilitating SHGs to evolve their own rules and modifying rules with experience- important aspects to remember while framing rules of the SHGs and to make the group own the rules; Accounting system for SHGs; Establishing linkage with FFIs; Leadership and Monitoring system and self-evaluation of SHGs. Participatory Processes and Micro-planning training covered topics related to Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) techniques, Participatory poverty analysis, Vision building and Micro-planning.

During the reporting period capacity building of community and project staff was taken special care so that the livelihood enhancement and development component build on the existing strengths of the community and in coming years assist the SHG members to move up the value chain by up-scaling production and by establishing the required backward and forward linkages. A number of capacity building programmes in the key areas of assistance have been organized for NGO staffs to prepare them to take over the project functions. The training programmes covered two broad aspects i.e. Federations development which covered social mobilisation, accounts and book keeping, monitoring and evaluation and institutional linkages; and Participatory processes in community institution building and micro-planning. The BCs and GPs were also trained in reporting requirements. Important trainings provided to project staff and community is summarised below.

The progress made in Community empowerment component is given below:

S

No

Particulars

Annual Targets and achievements

2011-12

Cumulative Targets &

Achievements target

Targets Achieve-

ment

Achieve

ment % Targets

Achieve-

ment

Achieve-

ment %

1 No. of CBOs NT* 5 NA* 4,000 3,924 98

Training to Staff Training to Community

• Enterprise development,

• SHG accounting and book keeping,

• Health Modules,

• Presentation skill & report writing

• RTI & MNREGA.

• Accounting Training to maintain Federations accounts.

• Federation development

• Monitoring and evaluation

• Transitional literacy

• Accounting & Book Keeping

• Vision Building & their Networking

• Leadership development

• Governance issues

• Institutional management

• Presentation skill & report writing

• RTI & MNREGA

• Business planning of federation

14

Total SHGs 2 3,559

New SHGs 2 3,166

Adopted SHGs - 394

Federations 3 71

Van Panchayats - 294

2 Membership in SHGs NT 104 NA 40,000 36,973 93

3 Membership in CBOs NT 104 NA 42,690 42,979 101

4 Saving of SHGs

(Rs. In million)

24.1 15.2 63 80 75.7 95

5 Intra loaning amt.

(Rs. in million)

35 35.7 102 120 186.3 155

6 SHGs receiving Seed

Capital

625 713 114 7,000 5,622 80

7 Seed capital

(Rs. in million)

1.46 0.75 51 14 13.4 96

8 No. of SHGs linked with

bank (CCL)

337 83 25 2,400 2,146 89

10 No. of SHGs under

federation

381 292 77 3,200 3,111 97

11 No. of SHG members

under federation

13,060 8,874 68 32,000 27,814 87

*NT- No Targets (Targets almost achieved); *NA- Not Applicable

Women have been brought to the level of social participation in the group meetings and their overall

awareness levels have been increased. Of the total 36,973 households covered under SHGs,

35,293 (95%) are women. Conscious effort was made to involve women in the economic activities

with special focus on improved technology for drudgery reduction. Project is covering poor women

headed households in the SHGs and as part of livelihood interventions. During meetings of the

SHGs focus is made by the NGO staff to ensure their participation. The International Women’s day

celebrations are organized every year with the full involvement of SHGs and their federations.

Involvement of PRI representatives resulted in organizing 1,945 VLCC and 35 BLCMC meetings and

12 DLCMC meetings. The discussions in the meetings have led to awareness building of

stakeholders on project progress and necessary guidance and convergence. More importantly the

forums created under project has provided opportunities to SHGs & federations to articulate their

need areas. Some of the important decisions include convergence of MNREGA and plantation of

fodder grass activity under ULIPH.

Capacity building of the SHG members was enhanced through SHG modules. Various modules

(SHG, gender, health, transactional literacy etc.) were used for building capacity of SHG and

federation members. In the reporting period, more focus was given on issues related to governance

of federations, record keeping, entrepreneurship development and health issues. The SHGs were

motivated to circulate money as much as possible for intra-loaning and use it more for productive

purposes. A total of 288 capacity building programs were organised for community benefitting

15

12,258 SHG members. As of date 100% SHG members have been imparted the training program.

The progress in capacity building programs imparted to community and project staff during reporting

period is summarized below.

Progress in Capacity Building Programs during 2011-12

SNo Particulars

Unit Annual targets for 2011-12

Achievement in 2011-12

Achievement %

No of prog.

No of parti.

No of prog.

No of parti.

No of prog.

No of parti.

1 Training for staff

No. 20 590 72 943

360 160

2 Training for beneficiaries

No. 79 1741 99 3333

125 191

3 Exposure visits No. 24 488 27 646 113 132

4 Workshop No. 144 5990 162 8279 113 138

SHG self evaluation exercise has helped the SHGs on their status and the members take corrective

actions wherever required. The audit process has helped build up the credibility of SHGs and helped

in availing CCL from banks apart from building the confidence of SHG members. Participatory NGO

assessment exercise at district level involving PRI members, line department representative, FNGO

partners and the project gave valuable inputs for project implementation.

Impact of the capacity building programme:

• SHG members have started visiting financial institutions for availing loans and other financial transactions.

• SHG- Federation members are able to maintain their books of accounts by themselves.

• Women are participating in decision making process in and outside of their family.

• Women have started discussion on social issues like gender discrimination, dowry, alcoholism, girl education, maternal & child health etc.

• Community had adopted high yielding seeds and modern techniques in agriculture and allied sectors.

• SHG-Federation members are also using loans for the enterprise development.

• SHG-Federation members have started approaching to the District project office and other govt. department for availing benefits of Govt. programs and giving feedback/suggestions.

• The SHG-Federation members playing important role in beneficiary selection and collwction of community contribution.

• The members of SHG-Federation have also started dialogue with the PRIs on the issues related to village development.

• The social status of women has increased in the society.

2.3 Formation and Empowerment of SHG Federations:

To provide back up support in capacity building, forward and backward linkages, assisting in collective marketing endeavours, to transmit technical know-how, Self Help Groups have been federated into cluster level Federations. These federations are registered under the Self Reliant Cooperatives Act- 2003.The major objectives of these federations/cooperatives are:

16

• To form/strengthen models, which will provide different services to the beneficiary according to Geographical area

• To give different social services to the members of SHGs such as health, education, looking after SHGs etc

• To do different business activities like collective marketing, Input-put centers etc. identified by cooperatives according to the need of the area

• Super vision/implementation of the project in clusters where the FNGO has withdrawn or is going to withdraw.

• Coordination and convergence with various line departments for different types of schemes. A total of 71 SHG federations have been formed at cluster level in the project of which 65 are registered under Self Reliant Cooperative Act – 2003. The total membership of federations are 27,814 covering 3,111 SHGs having share capital and corpus of Rs. 13.45 million.. These Federations are first step in formation of collective institutions of SHGs. The details of district wise cooperatives are summarized in the following table. S.N District No. of

villages

No. of

federations

Registered

federations

No. of SHGs Membership

1 Almora 206 11 10 544 4,867

2 Bageshwar 207 11 11 627 7,285

3 Chamoli 151 19 14 702 4,427

4 Tehri 227 13 13 703 7,151

5 Uttarkashi 171 17 17 535 4,084

Total 959 71 65 3,111 27,814

A total of 34 federations are associated with project in the capacity of service providers for the

activities of community mobilization and livelihood promotion of project communities. Taking vital

learning from the exposure visits, project is now working upon with the community with a process of

self generated business discipline for better bargaining power of their enterprises in the market

linkage of federation. The total business turn-over of federations is Rs. 20.1 million in the reporting

period. The federations have started building their vision which includes both social as well as

financial interventions. The federation members realize the importance of entrepreneurship and have

started working on it by taking ownership of input-output centres, grocery shops and other

enterprises through business plans. Internal and external audit of these federations with the help of

Compliance auditors and CAs is being done to maintain transparency and proper record keeping.

The federations are regularly monitoring and identifying beneficiaries who have not been benefited

or are facing problems in getting pensions of different social security schemes such as old-aged

pension, widow pension, handicap pension through social welfare department. Also these

federations are promoting livelihood activities through convergence from line departments and

carrying out activities like managing CMRE, processing units etc. One of the main achievement of

the year was collective marketing of traditional agricultural crops through federations.

United Nations has declared Year 2012 as “International Year of Cooperatives”. Therefore, to

strengthen the federations, project has taken following important initiatives in the reporting year.

17

1- Calendar cum planner of activities: To regularly plan and implement the activities of

federations, a calendar cum planner has been developed for federations, which contains month

wise scheduled activities essential for federation. Accordingly, Board of Directors can plan their

activities each month and implement and monitor them.

2- Federation training module: As per the need of federations that simple training module is

needed which they can independently use for the capacity building their members. It has four

parts (Concept of federation, Registration, Roles and responsibilities of representatives and

management). This module can be used for reference by federation members.

3- Federation Help Line (FHL): For good governance and trouble shooting in federation related

issues, the project has operationalised a Federation Help line (09410102345) from 1st March

2012 onwards. As part of programme, consultant himself communicates with each federation

twice a month and gives his inputs. Where there is no connectivity, communication through post

is done on regular basis. Through this service, the consultant provides important information and

suggestions to federations during their monthly meetings. All the communications are uploaded

on Google docs. from where the project staff can share the documents and plan, analyze and

work accordingly.

4- Good Governance Initiatives: For good governance in the federation, indicators have been

developed through participatory exercises and training has been providing to federation

representative to monitor accordingly. This year, there have been improvements in the legal

formalities, leadership change, decision making and transparency.

5- Implementations of the project through federation: As per withdrawal plan, 34 federations

were the implementing agency of the project in their respective clusters. They were provided

necessary staff, office and other facilities. In the coming financial year all the 54 cluster will be

implemented by the federations.

6- Support to federations- To support the federation for business plan development, a three level

committee has been constituted which will analyze and recommend for financial support to the

federation according to set norms. Two federation of Chamoli were sanctioned Rupee 2.44 lakhs

as financial support.

7- Capacity building of federation- A special training program for data entry operators of

federations was organized in October, 2011 for capacity building on accounting and tally.

Further, financial institutes have been selected to streamline the accounts of all the federations in

districts.

Major Activities being carried out by Cooperatives/Federations: Social Activities-

• Cooperatives are regularly monitoring and identifying beneficiaries who have been not benefited or are facing problems in getting pensions of different social security schemes.

18

• To promote health, hygiene and sanitation, cooperatives are facilitating beneficiaries to construct toilets in coordination with SWAJAL project.

• Cooperatives are playing important role in beneficiary selection and collection of community contribution.

• 4,272 Health Smart Card to SHG members were facilitated by federation in project districts. Business Activities-

• Cooperatives are promoting collective production, value addition and marketing of vegetables, spices, and other traditional crops using brand name ‘Naturally Pahadi’.

• Community based responsible tourism is practiced in all project districts through cooperatives.

• In all project districts, cooperatives are successfully managing Input-output centers for fetching community needs of input supply and marketing of surplus produce.

• Collective milk marketing is a successful venture of cooperatives in all project districts doing business of more than Rs. 11 million annually.

2.4 Interventions to reduce women’s drudgery:

Under the sub head Interventions to reduce women’s drudgery, interventions were made for

improved tools, vermi-composting, improved fodder, sanitary latrines, energy saving devices, water

pitchers, cattle troughs and improved chulhas (stoves). Federations have started efforts to saturate

the clusters with napier & composting. Both the activities are helpful in drudgery reduction as well as

augmenting the input supply for dairy and organic farming. Fully saturated villages under napier are

40 & by vermin-composting are 50. The achievements of important interventions against the annual

targets are given in following table.

Progress in Drudgery reduction interventions during 2011-12

SNo Particulars

Unit Annual targets for 2011-12


Achievement %

No of prog.

No of parti.

No of prog.

No of parti.*

No of prog.

No of parti.*

1 Agricultural impliments

No. 3807 3807 7999 6483

210 170

2 Sanitary Latrines

No. 950 950 1022 1022

108 108

3 Vermi compost pits

No. 2082 2082 2155 2155

104 104

4 Energy saving devices

No. 1000 1000 980 1189

100 144

* due to replication by purchasing at own cost or covering more beneficiaries from the same amount

Project tracked the adoption rate of drudgery reduction initiative. It was discovered that the focus of

the project to address livelihoods needs first through drudgery reduction initiative paid off as shown

by rapid on cost adoption. Replication of vermi-pits (49%), grasses (151%), improved tools (41%)

was carried out. Average saving of two hour per day was observed through adoption of drudgery

reduction interventions.

19

2.5 Learnings of Component B

• Selection of villages using Zoning exercise was a transparent, participatory and learning

exercise.

• Targeting strategy and methodology was unique using WBR for selection of poor households for

mainstreaming I project activities.

• Multi-purpose federation at cluster level are working effectively for addressing social & business

issues.

• Systematic implementation of capacity building modules for SHGs and federations as per the

local context has been useful.

• SHGs federations are moving towards economies of scale of local produce.

• The federations need capacity building, marketing and infrastructure support to carry out its

activities efficiently.

• Promotion of drudgery related initiatives have significantly contributed towards reducing the

workload of women mainly through availability of fodder, agriculture implements, demonstrations

of improved agriculture techniques viz. vermi compost pits, cattle troughs etc.

• Drudgery reduction interventions have impacted by reducing women’s drudgery, saving of

energy and time and ensured women’s involvement in village development.

• Convergence with government agencies including social welfare department improved the

project image amongst beneficiaries. Also poorest supported with pension and other Govt.

schemes.

• Collective Marketing of vegetables, spices, traditional crops, milk etc. through federations was a

successful endeavour for uniting community for collective production and ensuring fair returns of

the produce marketed.

In Component B the financial achievement was Rs. 45.5 million against target of Rs. 59.3 million which was 77 % of annual target.

20

3. COMPONENT C: LIVELIHOODS ENHANCEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT: The Livelihood Enhancement and Development component comprises of interventions in Agriculture, Horticulture, Soil and water conservation, Livestock, Forestry, Eco-tourism and off-farm activities. During the year the project narrowed down its activities into value chain based interventions into the following activities under each sector:

• Agriculture: Organic farming, Seed Production, Apiculture

• Horticulture: Off-Season vegetables, including soil, water resource.

• Livestock: Kuroiler & Micro Dairy

• Forestry: Medicinal Plants & Enterprise oriented Van Panchayat.

• Ecotourism and off-farm activities: Community Tourism & Rural Non-farm sector

During the reporting year, ULIPH project conducted 11965 demonstrations, 492 training programs, 191 exposure visits and 172 workshops for farm and off-farm activities. A total of 37618 participants were involved in the programs including about 80% female participation. Cost sharing of the demonstrations was done with at least 30% of the total cost being taken from the beneficiary. All the persons selected were as per wealth being ranking exercise conducted by project. Inputs provided, if any to well-off farmers in the project area were on full cost basis. Under capacity building programs training programs, exposure visits and workshops were organized in the areas of Organic farming, Seed Production and Apiculture, off season vegetable cultivation, on farm water management, water harvesting structures, livestock health, feed and breed management, backyard poultry rearing, medicinal aromatic plant cultivation, eco-tourism & off farm activities covering 7378 households. Similarly, demonstrations were organized in agriculture, horticulture, water harvesting structures, poultry, dairy, MAP, forestry development, ecotourism and off farm sectors. The overall progress related to capacity building and demonstration activities in Component-C during the reporting period is given in the following table:

Particulars Unit

Targets for 2011-12


Achievement %

Prog. Parti. Prog. Parti. Prog. Parti.

Trainings No. 591 14270 492 15442 109 108

Exposures No. 225 5028 191 4417 94 88

Workshops No. 412 21911 172 10838 53 49

Sub Total No. 1228 41209 855 30697 70 74

Demonstrations No. 14726 48154 11965 37618 62 78

WBR category and gender wise details of persons covered under Component C interventions are given below:

Particulars Total HHs

WBR Gender

I II III IV M W

Trainings 15442 1277 7212 5643 1310 5461 9981

Exposures 4417 751 1869 1457 340 2340 2077

Workshops 10838 1789 4690 3443 916 3174 7664

SubTotal 30697 3817 13771 10543 2566 10975 19722

Demonstrations 37618 4932 15663 13780 3243 7694 29924

The overall financial achievement in Component C was Rs. 103.5 million against target of Rs. 189.1 million which was 55 % of annual target.

21

3.1 SUB COMPONENT: AGRICULTURE Under the agriculture sub-component key value chain based activities identified were organic farming, bee-keeping and seed production. The interventions resulted in establishment of 110 MEs, 33 SMEs and 6920 IGAs. Under A total of 238 capacity building programs including training programs, exposure visits and workshops were organized for Organic farming, Seed Production and Apiculture benefitting 8651 households. Similarly, 3533 demonstrations covering 12466 HHs were organized for organic farming, seed production, power-tillers, light traps, apiculture etc. The overall progress made by project during the reporting period covering capacity building and demonstration activities is given in the following table:

Particulars Unit

Targets for 2011-12


Achievement %


Trainings No. 213 5640 186 6960 87 123

Exposures No. 37 720 37 804 100 112

Workshops No. 31 1260 15 887 48 70

Sub Total No. 381 7620 238 8651 62 114


WBR category and gender wise details of persons covered under agricultural interventions are given below:

Particulars Total HHs WBR Gender

I II III IV M W

Trainings 6960 361 3286 2657 656 2051 4909

Exposures 804 66 410 270 58 418 386

Workshops 887 104 404 304 75 429 458

Sub Total 8651 531 4100 3231 789 2898 5753

Demonstrations 12466 1395 5215 4637 1219 3124 9342

Individual Household based activities: 1. Organic Farming: Organic farming is the key value chain being developed under the project

covering all project districts with the mandate of environmental safeguards and sustainable food security of the poor farmers. In the reporting period 2,898 ha. area with 9,912 HHs from 200 project villages were covered under organic farming certification. The activity was carried out with the support of UOCB, USOCA and other organic service providers for capacity building at grassroots level, certification and documentation activities. To promote and smooth implementation of organic farming at grassroots level, 33 CRPs have been trained and placed in the project area. They are providing their services to the beneficiaries/federations for the grounding of organic farming activities.

2. Seed production linkages with Uttarakhand Seeds and Tarai Development Corporation (USTDC): Crops of kharif and rabi were taken up for seed production using foundation and breeder seed. Various improved varieties of Paddy (VL-154, VL-85, VL-65), Maize (Vivek-135),

22

Finger millet (VL-149), Urd (PU-35), Soyabean (PS-1092), Wheat, Barley, Lentil (VL-406), Arhar (ICPL), Gahat (VLG-8), Ugal (VLU-7), Ramdana (VL-44), traditional red rice and red rajma were demonstrated in 667 ha area with 6,521 HHs from 372 villages of all project districts. Buy back arrangements were also ensured through USTDC with price premium realized in the range of 30-40%. In Chamoli, 110 ton seed was produced of which 45 ton was buy-back by TDC.

3. Beekeeping: Bee keeping intervention was done with the vision of indirectly supporting the

organic value chain through increase in cross pollination, besides direct benefit of honey production thereby creating income generating activities. The strategy of beekeeping included the improvement and up gradation of traditional wall hives as well as using the improved boxes. During the year, 950 wallhive improvement, 144 bee boxes and 2 honey processing units were demonstrated. From apiculture interventions, 18 qtls of honey was produced of which 10 qtls was marketed in Chamoli district.

4. Community Resource Persons (CRPs): CRPs were trained and established for providing their services under organic value chain as agri-extension service providers in all districts in the activities related to filling up of Organic farmers diaries, as extension worker for organic farming, apiculture and seed production activities, soil testing and collective marketing/IOC. Presently, 33 CRPs and 5 Internal Inspectors are providing services to the beneficiaries in agriculture sector.

5. Power tillers: A total of 8 Power Tillers were demonstrated in district Bageshwar as an individual activity with the intention to promote improved mechanized ploughing inputs for filling the lag between traditional & contemporary agriculture inputs. The power tillers are rented out to other villagers by the individual entrepreneurs as the running cost not only economical but time saving and drudgery reduction also. Power tillers are owned by individuals and earning approx. Rs. 10000- 15000 per annum.

6. Other technologies demonstrated includes light traps, BD heap preparations/bio-pesticide units etc for providing support to Organic farming value chain activities in all project districts.

SHG/Federation based activities: 1. Collective Marketing: Collective marketing of surplus produce was ensured through respective

federations. A total of more than 465 quintals of traditional crops like finger millet, barn yard millet, Amaranthus, soybean etc. were marketed to Patanjali Gramodyog, Haridwar and other buyers from the region, which gave 20-30% premium to the producers and federations.

2. Input-Output centres: The main objective of the Input-Output centres is to address the issues related to availability, cost and quality of input requirements of farmers for crop production and marketing of surplus produce. 22 such centres were established through Federations in Almora, Chamoli and Tehri district.

3. Organic Buyer Seller Meet were organised in Tehri and Uttarkashi districts. The objective of the intervention was to collect the flow of marketable surpluses production through developing collective procurement system at community level developing market linkage for collectively collected produces of organic farming through SHG federation.

23

Major Achievements in Agriculture sector in 2011-12 is summarized in following table:

SN Particulars Unit Total

1 Area under organic farming certification Ha 2,898

2 HHs associated with organic farming No 9,912

3 Villages covered No 200

4 Area under seed production Ha 667

5 HHs associated with seed production No 6,521


7 Bee boxes demonstrations No 144

8 Wall hive improvement No 950

9 HHs associated with apiculture No 798

10 Villages covered under apiculture No 66

11 Power tiller demonstrations No 8

12 IOCs developed No 22

13 CRPs developed No 33

14 Other demos (Light trap, biopesticide unit, BD Heap etc) No 1,909

15 Business turnover in agriculture sector Rs (lakh) 168.42

Replication trends were observed in the activities related to organic farming, seed production, light trap adoption, power tiller adoption, apiculture and bio-pesticide preparation in all project districts. Technical Collaboration Partners:

The following agencies were associated with the project in the agriculture sector to provide

agricultural inputs and technical assistance in activities related to demonstrations, training and

exposure visits as well as hand-holding support.

Partner Organisations Areas of Assistance

Government institutions

Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board,

Dehradun

Training on Organic Farming, Internal Control System

Procedure and certification

Uttarakhand State Seed And

Certification Agency, Dehradun

External inspection of organic crop production, Internal

Control Systems for organic certification.

Uttarakhand Seeds and Tarai

Development Corporation, Pantnagar

Technical assistance in seed production, supply and

buy back of agricultural seeds

Agriculture department, Uttarakhand Coordination of seed production programme

Vivekananda Parvatiya Anusandhan

Shala, Almora

Package of practices for cultivation of traditional crops.

Procurement of light traps, capacity building of project

team and community members, purchase of seeds.

GB Pant University of Agriculture and

Technology, Pantnagar

Package of practices for cultivation of kharif and rabi

crops, capacity building of project team and community

24

members, purchase of seeds.

GB Pant University, Ranichauri, Tehri Package of practices for cultivation of traditional crops.

Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Gwaldam

(Chamoli), Kafligair (Bageshwar),

Chinyalisaur (Uttarkashi), Dhakrani

(Dehradun)

Package of practices for cultivation of Traditional crops,

Training/exposure on seed production & organic

farming technology.

Organic Training Centre, Majkhali;

Almora

Technical assistance on organic farming/certification

Private sector agencies/ NGOs

SAMVEDI, Dehradun Service provider of organic value chain in Bageshwar,

Chamoli, Tehri and Uttarkashi districts

Patanjali Gramodyog, Haridwar Procurement of coarse millets & other traditional crops

SUVDHA, Haldwani Service provider of organic value chain in Bageshwar

district

NAVDANYA Training/exposure on organic farming

Benwal Apiary, Pokhri (Chamoli) Traditional Apiculture promotion technology (wall hive

improvement) in Chamoli

Village Development Society, Haridwar Training on Organic farming for Bageshwar

The financial progress achieved in Cost Table 5/ Agriculture sub component during the reporting period was Rs. 19.0 mn against budget of Rs. 38.1 mn. which is 50 % of the budget planned.

3.2 SUB COMPONENT: HORTICULTURE Under the horticulture sub-component key value chain based activities identified was off-season vegetables. A total of 242 capacity building programs including training programs, exposure visits and workshops were organized for off season vegetable cultivation, poly house and poly tunnel, floriculture, mushroom production technology, value addition benefitting 8015 HHs. Similarly, 711 demonstrations benefitting 14014 HHs were organized for off season vegetable cultivation, spices cultivation, poly house, poly tunnel, floriculture, mushroom production, value addition etc. The overall progress made by project during the reporting period covering capacity building and demonstration activities is given in the following table:

Particulars Unit

Targets for 2011-12


Achievement %


Trainings No. 77 1540 75 2118 97 138

Exposures No. 89 1965 77 1841 87 94

Workshops No. 184 11421 90 4056 49 36

Sub Total No. 350 14926 242 8015 69 54


WBR category and gender wise details of persons covered under horticultural interventions are given below:

25


WBR Gender

I II III IV M W

Trainings 2118 193 942 783 200 1055 1063

Exposures 1841 238 735 681 187 968 873

Workshops 4056 709 1593 1288 466 1248 2808

Sub Total 8015 1140 3270 2752 853 3271 4744

Demoonstrations 14014 1716 5553 5459 1286 1329 12685

Individual Household based activities:

1. Off-season vegetable cultivation: The objective of off season vegetable intervention is for income generation as cash crops. During the reporting period, interventions were made in 902 hectare of land with 10,209 HHs from all project villages. Improved package of practices/production technology, good varietal intervention along with group marketing of the produce were the major areas of interventions under this activity. The produce was mainly marketed to the local markets at Bageshwar, Dehradun, Vikasnagar, Almora, Gopeshwar-Chamoli and other local markets.

2. Spice cultivation: This intervention was done in 73 ha. land involving 1,149 HHs from all project districts. Major crops demonstrated were ginger, garlic, turmeric, chilli. Improved varieties and better package of practices/production technology were the major areas under the demonstration. Better storage practices mainly for ginger and turmeric were also being demonstrated.

3. Other Demonstrations includes vegetable seed production of French bean and pea in 4 ha of land by 86 progressive farmers in Bageshwar and Tehri districts, European vegetable cultivation (snow pea, jucini etc) in 5 ha of land by 75 farmers in Almora district.

SHG/Federation based activities: 1. Collective marketing intervention: Collective procurement of agricultural produce was

practiced by federations for fetching better prices and minimizing the interference of intermediaries and build business sense to SHG federation for rural marketing. This year the project emphasized on harnessing better benefits from collective marketing and it has shown better results in pea marketing in Saptrishi cooperative of Naugaon Block of District Uttarakahsi who collectively marketed 565 qtl of pea to Dehradun and Chandigarh mandi in April 2011. The net income was Rs. 4.5 lakhs with Rs. 5838 profit to federation. Simultaneously federations of other district are also gearing up for collective marketing of offseason vegetable (Tomato, Capsicum, French bean, Cabbage and potato) in regional and broader market and local markets as per their reach and volume of produce.

2. Demontration of forward linkage/marketing: During the reporting year, the demonstration support for forward linkage/marketing was given to 10 cooperatives for enhancing their better marketing skill through the support of better packaging material in order to help them achieving the better premium of their produce.

26

3. Demontration of federation retail outlet: In Chamoli district, a federation retail outlet was opened in March 2012 for marketing of various agricultural produce, handicraft products etc. Average sale is around 80,000 per month and it is expected that this outlet will play a promising role for providing a forward linkage support to all other cooperatives in the district to out market the surplus produce at good premium.

Major Achievements in Horticulture sector in 2011-12 is summarized in following table:

S.N Particular Unit Total

1 Area under OSV Ha 902

2 HHs associated with OSV farming No 10209

3 Area under Spice cultivation Ha 73

4 HHs associated with spice cultivation No 1149


6 Business turnover in horticulture sector Rs (lakh) 179.11

Replication trend were observed in the activities related to off season vegetable cultivation including European vegetables, spices cultivation, low cost polyhouses, agricultural implements etc. in all project districts.

Technical Collaboration Partners:

The following agencies were associated with the project in the horticulture sector to provide inputs

and technical assistance in activities related to demonstrations, training and exposure visits as well

as hand-holding support.



Tarai Seeds Development Coorparation, Haldi

Pantnagar

Vegetable Seeds

Government Mushroom Center, Jeolikot, Nainital Mushroom production technology

G.B. Pant University, Hill Campus, Ranichauri

(Tehri)

Technical trainings, Fruit Plants

G.B. Pant University, Pantnagar Technical assistance for OSV, vegetable seeds,

communication material

SVCSG Horticulture College, Bharsar Capacity building and technical assistance in OSV,

spices

Dr Y S Parmar University of Agriculture &

Forestry, Solan

Technical training on OSV

NAFED, Rudrapur & Dehradun Vegetable Seed, Horticultural kits

CPRI, Modipuram, Shimla Potato seed

Model Floriculture Centre , GBPUA&T,

Pantnagar

Technical knowhow for Marigold & Gladiolus

production / Marketing

Directorate of Horticulture, Chaubatia, Ranikhet Package of practices for OSV,

KVK, Majhera, (Almora), KVK Kafligair Trainings, exposures and technical assistance, in

27

(Bageshwar), Dhakrani, Chinyalisaur OSV, spices,

NCCF Dehradun Vegetable seeds & spice planting material

Mandi Society, Haldwani, Dehradun,

Vikasnagar, Rishikesh

Exposure visits, marketing of produce, workshops

Private sector agencies

HARC, Naugaon (Uttarkashi) Collective marketing of pea

CHIRAG, Nainital Training and exposure on collective marketing

Indo-Dutch Pvt Ltd., Bhimtal, Nainital Technical assistance, planting material supply

The financial progress achieved in Cost Table 6/ Horticulture sub component during the reporting period was Rs. 23.7 mn against budget of Rs. 55.8 mn. which is 42 % of the budget planned.

3.3 SUB COMPONENT: SOIL AND WATER RESOURCES

Under the soil & water resources sub-component the intervention were carried out related to providing support to farming system i.e. agriculture and horticulture. A total of 9 capacity building programs including training programs and exposure visits were organized for LDPE tank construction, on farm water management, roof water harvesting tank and community water tank benefitting 181 HHs. Similarly, 798 demonstrations benefitting 851 HHs were organized for micro irrigation, rain water harvesting tanks, LDPE tanks, ferro-cement tanks, water lifting pumps etc. Approximately 51 ha. land was brought under irrigation as a result of the interventions. The overall progress made by project during the reporting period covering capacity building and demonstration activities is given in the following table:

Particulars Unit

Targets for 2011-12


Achievement %


Trainings No. 12 240 7 118 58 49

Exposures No. 07 140 2 63 29 45

Sub Total No. 19 380 9 181 47 48


WBR category and gender wise details of persons covered under soil and water resources related interventions are given below:

Particulars Total HHs WBR Gender

I II III IV M W

Training 118 11 77 25 5 93 25

Exposure 63 1 37 25 0 18 45

Sub Total 181 12 114 50 5 111 70

Demo. 851 54 406 374 17 424 427

Individual Household based activities:

28

1. LDPE Tank/Ferro cement demonstrations: LDPE tank was promoted for promotion of OSV, exotic vegetable & spice cultivation in the project area through integrated water resource management techniques. Demonstrations of 485 LDPE tanks and 8 ferro cement tanks benefitting 493 farmers in all project districts each having 10 KL capacity (for an area of 0.1 ha. per tank) were organised to promote low cost water harvesting tanks. PVC pipes also demonstrated (115 demos in 102 villages) in Tehri district to support OSV value-chain and LDPE tank demonstration

SHG/federation based activities:

1. Water Harvesting Tanks: 25 stone masonry Water Harvesting Tanks with capacity of 15 KL capacity were demonstrated in district Uttarkashi benefitting 12 farmers. The primary focus of this activity is to link with off season vegetable cultivation. Water User committee have been formed for proper management of these community assets.

Major Achievements in Soil & Water Resources sector in 2011-12 is summarized in following table:


1 Area covered under irrigation Ha 51

2 HHs benefitted No 750

3 Micro Irrigation unit demonstrations No 70

4 Ferro cement Tank demonstration No 8

5 LDPE Tank demonstrations Ha 485

6 Irrigation Tank demonstrations No 25

7 Water lifting pumps/other demonstrations/pipe No 118

Technical Collaboration Partners: The following institutions/ agencies were associated with project

for providing technical inputs.



VPKAS, Almora Micro-irrigation training


Lok Kalyan Samiti; Mankote,

Bageshwar

Technical assistance on Roof Water Harvesting

construction

KVK, Kafligair, Bageshwar Training on irrigation system

CHEA, Nainital Technical assistance on Roof Water Harvesting construction

Grameen Mahila Vikas Samiti, Uttarkashi

Technical assistance on Roof Water Harvesting construction

The financial progress achieved in Cost Table 7/Soil & Water Resources sub component during the reporting period was Rs. 5.4 mn against budget of Rs. 7.8 mn. which is 70 % of the budget planned.

29

3.4 SUB COMPONENT: LIVESTOCK Under the livestock sub-component key value chain based activities identified were backyard poultry (Kuroiler) and Micro Dairy. A total of 261 capacity building programs including training programs, exposure visits and workshops were organized for Micro Dairy, breed improvement, health management and feeding management, Kuroiler mother unit, backyard poultry rearing, paravet development benefitting 11435 HHs. Similarly, 6,631 demonstrations benefitting 8317 HHs were organized for Micro Dairy, breed improvement, Kuroiler mother unit, backyard poultry rearing, paravet development etc. The overall progress made by project during the reporting period covering capacity building and demonstration activities is given in the following table:

Particulars Unit

Targets for 2011-12


Achievement %


Trainings No. 141 3770 147 4620 104 123

Exposures No. 44 1240 49 1160 111 94

Workshops No. 160 8000 65 5655 41 71

Sub Total No. 345 13010 261 11435 76 88


WBR category and gender wise details of persons covered under livestock related interventions are given below:


WBR Gender

I II III IV M W

Trainings 4620 488 2214 1564 354 1338 3282

Exposures 1160 406 461 230 63 688 472

Workshops 5655 958 2594 1737 366 1366 4289

Sub Total 11435 1852 5269 3531 783 3392 8043

Demonstrations 8317 1530 3668 2574 545 2537 5780

Individual Household based activities: 1. Backyard Poultry (Kuroiler) Rearing/backyard units: Kuroiler rearing under ULIPH has been

identified as an important activity for livelihood improvement of poor and land less farmers. In the reporting period, 50 rearing units and backyard units were supported with 79,910 chicks in all districts with average two rearing cycles. A total of 5,207 HHs were directly associated with Kuroiler activity in more than 300 project area villages of all project districts.

2. Kuroiler Mother units: Mother units have been established at cluster level for sustained supply

of chicks for poultry rearers. A total of 112 mother units of various capacities i.e. 500, 1000 and 2000 DOC capacity were established for rearing day old chicks for 21 days.

3. Low cost Kuroiler cages: 3,031 low cost cages were demonstrated in all project districts villages. The project provided support of Rs. 500/- per cage to the 29Kuroiler rearing unit, which reduced the incidence of damage from animals. With this intervention even the landless HHs are

30

getting income & few of those HHs who are repeatedly repeating the cycles of 30Kuroiler rearing at backyards have made this activity into a profitable enterprise.

4. Micro dairy unit: 408 Micro dairy unit demonstrations were made in all project districts to support dairy value chain. Under the demonstration, support is provided for animal shed renovation with ventilation; water and drainage arrangement; Feed/green fodder management; Vaccination, Cow dung management, urine collection & utilization, milk quality management and purchase of utensils like milk cans. Prior to support, the beneficiary ensures bank linkage (term loan) for purchasing of two milch cattle.

5. Natural breeding centers (NBCs): 4 NBCs were established at cluster level in Tehri district with the objective of breed improvement in remote localities.

SHG/Federation based activities: 1. Fodder Banks have been established for meeting constraints of quality feed and fodder

availability. During the year, 23 such fodder banks were established in all project districts. These fodder banks are successfully running and supporting the dairy value chain by providing quality feed and fodder to farmers at affordable cost.

2. One centralized milk collection centre was established in Bageshwar district for collective procurement and marketing of milk. This included the provision of milk chillers to increase the shelf life of fresh milk as well as processed milk products. Paravets have been trained through ULDB who run these milk collection centers. At present > 1250 litres of milk is collected daily through 19 milk collection centres from all project districts doing annual milk business worth Rs. 1.1 crores.

3. Integrated Livestock Development Centres (ILDC) are functional for providing livestock

services in collaboration with Uttarakhand Livestock Development Board in all project districts.At present total 32 ILDCs have been established in the project area including 15 new ILDCs established in the reporting year. During the year, 1,244 AIs were done, 216 new calves were born, 169 no. castration were done, De-worming of 270 animals was done, first aid given to 606 animals and vaccination of 1865 animals were done through ILDC centres. The paravets also collected a levy of Rs. 52,150 from AI of animals.

4. ‘Providing facilities to shepherds for wool and livelihood improvement’ project was successfully implemented in Uttarkashi district through USWDB, under which treatment and vaccinations of 900 sheep & goats were done. Besides, camps were organised for wool harvesting and capacity building on goat and sheep rearing. USWDB also supported for marketing of 70 qtl. of wool through Khadi board.

5. The project has supported one feed formulation unit of 500 qtl monthly production capacity for supplying quality feed in district Bageshwar. The unit is processing local available course grains, finger millet, maize, soybean, and mustard cake etc for making quality feed. The federation is marketing the cattle feed in his brand name of “Saryu Pure Pashu Aahar” which is now becoming popular in the local market. All the federations are linked with this unit and in less than two months time, the federation has made a business of Rs 60,000/-.

31

Major Achievements in livestock sector in 2011-12 is summarized in following table:


1 Micro Dairy unit demonstrations No 408

2 Kuroiler mother unit establishment No 112

3 Kuroiler rearing/micro unit establishment No 50

4 Kuroiler bara construction No 3031

5 Kuroiler chicks distributions No 79910

6 HHs benefited through kuroiler activity No 5207

7 CRPs developed No 15

8 NBC Bulls No 4

9 Fodder Bank/fodder nursery No 23

10 ILDC No 14

11 Other demos No 6

12 Business turnover in livestock sector Rs (lakh) 170.26

Replication trends were observed in the activities related to Kuroiler rearing, cage construction, Kuroiler Mother Unit establishment, fishery tank construction, model dairy development, fodder nursery development etc in various project districts.


The following agencies were associated with the project in for proving technical inputs in livestock

and aquaculture for capacity building, training and exposure visits as well as hand-holding support.



Uttarakhand Sheep and Wool

Development Board (USWDB), Dehradun

Providing facilities to shephards for wool & livelihood

improvement & supporting sheep ILDC in Uttarkashi

Uttarakhand Livestock Development

Board (ULDB), Dehradun

Establishment of ILDC & paravet training, supply of

feed & fodder blocks, exposure visits

Animal Husbandry dept., Pipalkoti

(Chamoli) & Bahadrabad (Haridwar)

Supply of day old chicks in Garhwal region and

technical assistance

Chief Veterinary Officer, Animal

Husbandry Dept. In all districts

Animal Health, Hatchery , ILDC, fodder Bank, Para

vet kits, Veterinary camps, trainings

KVK, Kafligair, Pithoragarh Training on fodder crop cultivation

GB Pant University, Pantnagar Training on Dairy management and backyard unit

rearing, Value addition training for spices and coarse

grains


URPDP (SNK Sammark), Pant Nagar Training of kuroiler for establishment of mother units.

Supply of one day old chicks

The financial progress achieved in Cost Table 8/Livestock Sub Component during the reporting period was Rs. 34.4 mn against budget of Rs. 47 mn. which is 73 % of the budget planned.

32

3.5 SUB COMPONENT: FORESTRY DEVELOPMENT Under the forestry sub-component key value chain based activities identified as Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAP) and Enterprise oriented Van Panchayat intervention. A total of 31 capacity building programs including training programs, exposure visits and workshops were organized for MAP production technology, forestry development etc benefitting 1073 HHs. Similarly, 92 demonstrations benefitting 1669 HHs were organized for MAP cultivation, community forestry plantation, nursery raising etc. The overall progress made by project during the reporting period covering capacity building and demonstration activities is given in the following table:

Particulars Unit

Targets for 2011-12


Achievement %


Trainings No. 40 880 21 750 53 85

Exposures No. 09 180 9 276 100 153

Workshops No. 15 440 1 47 7 11

Sub Total No. 64 1500 31 1073 48 72

Demonstrations No. 184 2,196 92 1669 50 72

WBR category and gender wise details of persons covered under forestry related interventions are given below:


WBR Gender

I II III IV M W

Trainings 750 166 338 200 46 336 414

Exposures 276 19 111 117 29 106 170

Workshops 47 5 22 19 1 43 4

Sub Total 1073 190 471 336 76 485 588

Demonstrations 1669 207 660 633 169 249 1420

Individual Household based activities: 1. Medicinal Plant cultivation: To take the maximum benefit of the unique climatic conditions &

added advantage of existing MAP crops in the project area, the MAP value chain was promoted through organisation of demonstrations of Kuth, Kutki, Asparagus, rosemary, Bulgarian rose, Aloe vera, lemon grass etc. In the reporting period, MAP cultivation was practiced in 65 ha. of land by 1,642 HHs from all project districts except Tehri district with the objective of utilization of barren land and protection against wild animals.

SHG/Federation based activities: 1. Community Forestry Plantations: Community forestry plantations were initiated in 147 ha of

32 Panchayat forests by planting of 99,300 seedlings of multi-purpose species in Chamoli and Bageshwar district.

33

Major Achievements in Forestry sector in 2011-12 is summarized in following table:


1 Area under Plantation Ha 147

2 Plantation done No 99,300

3 Van Panchayats covered under plantation No 32

4 Area under MAP cultivation Ha 64.5

5 HHs associated with MAP cultivation No 1,642

6 Villages covered under MAP No 43

7 Business turnover in MAP sector Rs (lakh) 37.37


The following agencies were associated with the project in for proving technical inputs in MAP and

forestry sector for capacity building, training, exposure visits, demonstrations and hand-holding

support.



Herbal Research Development Institute,

Gopeshwar, Chamoli

Demonstrations of kutki, asparagus and large cardamom

at Chamoli and technical trainings

HAPPRC, Srinagar, Pauri Garhwal Technical Support for MAP cultivation and kutki planting

material

Centre for Aromatic Plants, Selaqui,

Dehradun

Technical know how, Trainings, exposure visits

KVK Kafeligair (Bageshwar), KVK

Dhakrani

Training on MAP cultivation & fodder crop cultivation

Uttarakhand Bamboo and Fibre

Development Board, Dehradun

Development of Nettle fibre

CIMAP Garur, Bageshwar Training on production technology of MAP, planting

material

Organic India Pvt . Ltd., Lucknow, UP Marketing of MAP produce & organic Production of MAP

Alaknanda forest division, Gopeshwar Capacity building & exposure of Van Panchayats

HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar Training on MAP cultivation


Nandadevi Samajik & Paryavaran

Sansthan, Kandai

MAP nursery establishment – Techniques

DABUR India Ltd. Buy back agreement for MAP crops

Organic India Pvt . Ltd., Lucknow, UP Marketing of MAP produce & organic Production of MAP

Ankur Herbal farm & nursery, Ramdi

(Chamoli)

Capacity building in MAP cultivation and MAP planting

material supply

The financial progress achieved in Cost Table 9/Forestry Development Sub Component during the reporting period was Rs. 8.5 mn against budget of Rs. 15.1 mn. which is 56 % of the budget planned.

34

3.6 SUB COMPONENT: ECO TOURISM AND OTHER OPPORTUNITIES (OFF FARM ACTIVITIES): In Uttarakhand, off-farm activities are as important as on-farm activities primarily because of less land holdings and this being the only sector which bring in customer to remote areas. Under ecotourism and other opportunities sub-component value chain based activities identified were community based responsible tourism (CBRT), home stays, community managed retail enterprise (CMRE), weaving enterprise, trekking tourism and various micro enterprises. A total of 74 capacity building programs including training programs, exposure visits and workshops were organized for eco-tourism and other non farm activities benefitting 1342 HHs. Similarly, 200 demonstrations covering 301 HHs were organized for rural non farm sector activities, spinning and weaving enterprise, community based ecotourism, community managed retail enterprises etc. The overall progress made by project during the reporting period covering capacity building and demonstration activities is given in the following table:

Particulars Unit

Targets for 2011-12


Achievement %


Trainings No. 108 2,200 56 876 52 40

Exposures No. 39 783 17 273 44 35

Workshops No. 22 790 01 193 05 24

Sub Total No. 169 3733 74 1342 44 36


WBR category and gender wise details of persons covered under eco tourism and RNFS related interventions are given below:


WBR Gender

I II III IV M W

Trainings 876 58 355 414 49 588 288

Exposures 273 21 115 134 3 142 131

Workshops 193 13 77 95 8 88 105

Sub Total 1342 92 547 643 60 818 524

Demonstrations 301 30 161 103 7 31 270

Individual Household based activities: 1. Local Resource based Micro-enterprise (LRBME):- LRBME demonstrations were made for

establishment of various enterprises including service sectors as per the need of community. The

activity is important regarding promoting local resources and benefitting poor HHs. These

includes traditional crops & local produced based flour making machine, Spice grinding machine,

Grocery shops , forward linkage based enterprise and service centre like Kuroiler selling point,

repair shop, coffee shop, juice shop, etc. In the reporting period, equity support to 102

enterprises was given in Tehri district.

35

SHG/Federation based activities:

1. Community Managed Retail Enterprises (CMRE): CMREs were promoted in the project area

with the objective to create market base for SHG and federation and to serve the community with

better services at fair price. During the reporting period, 8 CMREs were developed in Almora

district.

2. Community Based Ecotourism Project: under this activity 24 home-stays were developed in

Almora and Bageshwar districts. Besides revolving fund support was provided to two federation

in Tehri district to support eco-tourism activities.

Major Achievements in Ecotourism and RNFS sector in 2011-12 is summarized in following table:

S.N. Particulars Unit Total

1 Community based tourism outlets /home stays developed No 24

2 CMRE developed No 8

3 Spinning enterprise No 51

4 Rural non farm sector based enterprises No 102

5 Business turnover in RNFS sector Rs (lakh) 100.46

6 Business turnover in tourism sector Rs (lakh) 65.68

Technical Collaboration Partners: The following agencies were associated with the project in for proving technical inputs in eco-tourism, non-farm sector for capacity building, training and exposure visits as well as hand-holding support.


Institute of Hotel Management, Dehradun Training on hospitality, cooking etc

Eco-tourism training centre, Chunakhan,

Ramnagar

Training of nature guides


Panchachauli weavers, Almora Handloom weaving, marketing

Village Ways Pvt. Ltd. Uttarakhand Marketing partners of Saryu Valley Project

VOICE; Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand Training on Guides, porters and concept building on CBRT

KVIB; Almora, Uttarakhand Technical assistance on New Model Charkha enterprises & supply of raw material for NMC.

NIM , Uttrakashi Trekking / Guide & Porter Trainings

Weaving service Centre , Chamoli Carpet / Textiles Designing , Herbal coloring Trainings

Himalayan Snow Runner,Joshimath Capacity building & technical assistance for home-stay& trekking route development, hospitality etc

Aagas ,Peepalkoti Capacity building for ringal & other products

SUDHA, Almora Training on hospitality

KAGAS, Pithoragarh Capacity building & exposure on weaving enterprise

36

Corbett Gram Vikas Samiti, Kaladhungi (Nainital)

Training & exposure on community based tourism

Jai Nanda Shikshan Sansthan, Gopeshwar Training on LRBME (biscuit making)

UBiTeD, Almora Capacity building & technical assistance for home-staydevelopment in Karmi, Bageshwar

The financial progress achieved in Cost Table 10/Ecotourism & other opportunities Sub Component during the reporting period was Rs. 12.5 mn against budget of Rs. 25.4 mn. which is 49 % of the budget planned.

3.7 Learnings of Component C

Organic Farming, Bee-Keeping & Seed Production activities (Agriculture Sub Component):

• Organic farming is more effective in cluster approach with appropriate capacity building, inspection and documentation inputs through experienced TNGO.

• As a long term process, the motivation and awareness level of community need to be maintained through capacity building programs.

• Timely availability of organic seeds and ensured buy back arrangements.

• Acceptance of bio fertilizers, bio pesticides and high yielding varieties by communities observed.

• In apiculture traditional bee hives and Apis cerana indica variety is successful in project area.

• More specific capacity building of CRP’s for management of traditional bee hives, colonies multiplication, and marketing of honey.

• Ensured timely supply of quality seed and collective farming through federation.

• Seed production is a potential income generating activity for poor farmers provided ensured buy back arrangement.

• Collective marketing has opened new avenues for community empowerment and their

livelihoods promotion.

• The Input Output Centres (IOCs) are playing important role in input supply of seeds and other

agriculture-horticulture-livestock related inputs along with marketing of surplus harvested

produce.

Off-season vegetable & Spice cultivation (Horticulture Sub Component):

• Although there is vast potential of OSV in the project area, transportation, rain fed farming and fair marketing are the main challenges.

• The IOCs play an important role in input supply of seeds and agriculture- horticulture inputs along with marketing of surplus harvested produce.

• OSV cultivation has addressed food security along with livelihood promotion through marketing of vegetables.

• Improved production technologies like poly-houses, poly-tunnels and successful demonstration of OSV, mushroom etc. have been replicated.

• Collective marketing of pea and other vegetables like tomato, capsicum, French beans through federations are fetching good returns to the producers and federations.

Soil and Water Resources Sub Component:

• There is increased awareness towards OSV cultivation, therefore more water harvesting structures (Tank) demand emerging from community.

37

• To maintain quality of SWC works part-time technical person preferably Junior Engineer should be hired.

• Ferro cement structures are successful in remote villages where small terraced field’s exists and transportation of construction material is a problem.

Dairy activities (Livestock Sub Component):

• Feed and fodder availability to be ensured and fodder banks developed under the projects are a step in that direction.

• Increased awareness towards improved breeding practices seen but lack of artificial insemination facilities in remote villages is hindering the progress in this sector.

• The ILDCs and NBCs are functioning well in the project area and more demand is generating for these activities.

• Role of para-vets important in livestock sectors and their sustainability must be ensured through providing them training, medicine and performance based incentives.

Poultry activities (Livestock Sub Component):

• This pro poor activity is addressing food security and livelihood promotion issue. However support to mother unit rearers and micro rearers is required.

• Regular and timely supply of day old chick’s and medicines is to be ensured and hatchery establishment will lead to local availability of DoCs.

• Presently 2-3 cycles of kuroiler mother unit and micro unit rearing being practiced in the project area which need to be increased to 4-5 cycles for sustainability.

MAP/Forestry Sub Component:

• Registration of farmers with HRDI and getting transaction certificate along with marketing of MAP produce is a tedious and challenging task.

• Selection of suitable species, its business demand estimation and site selection is important in MAP sector with technical backup of service agency required for backward and forward linkage development.

• Collective cultivation and marketing of MAP involving federation is needed.

Ecotourism and Off-farm sector Sub Component:

CMRE

• CMRE is a potential activity for making cluster level consumers base and supplying them quality

products.

• Although CMRE is creating awareness on costing and marketing of products, yet CRP and

federation members needs proper training on accounting and business plan preparation.

Eco-Tourism

• Inflow of tourist in the key to success of ecotourism activity therefore marketing tie-ups to be

ensured.

• Community based responsible tourism with activities like home-stay and local resource based

crafts development was a successful venture due to pilgrimage and tourism importance of

project area.

• Proper capacity building of community for hospitality, hygiene, sanitation, traditional knowledge,

cooking etc is important to attract tourists and it should be ensured through experienced agency.

38

Spinning and Weaving

• Spinning and weaving activities are successful livelihood creation activity for poor HHs having

small land holding.

• Proper training on new designs with quality management, ensured raw material supply and

marketing is required for sustainability of the activity.

RNFS

• Promotion of traditional skills like copper craft and smith work requires regular technical training,

material supply and marketing support.

• Individual based activities like spice, ginger machine, flour machine, grocery shop, coffer

machine, juicer machine etc. were successful enterprises generating sustainable income.

39

4. COMPONENT D: LIVELIHOOD SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Livelihoods Support Systems are being developed by ULIPH Project with the goal to facilitate the

efforts of mainstream capital providers i.e. public and private sector service providers, who want to

support rural enterprise development at the micro-enterprise level along with related small and

medium scale enterprises that provide backward and forward linkages for micro-enterprises.

The main objectives of Livelihoods Support Systems are to organize business development services

to promote and support selected microenterprises. These services include: microfinance, networking

to generate scale economies, market research and development, product research and

development, backward linkages and forward linkages and demonstrate to financial institutions

financial viability and creditworthiness of various microenterprise activities to facilitate access to

required credit. In this perspective following activities were promoted by ULIPH Project:

4.1 Entrepreneurship Development:

In order to leverage the livelihood opportunities in the project districts, ULIPH Project involved field

level functionaries which are known as Business Promoters at cluster level as per Project Appraisal

Document. They are acting upon as bridge between the Self Help Groups, Federations & Producers

Groups, micro entrepreneurs, market & ULIPH Project. Business promoter (BP) is playing the role of

aggregators and facilitates promotion of business at local level.

Under entrepreneurship development component, focus is on developing and establishing well-built

backward and forward linkages for successful operation of the enterprises. The project engaged 117

business promoters including 22 federation BPs for facilitating backward and forward linkages in the

project districts. The Business Promoters has been a focal point for ULIPH Project grassroots

network at the field level. The business promoters underwent through various training programs like

Business Planning, Cost & risk management, Entrepreneurship Orientation, Micro-Enterprise

Development & Management Opportunity Identification and Enterprise promotion, Supply chain

management, Livelihoods enhancement, Leadership development, Accounting Management

Development Programs – Mentoring, Coaching & facilitation Skills to build their capacity for

facilitating the emergence of enterprises at the grassroots. The specific works assigned to them are

as follows:

• Identifying and motivating potential livelihood clients and introducing them to the company and its services.

• Assist in designing and arranging for implementation of demonstration/exposures visit of livelihood activities and communication of costs and benefits of various livelihood opportunities to the company’s clientele.

• Organize activity group drawn from SHG, assist in formation of micro enterprises, preparation of business plan; and linking them to the banks for credit requirement.

• Coordinating with forward & backward linkage joint ventures of the company; assuring that BDS are provided to the project clients in a timely, cost-effective & quality manner.

• Monitoring on the regular basis of cash flows, gathering information on social impact analysis for micro enterprises and trouble shooting for existing or potential problems.

• Liaison with staff & other stakeholders.

40

The package of training programs imparted to the business promoters has helped the company to

facilitate the livelihood clients in a business mode. ULIPH Project broadly categorizes its enterprises

in the form of Small & Medium Enterprises (SME) and micro (ME) enterprises. The SME are

basically the service enterprises which facilitates the backward and forward linkages primarily for the

ME level enterprise promoted by the company while ME enterprises are those which are managed at

the household level. Under ULIPH Project interventions few successful examples of SME are

agriculture input centre, cattle feed facilitation centre, retail outlets, poultry mother units, soya bean

processing unit etc. while ME level enterprises promoted are vegetable cultivation, micro dairy units,

micro poultry units, off farm activities etc. IGAs include small back yard poultry, seed production,

small level vegetable production and few non farm sector enterprises.

During 2011-12, ULIPH Project promoted 30,094 IGA’s, 1209 ME and 183 SME across all the identified sub sectors and all project districts through demonstrations and facilitated 284 household enterprises to avail the bank linkages for various innovative and general activities. The details of IGA, MEs and SMEs in all sectors are consolidated in the following table:

Sub Sectors Enterprises established in 2011-12

Cumulative enterprises since inception

IGA ME SME IGA ME SME

Agriculture 11,152 261 82 35,482 1,855 214

Horticulture 12,651 89 4 31,049 1,963 107

SWR 132 64 13 767 108 13

Livestock 4,930 604 79 12,683 3,992 303

Forestry 894 8 0 6,497 132 30

Eco-tourism & non farm sector 335 183 5 609 574 82

Total 30,094 1209 183 87,087 8,624 749

Apart from this investment, UPASaC is also in process of investing its Social Venture Capital Fund

(SVCF) into the enterprises emerging as a result of demonstrations grounded by the project. INBAR

assisted the team in forming the system and processes for the purpose. For the purpose of

developing SVCF guidelines, agreement was signed with INBAR, field visits organised and draft

SVCF guidelines developed and modified. These guidelines were presented to and got approved by

the Management Committee of UGVS and Board of Directors of UPASaC.

For operationalisation of the SVCF two pitching sessions for proposals seeking support under SVCF

were conducted at Dehradun on 25-26 September 2011 and November 28-29, 2011 before the

members of the SVCF committee and sector specialists. A total of 6 proposals were presented in the

first pitching and 7 proposals in the second pitching worth Rs. 412 lakhs. Out of these three

proposals worth Rs. 77.36 lakhs were recommended by the committee for investment of Rs.21.6

lakhs. Modalities for making co-investment and repayment are being worked out with Uttarakhand

Gramin Bank UGB. For direct investment, clearance with RBI is being taken.

An agreement was signed between the project and in the month of March 2012 for facilitating financial services in the project area. It will be helpful in building effective bank linkages,

41

implementing business correspondent model, implementing SVCF proposals, extension of various bank and development schemes, financing enterprises, development of products etc. Similarly, an agreement was signed between the project and Animal Husbandry department of Uttarakhand in the month of March 2012 for facilitating timely back end chick supply in the project area. It will be helpful in sustainable supply of day old chicks of Kuroiler to Kuroiler mother unit owner and technical expertise to poultry rearers in the Garhwal region through their Bahadrabad (Haridwar) hatchery. A five day training on Business plan preparation and related aspects was organised at Banker’s Institute of Rural Development (BIRD) of NABARD at Lucknow in the month of December 2011. The training was attended by 25 Managers of project and they were practically orientated on business plan preparation, book keeping, marketing strategy development, financial plan preparation, sales and market management, fair trade practices, profit making etc. Two five days training programs were organised by the project with the help of Home Science department of GBPUAT, Pantnagar on ‘Spice processing’ and ‘Value-addition technologies for coarse cereals’ in February-March 2012. The program was attended by 62 rural entrepreuners, who gained practical knowledge on various product development from spices (sabji-masala, chana-masala, garam-masala, meat-masala, tea-masala etc) and coarse grains (baby food, bakery products like biscuits, cake, pastry and namkin from finger millet, barn-yard millet, fox-tail millet etc). Eight exposure visits were organised to Haldwani and Vikasnagar mandis of Uttarakhand in the

month of August and December 2011. A total of 240 progressive farmers were exposed on various

aspects of mandi policy, marketing network, grading, packaging etc.

For capacity building of guides developed under eco-tourism value chain, one month nature guide

training was organised at Govt. Eco-tourism centre at Chunakhan (Nainital) in February-March 2012

through CCF, Eco-tourism. 14 guides from all project district actively participated in the training and

got practical orientation on bird watching, nature trek, adventure tours, hospitality etc.

For promotion of various agri-products and handi-craft articles, the project participated in various

tradefairs and Kisan-mela. Exhibition cum sale of organic products were organised at Kisan Mela,

Pantnagar, Saras Mela, Dehradun and Dilli Haat at New Delhi, where a sale of Rs. 1.95 lakhs was

made. Besides, there are several outlets of SHG products in each district manages by federations.

The dream of collective marketing turned a reality with endeavor of two federations namely Saptrishi

Swayat Sahkarita, Gangtari and Banal Patti Vikas Aajeevika Swayat Sahkarita, Gadoli of Uttarkashi

district. Agreement of 9 federations with Patanjali Gramodyog, Haridwar and other buyers was made

and more than 350 quintals of rural agricultural produce including traditional crops like finger millet,

barnyard millet, foxtail millet, pulses, amaranthus etc were supplied to them worth Rs. 8.5 lakhs.

Similarly vegetable marketing was also initiated through federations in Almora and Uttarkashi

districts. In the reporting period vegetable worth Rs. 16.5 lakhs was collectively marketed through

federations. In collective milk marketing also, federations are doing well with average turn-over of

Rs. 1.2 crores per annum in all project districts.

42

The traditional activity of Copper ware of the Tamta community from Bageshwar was supported with

design and marketing inputs for new articles through Studio Alaya, a designer from Dehradun. The

project also facilitated the usages of certain mechanized tools to improve the productivity and quality

as per market needs. The studio Alaya now is providing constant orders for specific items which are

getting sold through 12 different outlets which is benefiting the community with around Rs. 50000/-

per year in addition to their regular income. These specific items include coasters, paper napkin

holder, fruit bowls, book markers and other utensils. Similarly, Sanitary napkin unit got revived with

technical assistance of M/s Renaissance Technical Consulting agency in Devprayag block of Tehri

district.

Umbrella Branding by the name of “Naturally Pahari” designed and registered under various

categories for marketing of produce. One federation from Chamoli is using this brand and all its

produce ranging from traditional crops including millets and pulses, spices, honey, processed foods

etc are being marketed through it.

It is envisaged that this approach would motivate entrepreneurs to think beyond grants and create

suitable environment for pumping in sizable investments in the rural sector through public, private

and people’s participation. Business Development Services (BDS) were provided by ULIPH Project

to IGAs, ME & SMEs in terms of backward linkages as technical inputs, technology transfer and

forward linkages like marketing of the produce either at regional level or at state levels by linking

them directly to the market or through the traders. The products are also test marketed in the market

through the fairs that held at regional or at state level. This intervention helped the company for the

type of value addition required for product designing.

4.2 Rural Finance Interventions:

In the context of project, the rural finance mainly comprises of savings and credit in terms of term

loans, Kisan Credit Card (KCC) and Cash Credit Limits (CCL) of SHGs. The project area is served

by 6 banks and/ Financial Institutions namely State Bank of India, Uttarakhand Gramin Bank,

Nainital Almora Kshtriya Gramin Bank, District Cooperative Bank, Mini Bank & PACS. The outreach

of these banks/Financial institutions is served through 80 branches.

A total of 2,146 CCL have been sanctioned so far for an amount of Rs 76.1 mn. During the reporting

period, a total of 83 CCL were sanctioned for an amount of Rs.7.4 mn. Besides, Kisan Credit Card

(KCC) for each farmer was also initiated with the help of revenue department and banks through

credit camps organised at district level. A total of 2,731 KCCs including 2,662 individual KCC (for Rs.

67.8 mn.) and 35 institutional or SHG based KCC (for Rs. 2.4 mn.) total amounting to Rs. 70.2 mn.

were mobilized in the reporting period. The project took the following steps to facilitate CCL for SHG

members:

• Credit camps were organized in every district for sensitization of bankers and district officials and

review meetings held at district level with bankers.

• Monthly meetings were organized with NABARD and other banks at state level to discuss and

resolve district level issues related with bank linkages.

• Training programs were organized through NABARD to educate the rural banks and project field

staff about various financial and non-financial products and schemes suitable for rural people.

43

During the reporting period, project has facilitated sanction and disbursement of 668 term loans for an amount of Rs. 62.5 mn. The enterprises established through Term Loans range from Dairy (396), Off season vegetables (22), Rural Non Farm Sector (33) and others (211). The loans taken by individuals are 639 for Rs. 57.5 mn. and those taken by SHG members is 29 for Rs. 5.0 mn. The beneficiary also contributed Rs. 10.6 mn as margin money. The total numbers of persons benefitted are 929 mainly SHG members. The district wise performance in bank linkages (CCL) and KCC progress is summarized below:

District wise Progress in Bank Linkages (CCL) in ULIPH during 2011-12

(Amount Rs. mn.)

S. No.

Name of District

Eligible for

Linkage

Proposal of CCL submitted to Bank

CCL Sanctioned in 2011-12

Linkage Cumlative

No. Amt. No. Amt. No. Amt.

1 Almora 1 22 3.21 28 2.17 562 27.71

2 Bageshwar - - - - 0 338 12.60

3 Chamoli 42 13 1.40 15 1.26 417 9.02

4 Tehri - - - - 2.94 590 20.14

5 Uttarkashi 8 42 1.16 40 1.01 239 6.67

Total 51 77 5.77 83 7.38 2,146 76.14

Details of Progress in Implementation of Kisan Credit Card (KCC) in ULIPH during 2011-12

(Amount Rs. mn.)

S.No Name of District

Individual KCC SHG KCC

No. Amount No. Amt.

1 Almora 310 11.11 0 0

2 Bageshwar 767 21.15 2 0.40

3 Chamoli 92 1.74 0 0

4 Tehri 672 15.57 34 0.40

5 Uttarkashi 821 18.28 33 1.54

Total 2,662 67.85 69 2.34

The overall achievement in district wise and value chain wise disbursement of term loans is given in following table: Details of Term Loan, Application received & disbursed in ULIPH during 2011-12

(Amount Rs. mn.)

S. No.

Name of Value Chain No. of

Enterprise Project

Cost Margin Money

of Beneficiaries Bank

Finance

A. Micro Enterprises (ME)

1 Dairy 297 14.32 2.08 12.25

2 RNFS-Off Farm Activities 9 0.62 0.48 0.14

3 MAP 3 0.18 0.03 0.15

4 Other Activity 196 2.26 0.23 2.02

44

Total of ME 505 17.20 2.79 31.87

B. Small Medium Enterprises (SME)

1 Dairy 99 15.66 2.76 12.76

2 Off Season Vegetable 22 2.22 0 0.82

3 RNFS-Off Farm Activities 26 14.81 2.38 0.77

4 Other Activity 16 1.31 0.66 1.10

Total of SME 163 36.78 5.80 30.69

Total of ME + SME 668 73.47 10.62 62.49

Government of India, RBI and NABARD is laying emphasis on financial inclusion through various channel like No Frills Account, SHG Bank linkage, KCC, SCC, GCC and JLGs. As per the latest records only 8% of total bank credit is purveying for rural areas. One of the major constraints in extending credit to farmers particularly oral lessees, share croppers and agricultural labours is inability of such category of farmers to provide collateral security and guarantee to fulfill the requirement of the banks. For such people, Financing under Joint Liability Groups has emerged as an effective tool. Due to peer pressure in JLG, recovery is much better than individual financing. A total of 12 JLG were formed with 93 Members and Rs 34.07 Lac disbursed to them by the Banks under the scheme promoted by GOI and NABARD during the Financial Year 2011-12.

4.3 Seed Capital to SHGs:

During the reporting period, 751 SHGs covering 2081 members were graded and Rs.0.469 mn. was released in all project districts. The Grading of SHGs was done by the representatives of FNGO and District Management Unit. Assessment based on the grading criteria mainly included SHGs performance on points such as regularity of meetings, percentage of Attendance in group meetings, adherence to saving norms, collection of savings, commencing inter-lending processes for consumption purposes, election of office bearers, opening of bank accounts, maintenance of basic records, minutes of meetings and ledgers etc.

4.4 Learnings of Component D:

• Close coordination with banks at all levels is essential for leveraging credit for enterprises. • Credit demand being generated for successful enterprises like dairy, collective marketing, poultry

etc. • Audit by project audit team of SHGs, federations and bank linkages had build the confidence of

CBOs and strengthened credit flows. • A key perceptible change in the SHG members is that they now approach banks with confidence

for bank transactions and availing loan from banks. • A strong MIS is needed to track the performance of ME, SME and IGAs. This need capacity

building of project staff and federation members.

In Component D, the financial achievement was Rs. 41.8 million against target of Rs. 76.8 million which was 54 % of annual target.

45

5. COMPONENT E: PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The progress related to Financial management, Accounts & Audit, Human Resource Management, Procurement, Convergence activities, Knowledge Management, Monitoring and Evaluation, Compliance status of Joint Review Mission recommendations, participation in ICO events etc have been dealt below.

5.1 Financial Progress: The financial progress of the project during the reporting period is summarized below:

.

• The overall financial achievement of the project during 2011-12 was Rs. 215.2 mn. (54 %)

against target of Rs.396.1 mn for all Components.

• In Component B, the financial achievement was Rs. 45.5 million against target of Rs. 59.3 million

which was 77 % of annual target.

• In Component C, the financial achievement was Rs. 103.5 mn. against target of Rs. 189.1 mn.


• In Component D, the financial achievement was was Rs.41.8 mn. against target of Rs. 76.8 mn.

million which was 54 % of annual target.

• In Component E, the financial achievement was Rs. 24.3 mn. against target of Rs. 42.1 mn.


• The progress in rural finance mobilised through the community and FFIs was Rs.155.3 million

against revised target of Rs. 175.5 million which was 88 % of annual target.

The financial progress made by project during the reporting period is summarised in Annex..I

5.2 Accounts and Audit: The audit for the financial year 2010-11 was conducted by M/s RAG & Associates, Chartered Accountants in the month of August and September 2011 and audit report submitted to the project on 15th September 2010. The audited accounts were approved by the 20th Management Committee of UGVS on 16th September 2011 and adopted by the Sixth Annual General Meeting of UGVS on 6th October 2010. The audit report along with annual accounts and auditor’s observation (Management Letter) were sent to IFAD on 30th September 2011. The annual accounts of the project for the financial year 2010-11 have been closed and the audit of the accounts of the project for the year 2011-12 and 2012-13 along with partner NGO’s accounts and Federations will be audited by a newly selected Chartered Accountant Firm M/s Anshul Agrawal and Company as per the Project Loan Agreement. As per last JRM recommendations, internal audit being carried out at quarterly interval by project team.

5.3 Human Resource Management:

During the period the Mrs Ranjana Kala, Project Director got transferred and Ms. Jyotsna Sitling, IFS

was once again deputed by the Government of Uttarakhand as the Project Director from October

2011. Some vacant positions got filled and Manager Enterprise Promotion and Capacity Building,

Manager-Social Development at PMU level, Manager Federation Development at Chamoli & Almora

and Assistant Managers at district level joined the project in August 2011. As of 31st March 2012, the

staffing position under ULIPH project comprised of 44 senior staff, 72 support staff and 117 business

promoters (including 22 federation BPs).

46

5.4 Procurement:

Procurement of goods, works and consulting & other services are undertaken by ULIPH and

UPASaC as per Schedule – 4 (Procurement) of Project Loan Agreement (PLA) No.624-IN dated

20.02.2004 and Finance & Administrative Rules (F&A Rules) of Uttarakhand Gramya Vikas Samiti

(UGVS) and UPASaC under Chapter - VI (Procurement of Goods, Works & Services) as well as

IFAD Procurement guidelines. During the financial year 2011-12, the procurement of goods was

made through various procurement methods i.e. Local Shopping for low value goods; Direct

Contracting for hiring services and goods from Govt. agencies, National Competitive Bidding and

Local Competitive Bidding for high value goods and in some cases of proprietary items through

DGS&D approved rate contracts. In case of procurement of consultant services all the consultant

services are taken from national experts for which the procedures laid down in F&A rules have been

followed. For the services of organizational consultant, the procedure is made after calling three or

more quotations from consultancy Agency and same has been awarded to the deserving agency

after evaluation by the procurement committee of the project.

5.5 Convergence:

Convergence was an important area which emerged with collaboration of International NGOs,

NGOs, line departments & other agencies. The project converged for both social issues and

enterprise development issues. These efforts with inputs from line departments, Boards, NGOs etc

resulted in technical and social interventions worth Rs. 482.47 million to 37,246 beneficiaries in the

reporting period. Besides, the benefit from government pension schemes to the vulnerable was Rs.

20.20 million yearly as pension benefit. Convergence was mobilized through line departments like

agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, UREDA, Rural Development, SWAJAL UBFDB, UOCB,

Forests etc. In the area of convergence project moved from input convergence in initial years to

program convergence, where innovations complementing Aajeevika could be integrated in the

program design converged project to harness optimum benefits. The details of convergence

received by the project in the reporting period 2011-12 is summarized below.

S.

N

District No. of

beneficiar

ies

Converge

nce amt

(mn.)

Convergence linkages with various departments

1 Almora 8,174 72.96 Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, Rural

Development, Social welfare, SWAJAL

2 Bageshwar 6,663 58.14 Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, Rural

Development, Social welfare, Industry, SWAJAL 3 Chamoli 2,955 61.12 Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, Rural

Development, Social welfare, HRDI, NABARD,

UBFDB, Forest

4 Tehri 18,837 233.55 Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, Social welfare,

UOCB, NABARD, Health, SWAJAL 5 Uttarkashi 617 56.70 Agriculture, Horticulture, Rural Development,

UREDA Total 37,246 482.47

47

5.6 Knowledge Management:

Knowledge sharing has emerged as key area and accordingly knowledge sharing strategy of project has been evolved. The project has video documented several success stories of various value chain interventions of the federation members. The Women Champions selected through their performance in various fields was also documented by IFAD ICO. Besides, success stories are regularly documented at district level for information dissemination.

Project follows a regular knowledge sharing process with all relevant stakeholders through publication of quarterly newsletter ‘Aajeevika Today’ at state level, ‘Aajeevika Raibar’ in Garhwal region and ‘Aajeevika Khabarbat’ in Kumaon region. These newsletters give details of activities carried out during the past months, plans of activities for the coming months, reflective and inspirational case-studies, information of government schemes, profile of NGO partners and message by a government functionary. The newsletters are distributed to SHGs/Federations and other important stakeholders. Gyan sabha is a knowledge sharing event at village/cluster level which is regularly organised in successful demonstration field of progressive farmer with the objective of sharing best practices, information dissemination to other interested farmers and for beneficiary selection. During the reported period, the project staff participated in various training programs and knowledge sharing events organised by IFAD ICO related to Procurement in IFAD projects, Monitoring and Evaluation, Knowledge Management, enterprise development etc. Piloting of SMS based Sanchar Shakti project was carried out in partnership with department of

Telecommunication with 50 women SHG members in all districts. The results were encouraging and

detailed planning is made to implement Sanchar Shakti project with 3,000 women SHG members of

the project area. Through this project, important information related to crop cultivation techniques,

climate, market rates of various crops, govt. Schemes, news etc is provided to the community at

their door steps through SMS. Besides, piloting was also made with 400 progressive farmers and

project field staff through GIZ project by providing them market related information.

5.7 Monitoring and Evaluation:

Monitoring and Evaluation of Project implementation is essential to ensure that the goal and

objectives of a Project are achieved. Continuous and close monitoring plays an important role in

successful delivery of inputs and achievement of project outputs and objectives, therefore Result

based Monitoring and Evaluation of project is essential. In evaluation of ULIPH, Quality and Quantity

of Effect and Impact was seen to ensure whether goals and objectives of the Project are being

achieved as envisaged., for which RO-AWPB is prepared and regularly monitored.

The project has self analysis through daily review meetings & Quarterly Review Meetings at PMU

and district level. The reflection points are followed very keenly with staff and important topics of the

meetings and workshops includes: AWPB preparation; implementation and review of progress;

effective coordination and convergence with line departments; training and capacity building of

SHGs, federations and project staff; design and development of various training modules; inclusion

of poors in project activities; strengthening of SHG federations; enterprise development and

promotion; reporting to various stakeholders etc

48

Regular reflection exercises are conducted at the district level every fortnight with NGO staff in which

progress is reviewed. The reflection process is also carried out half-yearly with all NGO partners and

federations through field visits with participation of PRIs, government officials and other stakeholders

for receiving feedback as well as making observations of field level realities and the work being done

by the project. These reflective exercises have instilled a sense of ownership and appreciation for

the project efforts being carried out in a difficult terrain amongst the project stakeholders.

Besides, quarterly coordination and monitoring meetings are organised at village, block, district and

state level to review the project progress. Involvement of PRI representatives resulted in organizing

1945 VLCC, 35 BLCMC and 12 DLCMC meetings. A total of three Management Committee

meetings and two Steering Committee meetings were organised during the reporting period at state

level to review project progress and other issues related to project. The discussions in the meetings

have led to awareness building of stakeholders on project progress and necessary guidance and

convergence. More importantly the forums created under project has provided opportunities to SHGs

& federations to articulate their need areas.

MIS Development: The process of MIS development in the project has been evolved as per the

information needs of the project. The project MIS is functional under SHG MIS capturing data related

to SHGs and HOMIS for capturing data related to project activities. Four modules have been

developed under project MIS which includes SHG module where the information of the SHG

transactions is being captured and three modules related to HOMIS which includes a)

Demonstration/enterprise module, b) Annual Work Plan & Budget module and c) Rural Finance

module. MIS facilitators at district level have been appointed for development, refinement, capacity

building and reporting of project MIS. Work is under progress for development of federation,

enterprise, production and marketing related modules. The reports of the Project MIS can be viewed

in www.ugvs.org .

Compliance with Joint Review Mission Recommendations:

The seventh Joint Review Mission of project was held during 17 to 29 June 2011 which visited all

project districts and interacted with various stakeholders including grassroot functionaries during the

visit. The Mission particularly focused on issues pertaining to strengthening the interventions already

carried out by the project in terms of institutions and capacities, functioning of the SVCC and the

status of the project to move towards sustainability in line with its exit strategy, besides issues of

convergence, financial services, knowledge management and gender. The mission recommended

focused efforts towards convergence with MNREGS and other government programs by conducting

training for project personnel, CRPs, federations and SHG members in the mechanics of the

schemes and by taking up demonstrations to show the use of these schemes for integrated natural

resource development in collaborations of PRIs, concerned line agencies and federations.

Annual Outcome Survey 2011:

The Annual Outcome Survey was carried out with the objectives to measure changes happening at

the household level in terms of livelihoods and food security during the project life; to assess

targeting efficiency; to provide evidence of project success or failure; and to provide timely

49

performance information necessary to undertake corrective actions. The survey was a holistic

attempt to provide vital information on the outcome of project interventions in areas of participation in

project activities, livelihoods, food security, land tenure, agricultural production and irrigation, access

to natural resources, access to market etc of the surveyed households. The survey was conducted

using random sampling method on IFAD prescribed format.

The assessment was made using indicators related to Women headed HHs, Participation in Project activities, Livelihoods, Food Security, Land Tenure, Agricultural Production and Irrigation, Assess to Market, Access to Rural Financial Services, Enterprise Development and Employment and Access to Natural Resources. The data was collected and documented in the automated excel version of reporting. The final report was prepared comparing the data of project beneficiaries and non project beneficiaries. Also on selected/available parameters, comparison was made with last year survey results. Following are the major findings of annual outcome survey 2011. i. 100% of project HHs have knowledge about project; ii. 92% HHs involved in project activities; iii. 98% HHs satisfied with project interventions; iv. 99% HHs have improved food security; v. 99% HHs have land ownership; vi. 57% HHs cultivate land for consumption and sale both; vii. 56% HHs cultivate cash crops; viii. 60% HHs reported increase in crop productivity due to project interventions; ix. 69% HHs reported increase in livestock productivity; x. 75% HHs reported increased income and xi. 78% HHs reported access to credit improved due to project interventions.. As per the survey results the general situation and satisfaction level of project community has improved due to project interventions in the area of food security, livelihoods, access to market, agricultural and irrigation, increase in heard size, access of rural financial services, access of forest etc. Still extra efforts are needed to improve access to financial resources (through loans and use of SVCF), access to markets (for marketing & produce), enterprises development and employment creation etc.

If we compare the results of current year survey with last year survey in the light of objectives of annual outcome survey, we find that issues related to food security, agricultural productivity, access to markets, access of rural financial services, livelihoods, access to natural resources and satisfaction level of community has improved. Following learning/recommendations and thrust areas emerged out from the Annual Outcome Survey report on which concrete action is planned in the AWPB 2012-13.

1) Empowering CBOs by capacity enhancement of SHGs and federations related to institutional and business/enterprise development aspects

2) Up-scaling of successful demonstrations. 3) Development of specific value chain clusters for volume creation and effective marketing. 4) Development of viable enterprises for equity investments by SVCC and SVCF infusion. 5) Active convergence with line departments, development boards, projects, NGOs etc. and

improving access to Govt. Schemes like MNREGS, NRLM, NRHM, HTM etc. 6) Achieving rural finance targets by increasing number of inter-loaning amongst members and

term loans mainly for production purposes.

50

7) Strengthening of technical assistance and technology transfer needs of community through service providers and CRPs.

8) Knowledge management through experience sharing workshops and documentation.

5.8 Integrated Livelihood Support Project (ILSP) :

A Concept note on Integrated Livelihood Support Project was submitted to GoI and IFAD under the

guidelines of the Result Based Country Opportunities Strategic Operational Plan 2010-15 of IFAD as

per discussions held during meeting with DEA & IFAD in July 2010. The Concept Note was

appreciated and a team of Consultants from IFAD visited the state and project districts between

March and August 2011 to appraise the proposal and give recommandations for the follow up

project. The Integrated Livelihood Support Project will follow on from, and upscale, the Uttarakhand

Livelihoods Improvement Project for the Himalayas (ULIPH) which will be completed by the end of

2012. The overall objective of ILSP is to reduce poverty in hill districts of Uttarakhand.

This would be achieved via the more immediate development objective of “enable rural households

to take up sustainable livelihood opportunities integrated with the wider economy”. The strategy

behind ILSP will be to adopt a two pronged approach for building livelihoods in hill districts. The first

of these is to support and develop the food production systems which remain the main means of

support for most households. The second main thrust of the project is to generate cash incomes via

the introduction and expansion of cash crops. ILSP will also support non-farm livelihoods, especially

community involvement in rural tourism, and vocational training. The project will be implemented by

three Project Implementing Agencies (PIAs) which are the Uttarakhand Gramya Vikas Samiti

(UGVS), Watershed Management Directorate (WMD) & Uttarakhand Parvatiya Aajeevika

Sanvardhan Company (UPASaC). The project has four main components as summarized below:

Component I - Food Security and Upscaling: Under the component the activities proposed are

developing Irrigation & Infrastructure (Micro-irrigation), Food Security Enhancement (Training in

production technology, support to PGs & VPGs), providing support to Livelihoods Collectives for

upscaling, Agribusiness Planning and organizing buyer-seller meet at clusters, exposure visits,

support for Livestock breeding programme. Support for Market Access and creation of last mile

Infrastructure (Village pathways, Village storage with pre-cooling, River crossing trolleys, Assembly

markets, Collection centres), Capacity building (Farmer exposure visit to market, Post-harvest

Management training, Training on Aggregation). Value chain planning and their operationalization.

Innovation Linkages with R&D Institutions like VPKAS Crop research, GBPUAT, HARC citrus action

research, Livestock & poultry and Non-farm & market development. Vocational training for skill

enhancement with their placement for 10,000 youth will be given.

Component II - Participatory Watershed Development: Under this component the activities

proposed are Social Mobilisation, Watershed & village Development & Watershed treatment

activities, Food Security Enhancement support, Farming system improvement, Support to PGs,

Value Addition & marketing, Small infrastructure development eg Collection centres, Livelihood

upscaling, Promotion of IGA, Support to LC for upscaling IGA, Institutional Strengthening and

Capacity Building of GP and WWMCs, Social training at village level, Technical training at village

level, Training on production technology & Training at Resource centres

51

Component III - Livelihood Financing: Under this component the activities proposed are Financial

initiatives includes Training to LC, Product Literacy training, Risk Management, Weather Insurance,

Cattle insurance, Mutual Health insurance. Banking initiatives include Workshop districts and state,

Training on appraisal, Branch Expansion support, Viability Gap fund, Development financing,

Leveraged credit for SMEs, Agricultural credit.

Component IV - Finance, Project M&E, Knowledge Management: Under this component the

activities proposed are to organise Monthly review meetings & Quarterly learning/sharing workshops

at Block, Division & State Level, trainings & workshops, base-line, mid-term & end term review,

organize PSC and PMC meetings, incorporate the budget requirements into the overall budget of the

GOUK, prepare overall project financial statements, prepare and submit the withdrawal applications,

ensure preparation and submission of annual audit reports of the PIAs and annual RIMS data to

IFAD. Submit the consolidated AWPB for approval of IFAD, PMC and PSC, Prepare the

Procurement Plan, prepare and submit consolidated progress reports annually and quarterly,

undertake M&E and KM activities related to the project covering all the PIAs and prepare RIMS data

for submission to IFAD.

The Project will be financed by an IFAD loan to Government of India (GoI) of approx. Rs.419 crore

(USD 90 million) & a contribution of upto Rs.237 crore (USD 48 million) from State Government.

Uttarakhand being a Special Category State, 90% of the funds received from GoI will be as Grant in

Aid. The Rural Development Department (RDD) will be the nodal agency at the state level. A Central

Project Coordination Unit (CPCU) within the RDD will be established. A State level Project Steering

Committee (PSC) will be constituted and would be chaired by the Chief Secretary, Government of

Uttarakhand.

In Component E the financial achievement was Rs. 24.3 million against target of Rs. 42.1

million which was 58 % of annual target.

*************************************************

52

Annex.KI

UTTARAKHAND LIVELIHOODS IMPROVEMENT PROJECT FOR THE HIMALAYAS - (ULIPH)

Summary of Financial Progress of Project during the Financial Year 2011-2012 (1st April 2011 to 31st March 2012)

Co

mp

on

e

nt/

CT

Cost Table -wise Activity Head

Total Revised AWP&B for FY 2011-12

Total Acheivement (From 1st April 2011 to 31st

March 2012) %

Parti. Prog. Fin. Parti. Prog. Fin.

B Empowerment and Capacity Building of Community Organisations and their support organisation

2 Community Empowerment 10864 507 23358925 15782 579 17684497 76%

3 Facilitation through NGO's 1287 588 17226846 1276 455 15472941 90%

4 Interventions to reduce Women's Drudgery

7939 7849 18697800 9370 11680 12391478 66%

Sub Total : (B) 20090 8944 59283571 26428 12714 45548916 77%

C Livelihoods Enhancement and Development

5 Agriculture 24274 4531 38144650 18317 3810 19041669 50%

6 Horticulture 35422 1990 55766495 20445 995 23681238 42%

7 Soil and Water Resources 1124 793 7763300 961 809 5405641 70%

8 Livestock and Aquaculture 20823 8224 46980530 18716 6978 34435056 73%

9 Forestry Development 3738 309 15050200 2443 129 8474490 56%

10 Eco-Tourism 4368 528 25394360 2018 311 12479417 49%

Sub Total : (C) 89749 16375 189099535 62900 13032 103517511 55%

D Livelihoods Support System

11 Entrepreneurship Development 2036 394 20902635 2919 201 10305198 49%

12 Rural Finance (Refer S/N F) 0 0 0 0 0 0

13 Rural Finance Services Support 8789 789 5794335 3537 842 2219405 38%

14 Social Venture Capital Company 222 1415 45648500 557 937 26193935 57%

15 Policy Studies and Advocacy 0 20 4500000 0 0 3118960 69%

Sub Total : (D) 11047 2618 76845470 7013 1980 41837498 54%

E Project Management 76903 4598 42118550 29579 2055 24340618 58%

Sub Total : (E) 76903 4598 42118550 29579 2055 24340618 58%

TOTAL (A+B+C+D+E) 197789 32535 367347126 125920 29781 215244543 59%

Total Revised AWP&B 11-12

(Including Contingencies) 197789 32535 396100000 125920 29781 215244543 54%

F Rural Finance (T/L & CCL

from Bank and SHG Saving) 48445 5549 175515920 39709 7021 154462550 88%

Total Rural Finance (F) 48445 5549 175515920 39709 7021 154462550 88%

GRAND TOTAL 246234 38084 571615920 165629 36802 369707093 65%

annual progress report 2011-12 - ugvs.org data/report/uliph annual progress report...annual progress...

Documents