June 9, 2010 MESSAGE

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2 June 9, 2010 MESSAGE The year saw India coming to grips with economic growth, on the one hand, coupled with inflation, especially in foodgrains, as a result of a poor monsoon, on the other. Amidst this scenario, the Trusts continued their focus on promoting agricultural dynamism in different parts of the country, through projects under the thematic area of Rural Livelihoods & Communities. Efforts, buoyed by techniques such as Integrated Pest Management, have shown encouraging results and integration of agricultural activities with microfinance as well as ensuring markets for different crops helped to stabilize the condition of the farmers inspite of drought. Taking forward the learnings from the success stories of our projects, the Trusts are now attempting to replicate these in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, where distress has driven several farmers to suicide. Consequently, the Trusts have collaborated with the Government of Maharashtra and the International Fund for Agriculture Development to create the Convergence of Agricultural Interventions in Maharashtra Program that will reach out to 286,000 households across 1,200 villages, spread over the six distress districts of Vidarbha through end-to-end projects, covering all aspects, ranging from production to availability of credit and development of markets for farmers. Providing potable water and promoting sanitation in order to enhance the health of rural communities also constitutes an integral part of the Trusts grant making efforts. Within the Drinking Water and Sanitation programme, community and individual based drinking water interventions are dovetailed with sanitation and hygiene education. Partnerships have been formed or are in the pipeline with several leading American Foundations for collaborative drinking water projects across India. Continuing the trend that has been set over the past several years, disbursals made by the Trusts touched an all time high of Rs billion (US $ million). I wish to commend the entire staff for their unstinting efforts that have contributed to the performance of the Trusts, whilst helping transform Sir Ratan s vision and aspirations into reality. Ratan N. Tata Chairperson

3 Sir Ratan Tata Trust Board of Trustees Secretary & Chief Accountant Programmes Manager Statutory Auditors Internal Auditors Solicitors Our Bankers Board of Trustees Statutory Auditors Internal Auditors Solicitors Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust Mr. R. N. Tata (Chairperson) Mr. H. N. Sethna Mr. N. A. Soonawala Mr. J. N. Tata Mr. K. B. Dadiseth Mr. R. K. Krishna Kumar Ms. S. K. Bharucha Mr. F. J. Gandavia Mr. A. Pandhi Mr. D. J. Thakkar M/s Jayantilal Thakkar & Co. Chartered Accountants Deloitte Haskins & Sells Chartered Accountants Mr. J. N. Mistry, Partner M/s Mulla & Mulla & Craigie Blunt & Caroe State Bank of India, Main, Mumbai ICICI Bank, Fort, Mumbai Standard Chartered Bank, Mumbai Bank of Baroda, Fort, Mumbai HDFC Bank, Fort, Mumbai Barclays Bank PLC, Mumbai Axis Bank, Napean Sea Road, Mumbai Mr. R. N. Tata (Chairperson) Mr. N. A. Soonawala Ms. S. N. Tata Mr. H. D. Malesra Mr. J. N. Mistry Mr. D. J. Thakkar M/s Jayantilal Thakkar & Co. Chartered Accountants M/s Aneja Associates Chartered Accountants Mr. J. N. Mistry, Partner M/s Mulla & Mulla & Craigie Blunt & Caroe Our Bankers Standard Chartered Bank, Mumbai Barclays Bank PLC, Mumbai The Zoroastrian Co-operative Bank Ltd., Fort, Mumbai 4i

4 Vision The Trusts Vision Sir Ratan Tata s thoughts, in 1913, on the manner in which the Trust s funds could be used: for the advancement of Education, Learning and Industry in all its branches, including education in economy, sanitary services and art, or for the relief of human suffering, or for other works of public utility. Sir Ratan Tata To engage qualified and competent persons to investigate into matters that pertain to the social, economic or political welfare of the Indian community, the object being to design schemes of a practical nature calculated to promote the welfare of the said community, care being taken that such work is not undertaken from the stereotyped point of view but from the point of view of fresh light that is thrown from day to day by the advance of science and philosophy on problems of human well-being Further, he also directed that: No experiment and no venture should be aided or undertaken unless the scheme thereof is carefully prepared No institution or organisation should be aided of which the accounts are not subject to periodic audits and are not regularly issued and which would not be open to inspection and examination 5ii

5 Reflections Of Days Gone By... Sir Ratan Tata and his wife, Lady Navajbai, were connoisseurs of art and their passion for collecting paintings, jade and other artifacts through their travels world-wide till Jamsetji passed away in A year or so later, Sir Ratan shifted to Brightlands at Marine Lines, a two-storied building belonging to the Bombay United Building is well known. Most of these adorned the Company Limited, a private limited stately properties that were to be his homes during his lifetime. Sir Ratan, along with his elder brother Sir Dorab, lived with their father Jamsetji Tata in Esplanade House (at Rampart Row) company, of which the Tatas were the sole shareholders. But then, Sir Ratan had always nursed that desire to build a home of his own. and it was in Bombay, circa 1912, that he Tata House, circa iii 6

6 Reflections commenced on transforming that desire into reality. The plans for this palatial mansion, to be named Tata House, situated at Waudby Road (a stone s throw from the magnificent Victoria Terminus), were prepared in Paris by the French architect Mon. Maurice, who also prepared all the details of the interiors of the building. Full size plaster models of columns, ceilings, etc. were sent from Paris and meticulously replicated in stone, marble and Plaster of Paris during the course of the construction. The entire frontage of Tata House was built in Amnagar stone, obtained from the erstwhile princely state of Idar (now part of Gujarat), at a cost of Rs. 13 per cubic foot. The design of this palatial structure was inspired in part by the famous Petit Trianon at Versailles. Frederick Williams Stevens, who designed the famous Victoria Terminus Exquisite objects of art adorning the drawing room in Tata House. 7iv

7 Reflections building, was appointed as architect by Sir Ratan to build the house, construction of which was interrupted on several occasions due to World War 1. A lot of the material used in this building was imported from France. Interestingly, the entire railing on the periphery of the property and the big ornate gates were made at the Tata Iron and Steel Works at Jamshedpur a fact that Sir Ratan would always mention with overwhelming pride. Sir Ratan personally attended to all the details throughout the period of construction and shifted into the property around end Tata House was built at a cost of a little over one million rupees a princely sum in those days indeed! Unfortunately, Sir Ratan was destined to live in his new home for a brief span of twelve months. His health took a turn for the worse and in October 1916, he left for England for treatment, never to return. 8v View of the Library in Tata House.

8 Reflections Shortly after Sir Ratan s demise in 1918, Lady Navajbai returned to India and lived in Tata House for the rest of her life, with style, elegance and dignity. Sir Ratan s art collection, valued at approximately Rs. 500,000 (at that time), was handed over by Lady Navajbai to the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay, in 1921 as per his directives. The collection is currently displayed at the Museum and bears testimony to Sir Ratan s fine taste of art and of course, his generosity. The collection covers a variety of antiquities from China, Japan, Tibet, Nepal, Persia, Europe and India. The materials range from porcelain and glass to bronzes, textiles, arms, woodwork, lacquerwork, jades and other precious stone, snuff bottles and ivories. 1 Nearly a hundred years later, in keeping with the artistic sensitivities and the vision of Sir Ratan, the Trusts continue to support organisations that energize traditional and contemporary art forms in the country, besides supporting institutions that restore ancient works of art, thereby preserving our glorious legacy for future generations. (The Trust would like to extend its gratitude to the Tata Central Archives, Pune, for proviing inputs and photographs) 1 Desai, Kalpana (2001) The Tata Collection of Chinese Antiquities; Trustees, Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, Bombay. 9vi

9 Contents An Overview: Institutional Grants Programme Grants Rural Livelihoods and Communities 14 Education 50 Health 67 Enhancing Civil Society and Governance 78 Arts and Culture 87 Endowment Grants 94 Small Grant Programme 96 Individual Grants 102 Financial Highlights 108 Guidelines for Grant Applicants vii

10 Overview An Overview The year that was: During , the Trusts completed their grant disbursals totalled up to Rs. 105 million third year of activities based on the Strategic (US $ 2.39 million). Small grants touched Rs. Plan 2011 (SP 2011). The total disbursals made million (US $ 0.49 million). Forty one by the Trusts during the year touched an all new programme grants, one endowment grant time high, rising to Rs. 1, million (US and forty five new small grants were added to $ million). Disbursals of Rs. 1, the Trusts portfolio during the year. The total million (US $ million) were made on all disbursals to individuals amounted to Rs programme grants during the year. Endowment million (US $ 5.14 million) , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts Details of grant disbursals: Type of grant Rs. in million US$ in million Institution: Programme grants 1, Institution: Endowment grants Institution: Small grants Individual grants Total 1, Rs. 10 million is Rs. 1 crore; 1 US $ is approximately equal to Rs

11 Guidelines Overview An Overview The year that was: During , the Trusts completed their grant disbursals totalled up to Rs. 105 million third year of activities based on the Strategic (US $ 2.39 million). Small grants touched Rs. Plan 2011 (SP 2011). The total disbursals made million (US $ 0.49 million). Forty one by the Trusts during the year touched an all new programme grants, one endowment grant time high, rising to Rs. 1, million (US and forty five new small grants were added to $ million). Disbursals of Rs. 1, the Trusts portfolio during the year. The total million (US $ million) were made on all disbursals to individuals amounted to Rs programme grants during the year. Endowment million (US $ 5.14 million) , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts Details of grant disbursals: Type of grant Rs. in million US$ in million Institution: Programme grants 1, Institution: Endowment grants Institution: Small grants Individual grants Total 1, Rs. 10 million is Rs. 1 crore; 1 US $ is approximately equal to Rs. 44 1

12 Overview The following are some of the key achievements and areas of engagement during marked the third year of joint programmatic efforts towards disbursing funds earmarked by the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust. It also marked the third year of activities under the Strategic Plan 2011 (SP 2011), the Trusts five year guiding document. The Programmes Team focused on fund outlays of both Trusts; consequently, this Annual Report gives details about programmatic activities through joint funding by the two Trusts. Upto March 2010, the Central India Initiative has reached out to about 450,000 households through projects with 25 field partners in 40 districts encompassing the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. The CInI Cell (CInI), supported by the Trusts, played the role of a nodal agency for promoting and strengthening the Central India Initiative, whilst ensuring sectoral engagement. During the year, the Kharif Paddy Stabilization strategy implemented in Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal increased paddy production from 1.4 tonnes / hectare to 3 tonnes / hectare and ensured food security. During Kharif 2009, a pilot programme was carried out under the Kharif Maize Stabilization (KMS) theme, covering 500 farmers in tribal areas of western India, focusing on promoting improved seeds and cultivation practices, along with provision of regular inputs. The pilot indicated that improved cultivation practices and seeds resulted in an increase in maize yields from 5 quintals/ acre to about 8 quintals/acre. The year under review also saw the initiation of the Deoghar District Initiative where the focus is on ensuring financial inclusion within livelihood initiatives through linkages with Improving cultivation practices in Maize as part of the Kharif Maize Stabilization Programme under the Central India Initiative: A woman amidst her plot in Manpura village, Jhabua district, Madhya Pradesh, on which Maize trials were conducted. 2

13 Guidelines Overview formal banking systems. Finally, efforts were made towards reviving traditional irrigation systems such as Ahar Pyne in Jharkhand. Within the Sukhi Baliraja Initiative (SBI), the Trusts are focusing on alleviating agrarian distress in six districts of Vidarbha through nine on-going projects with local implementing partners. During the year, an impact assessment study carried out by the Trusts for Kharif 2008 season highlighted that farmers have gained an additional income of Rs. 2,000/acre from intercropping cotton with legumes such as moong dal and pulses. Farm bunds, which are essential to retain rainwater for cultivation and prevent erosion of top soil, were constructed extensively throughout the project areas. Other interventions implemented for rainwater harvesting included construction of farm ponds for facilitating groundwater recharge and reviving traditional systems of irrigation such as the Phad irrigation system. As part of the livestock development component of the programme, 45 Livestock Development Centres covering 100 villages with an outreach of 15,000 households have been set up. These are currently providing specialized services such as de-worming, artificial insemination, fodder development as well as conducting community awareness campaigns and animal health check-up camps. Systematic credit planning was initiated with 143 Self Help Groups to ensure timely availability of credit from formal financial institutions. To expand and upscale the SBI, the Trusts have partnered with the Government of Maharashtra and International Fund for Agricultural Development through the Convergence of Agricultural Interventions in Maharashtra programme. The programme covers the same six distress districts where SBI has been operationalised. Over a period of eight years, this ambitious programme is slated to cover 286,000 households across 1,200 villages through an outlay of Rs billion. Within Kharash Vistarotthan Yojana (KVY), the Trusts coastal salinity initiative in Gujarat, the Coastal Salinity Prevention Cell (CSPC) continued its focus as a nodal agency to assist the Government of Gujarat, the Trusts and its partner organisations in coordinating and focusing efforts to mitigate salinity. Within KVY, the Coastal Area Development Programme (CADP) worked towards ensuring availability of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities in 300 coastal villages, spread across 21 talukas in nine districts. This programme is supported through the CSPC, in collaboration with Water and Sanitation Management Organisation, Government of Gujarat and 10 partnering Non-Profit Organisations. During the year, the Trusts supported the preparatory phase of CADP, focusing on enhancing the capacities of the village level groups and preparation of comprehensive village level action plans for the 300 project villages. Through the CSPC, the Trusts are collaborating with General Electric, U.S.A. towards the Tata- GE Special Drinking Water and Sanitation Programme, which envisages addressing the issue of supply of safe drinking water and sanitation in 10 salinity affected coastal villages of Porbandar and Junagadh districts, with a view to benefit 4,000 households (25,000 beneficiaries). During the year, implementation of project activities relating to construction of physical structures, community mobilization, etc. have been started by support organisations. Besides the Tata-GE Special Drinking Water and Sanitation Programme and the Coastal Area Development Programme (CADP), 3

14 Overview during the year, the Trusts developed a partnership with the Safe Water Network (SWN), to launch the Small Water Enterprise Kiosk initiative in India. Through an initial pilot, water quality issues; primarily, the high levels of fluoride, will be addressed through the adoption of appropriate technological solutions, namely through Reverse Osmosis (RO) units. Within Himmothan Pariyojana, Phase 2 of the water and sanitation component is currently underway, facilitated through grants to four organisations, which would reach out to over 3,250 households (16,000 beneficiaries) covering 80 villages across Garhwal and Kumaon regions of Uttarakhand. 2,500 sanitation units and 70 gravity schemes are being constructed. During the year, an attempt was made to expand this component to the neighbouring state of Himachal Pradesh (HP). Consequently, prefeasibility exercises were carried out in 20 villages of Sirmour district and ten villages were shortlisted for undertaking drinking water and sanitation interventions over the coming year. Himmotthan, the nodal agency for the initiative, was involved in the implementation of the Integrated Fodder - Livestock Development Project (IFLDP), which endeavours to promote rural livelihoods and enhance incomes of about 44,000 people across 8,000 households from 80 villages in 15 project areas, spread over seven hill districts of Uttarakhand. To ensure better prices for milk produce, six dairies were established, each of which reported a net profit of over Rs. 61,000 during the year. Under Reviving the Green Revolution (RGR) initiative, which aims to tackle the stagnation in agriculture in Punjab by encouraging diversification, the RGR Himmothan Pariyojana: A woman in Bandwara village, Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, equipped with improved cattle feeding techniques - a chaff cutter, cattle trough and improved cattle shed - developed under the IFLDP being implemented by Himmotthan. 4

15 Guidelines Overview Cell operationalised the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in Cotton project successfully in 300 villages spread across the cotton belt of Punjab, in partnership with the Department of Agriculture (DoA), Government of Punjab. The project not only resulted in noticeable reduction in use of pesticides, but also increased production and net economic returns for the farmers. The impact led to the Government of Punjab into granting a Rs. 10 million grant to the RGR Cell, alongwith an equal amount to agencies like Punjab Agricultural University and Punjab State Co-Operative Supply and Marketing Federation Ltd. (MARKFED) to further spread this technology. Besides cotton, IPM technologies in Basmati rice were demonstrated on a large scale across 150 villages in the Majha belt of Punjab, which resulted in substantial reduction in use of pesticides, along with balanced and rationalized use of fertilizers. IPM is also being promoted for other crops, including wheat, potato, groundnut, maize and vegetables. To address key issues affecting speedy transfer of technology to a large number of farmers, the RGR Cell operationalised a new project introducing mobile based agro advisory services in Punjab in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services, which, in its preliminary phase, covers dissemination of IPM technologies for cotton, Basmati, wheat and potato crops. The Trusts North East Initiative addresses livelihood issues of the North-eastern states. In the first phase, the three hill states of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Nagaland are being taken up and opportunities for partnerships with state governments and local organizations are being explored in these states. During the year under review, the Trusts supported two pilot projects in Nagaland. One focused on exploring and developing the enormous potential of rock bee harvesting in the Patkai- Saramati (Eastern Himalayas) region of Nagaland, whereas the other worked towards enhancing income generation of rural communities across 20 villages in 10 districts of Nagaland through community based piggery. During the year, microfinance was incorporated as an integral component of development programmes of the Trusts in the states of Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand. The Trusts Sakh Se Vikas (SSV) Rajasthan Microfinance Initiative covered 65,000 households, through 4,900 Self Help Groups (SHG) in 12 districts of Rajasthan. Against cumulative savings of Rs. 129 million, an institutional credit of Rs. 230 million has been mobilized till date. The Centre for Microfinance (CmF), Jaipur, in its nodal agency role for the SSV, undertook several initiatives during the year to enhance quality of the existing programmes. As part of its district initiative in Dungarpur, CmF is partnering with the Bank of Baroda to implement the latter s Centenary Year Project in the district. A key highlight of the project was the additional credit flow of Rs. 303 million to approximately 14,512 SHG members over a period of two and a half years. The Trusts collaborated with the Government of Rajasthan in its six-year Mitigation of Poverty in West Rajasthan (MPOWER) project in the region. The project seeks to cover 86,800 poor households through microfinance and contextually designed livelihood programmes. During the year, CmF undertook preparatory work for the project through conducting a detailed baseline of the project blocks, orientation of project officials appointed by the government and bankers and undertaking 5

16 Overview joint selection of the field level Facilitating Non-Government Organizations (FNGOs). 11 FNGOs have been selected for six blocks and project implementation will commence in the coming year. Within its Elementary Education portfolio, activities post carrying out preparatory work and establishing baselines in Nandurbar district, Maharashtra and Khunti district, Jharkhand. They also enhanced efforts in Yadgir and Chamrajanagar districts in Karnataka through the Kalike Samruddhi the Trusts focused on three sub thematic Upakram (Learning Enhancement areas, namely: (a) district level initiatives; (b) reforming elementary education; and (c) nurturing education as a discipline. During the year, within the District Level Initiatives, the Trusts commenced implementation of Initiative). During the year, the Trusts piloted direct implementation of interventions in Yadgir, focusing on reading improvement, community involvement in monitoring school functioning and preparatory work Programme Grant Disbursals (Theme wise): ** Thematic Area No. of grants Rs. in million US$ in million Rural Livelihoods & Communities 124 1, Education Health Enhancing Civil Society & Governance Arts & Culture Total 221 1, **The figures in the table reflect programmatic disbursals in the financial year. 6

17 Guidelines Overview for water and sanitation interventions along with supporting the work of select partner organisations. Based on the baseline and mid-term assessments of the reading improvement programme, 53% of the children moved into the higher ability group. Under the Parag Publication Initiative, the Trusts focused on promoting development and dissemination of quality children s literature and educational publishing in various Indian languages. During the year, titles published by Eklavya a key partner within Parag reached out to over 50,000 primary schools in Bihar, besides over 100,000 schools in Uttar Pradesh. In the Health portfolio, the Trusts focused on four sub-thematic areas, namely; (a) rural health programmes; (b) specialised healthcare services; (c) human resources and health systems development; and (d) clinical establishment. Evidence-based decision making was the focus of the Health portfolio in the year under review. Most of the projects underwent third party assessments to provide unbiased objective information of the gap that the programme addressed. Programmes supporting Mental Health work provided real life tales by contacting the reintegrated homeless women at their homes and provided key insight into their status post reintegration with their families. The high rates of persisting disability prompted the need for continued efforts of care, while at the same time, designing tailor made solutions that will solve the problem. The Trusts Arts & Culture programme substantially deepened its engagement with the sector, primarily through the six major Cells, covering theatre, music, film and design. Key outcomes have occurred in the area of publication, especially of major conservation and documentation work, curriculum building and dissemination Communications material produced by ComDEALL Trust focusing on early identification of communication disorders in children. 7

18 Overview , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts Individual grant disbursals: * Type of grants Rs. in million US$ in million % Medical Education Total *Combined disbursals of both the Trusts. with a focus on smaller cities. The Design Resource Cell (at the School of Interior Design, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad) published its work on traditional crafts and environment and also completed a project on the history of interior design in Gujarat and Saurashtra. Another important initiative was the Hoysala Heritage Project, housed at the Srishti School, Bengaluru. Located in the temple town of Belur, Srishti students put together projects for conserving ancient houses in the village, along with strategies for conserving textile designs from the training workshops with D.Ed. colleges, workshops with rural school children and with undergraduate colleges across several towns of Northern Karnataka. Also, during the year, the Media Lab at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, set up a full-scale archive that includes digital conservation, archiving of secondary material, training workshops and the integration of training systems into their practical filmmaking courses. They have presently over 600 rare items in their archives, which have been disseminated into teaching kits to be used by undergraduate colleges in media studies Hoysala heritage. The theatre group across West Bengal. Puppet, Dharwar, expanded its programme During the year, the Roopantaran of children s summer camps, teacher- Institution Building initiative brought about 8

19 Guidelines Overview greater synergies with the grant making process of the Trusts. The creation of the Institutional Appreciation Sheet was a major step in the direction of understanding the institutional status and designing grants. This also enabled better provision of capacity building support to the grantees within the projects. The initiative facilitated the enquiry into institutional issues for four partner organizations and three of these were provided support for necessary interventions. To develop competencies and facilitate the change process within organizations, HIDF, the Trusts partner for the Roopantaran initiative, conducted the first fellowship programme with participation from seven partners of the Trusts. A portal to reach out to a spectrum of individuals and organizations in development was setup. The portal aims to be a key space for dialogue, discussion, sharing resources, experiences and skills. The Youth and Civil Society Initiative focused on building social perspective and life skills of youth by creating opportunities for enhanced self awareness, deepening understanding of societal context and role of youth in bringing change With a major expansion of the portfolio and disbursals over the past seven years, the Trusts focused on developing systems of automation within its administrative and grant management functions, in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services. A portal has been developed, which forms the backbone of the automation system, aimed at streamlining procedures across various functions, whilst alleviating paperwork. Over the past five years, the Trusts, along with its partners, have set up associate organisations called Cells, which are basically nodal agencies for a particular initiative within thematic areas of support. Currently, six such Cells facilitate and upscale sector engagement within the Rural Livelihoods & Communities and Education portfolios. Besides, the Cells also monitor ongoing grants made by the Trusts, thereby providing crucial support. Regular meetings of the Governing Body of each Cell were held during the year. With partnerships being forged with several American Foundations, several Cells have applied and sought registration under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). This is mandatory in order to receive funds from outside India. Besides, the Cells were also instrumental in tie-ups with several state Governments so as to enhance sector engagement. During the year, monthly review meetings were held in Mumbai to track the physical and financial progress of various projects against plans. With a view to rationalise costs and also save travel time, the format of the meeting was restructured and these are now conducted through teleconferencing. Quarterly review meetings were also held in the operational areas for the thematic portfolios of Rural Livelihood and Communities, Education, and Health to take stock of the progress and chalk out the way forward. Plans are on the anvil to introduce video-conferencing as a tool for effective communication in virtual meetings between the Trusts headquarters and field locations across the country. Looking ahead: Within the Central India Initiative, the Trusts would continue to work on specific livelihood themes, which would enhance the livelihood of tribal communities. 70,000 tribal households would be covered through Kharif Paddy Stabilization, ensuring 9

20 Overview year-round food security. Plans are on the anvil to validate work on Kharif Maize Stabilization, based on past learnings. The endeavour would be to work with about 900 farmers through five field partners towards promoting improved cultivation practices, along with improving soil fertility for ensuring better yields. Besides, under Non Timber Forest Produce promotion, there are plans to work with about 4,300 households and enhance their income by about 30% visà-vis current levels. Partnerships with AVRDC World Vegetable Centre and ICRISAT would be further strengthened and field learnings would be shared with additional partners for carrying out demonstrations. Besides, the partnership with International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) would be streamlined to focus on animal husbandry for livelihood enhancement. Recruitment of new staff for the CInI Cell, along with the appointment of its new Executive Director is also on the cards. Over the next two years, the Central India Initiative envisages working with about 1 million households. On the cards during the coming fiscal is a major intensification of efforts within the distress districts of Maharashtra. Consequently, the Trusts would dovetail their efforts within Sukhi Baliraja Initiative, with the Government of Maharashtra and the International Fund for Agricultural Development s project called Convergence of Agriculture Interventions in Maharashtra s (CAIM), scheduled to be launched in May Consequently, within CAIM, the Trusts would develop around 30 sub-projects. For Kharif 2010, roll-out plans have been developed for three components of the SBI CAIM programme, i.e. agriculture, microfinance and marketing. The agriculture plan will be implemented in 186 villages, with the support of Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola and the Reviving the Green Revolution (RGR) Cell, Ludhiana, through local partners. Market analysis and value chain studies have been conducted for milk marketing, Cotton, Red Gram and Soybean. The findings would be used to facilitate and develop market linkages for farmer produce. Further, a detailed marketing strategy is being finalised for Kharif Financial literacy and bridge financing for the distressed farmers in 186 villages is planned so as to ensure their financial inclusion and create an enabling environment for timely availability of agriculture credit. A third phase of projects under the Water Supply and Sanitation component of Himmothan Pariyojana would be launched across Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh in a phased manner. Interventions within Himmothan Pariyojana will also directly focus in the field of common land management and utilization, sustainable livelihood development and studies of related markets and market interventions and linkages. Projects over the coming year will include those on natural resources, fodder, vegetables, medicinal and aromatic plants, NTFPs and local markets. Elements of convergence with other programmes of Himmothan Pariyojana, as also adopting a cluster of villages for similar interventions, would be central to the design of new projects; consequently, Himmotthan would ensure integration and a cluster approach while selecting the villages. Furthermore, whilst continuing its ongoing work, Himmotthan will continue to focus on Knowledge Management, Database development and Research. These will also feed into its growing interest in developing more intensive physical, technical and financial monitoring and evaluation 10

21 Guidelines Overview systems for programmes within Himmothan Pariyojana. The Trusts would intensify their efforts towards enhancing the health status of communities through provision of safe drinking water and promoting safe sanitation practices. Over the coming year, the Trusts propose to work with Tata Chemicals Limited towards piloting Tata Swach across rural households in Maharashtra and Karnataka. The Trusts would also work towards spreading their water and sanitation interventions across tribal areas in the North-East, covering the states of Nagaland and Mizoram, besides Himachal Pradesh, whilst also improving water and sanitation facilities within schools covered under the District Education Initiative, starting with 10 schools in Yadgir district, Karnataka. Discussions are also underway with Tata Steel to develop water and sanitation interventions covering nearly 300 villages that fall within areas under mining operations. From the next year onwards, these drinking water projects would be form part of the new Drinking Water and Sanitation Initiative that would be launched by the Trusts and managed by the Programme, Planning and Partnership (PPP) Cell. The RGR Cell would continue disseminating IPM technology, with a view to covering over 900 villages across the cotton belt of Punjab, over the next two years, whilst also focusing on dissemination of adoptable technologies on a larger scale and facilitation of marketing of agriculture produce for alternate crops such as Basmati, groundnut, gram, moong, etc. Similarly, IPM technology for Basmati would be disseminated across 450 villages over the next three years. The RGR Cell will also discuss research issues, besides lobbying and advocating on policies governing agriculture in Punjab and other Reviving the Green Revolution: A woman engaged in removing weeds from her vegetable crop in Usmaglai village, Erode district, Tamil Nadu. 11

22 Overview states where it plans to expand its activities. Also on the cards is an expansion of the initiative through setting up regional centres in south and central India over the coming year. Projects focusing on IPM in Tamil Nadu would be upscaled and a new model for profitable marketing of the agricultural produce would be put in place. Major focus within Sakh-Se-Vikas Rajasthan Microfinance Initiative would be on expansion in west Rajasthan through participation in the MPOWER project. The Trusts would be supporting the microfinance and community based institution building component of the overall project to develop a strong foundation, along with support for innovations such as information technology based solutions for microfinance in sparsely populated desert regions and pilots on generating alternative livelihoods options for the poor. Around 2,500 3,000 SHGs covering approximately 40,000 households would be formed during the coming year. The Centre for microfinance would upscale the partnership with Bank of Baroda and pilot project with Department of Women and Child Development in an intensive manner in two districts for addressing demand and supply gaps in the microfinance sector through improving quality and systems of SHGs, thereby enabling them to access credit from banks. Expansion of district level initiatives would be the key area of growth within the Elementary Education portfolio over the coming fiscal. The Trusts would continue to support ongoing projects being implemented by non profit organisations across the districts of Yadgir and Chamrajanagar (Karnataka), Nandurbar (Maharashtra), and Khunti (Jharkhand), with a focus on improving quality of teaching learning, thereby resulting in enhanced learning levels and development Early Literacy Programme: Sound symbol correlation of alphabets using the Akshar Chart for educating children of salt workers at a school near Samber lake in Nagaur district, Rajasthan. 12

23 Guidelines Overview among children (pre-school to high-school, depending on interventions), increasing community participation in education and resource and capacity building. At the same time, demonstrations of integrated work within thematic areas of health and livelihoods would be initiated in these three districts. Within the Parag initiative, focus would be on completing preparatory work towards the setting up of the Centre for Children s Literature with Eklavya and development of children s material in tribal and tribal regional languages, focusing on communities served through district level work. Finally, through a collaborative project anchored at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, knowledge building on teacher education would be facilitated, by carrying out action research to assess the impact and effectiveness of Teacher Resource Centres. The high rates of persisting disability amongst reintegrated homeless women prompted the need for continued efforts of care, whilst at the same time designing tailor made solutions to help solve the problem. This is the direction that the Health portfolio would follow in future. In addition, several new public health challenges, such as prevention of road traffic accidents, will be addressed going forward. The strategy of collaboration will be widely adopted and the Trusts hope to play a key role in bringing different stake holders and work together for a common cause to see concrete results. Within the Arts & Culture portfolio, the conservation programme in the areas of print and celluloid will receive a major boost, with the proposed partnership with the British Library, London. The Trusts expect to partner the world s leading repository of print material to devise an India Strategy, in partnership with key archives, libraries and museums in the country. Also, the Trusts will consolidate a cultural livelihoods programme that will work with theatre practitioners in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, handloom weavers in Andhra Pradesh and traditional folk musicians in Karnataka. The programme will combine the conservation of dying arts together with sustainable strategies for arts practitioners. The review and the experience of the Roopantaran initiative have provided further clarity of direction. Consequently, institutional building support under the Roopantaran initiative will now be integrated into the grants of different portfolios as far as possible, with greater emphasis on providing technical resources and support. With the need for an engaged role in the management of the Youth and Civil Society initiative becoming clear, the Trusts will be setting up a Youth and Civil Society Cell, which will manage and take the initiative forward. 13

24 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities Rural Livelihoods and Communities Development planners in India generally believe that the process of reducing poverty in the country over the past few decades hasn t quite gone as planned. The characteristics of agricultural growth, the slowdown of growth in the poorer states, indifferent performance of poverty alleviation programmes and Targeted Public Distribution Schemes (TPDS), and weaknesses in governance and institutions are all issues which are considered to have contributed to the lack of sufficient progress in reducing poverty over the past few decades. Despite significant achievements on the growth front, India continues to face huge challenges and needs to take difficult decisions, reorienting investments from non-functioning subsidies to improving land and water productivity and direct income transfer to the poor. Concerted policy action is needed to lift the 250 million poor, increasingly concentrated in the poorer states, out of poverty. In places, this requires not so much additional resources, as better policies and sound delivery mechanisms. Analysis of some of the policy issues in sectors vital for poverty alleviation, such as agriculture, watershed development, food policy, antipoverty schemes and Tribal Development points out that this list is not exhaustive, but suggested changes may have an immense impact on poverty reduction. Nevertheless, policies without sound delivery mechanisms would not have the desired impact. Over the past couple of decades, the Trusts have worked actively to develop their expertise and influence in the field of rural development across the country. They recognize the importance of orienting activities along directions identified by the Indian government, to streamline and build impact. Activities are therefore defined by five year Strategic Plans (SP), the development of which are led by some of the most experienced and senior government officers and experts in rural development. The current SP 2011 picks up on two main focal areas identified in this new decade - regaining agricultural dynamism and inclusiveness in growth. These underlying principles run through all key initiatives within the Trusts portfolio of Rural Livelihoods & Communities. Activities within each of the several initiatives across the country revolve around enhancing livelihoods and sustaining agricultural interventions. Another area which directly contributes to removing poverty is reducing the lack of basic financial services, of savings, credit and insurance. Making formal financial institutions accessible to the poor is a significant step towards poverty reduction, and as a result, microfinance is now finding its way as an integral component of all development programmes of the Trusts, especially those which seek to enhance livelihoods of poor communities. And then, Nature has its own dynamic and autonomy that circumscribe and shape human action. The current status of global warming is an example of what happens when man acts as if nature does not matter. Some thinkers now state that the root of the current crisis and 14

25 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities others of similar nature can be traced to the way economics has sought to conceptualize itself and its relationship with Nature (Mihir Shah, 2010) 1. Shah goes on to state that once we recognize the contours defined by the balance of Nature, our entire approach needs to shift from an attempt to control Nature, towards a creative weaving of our interventions into the flows and dynamics of natural processes. The best positive examples of this approach are the watershed approach and the move towards sustainable agriculture, both major interventions of the Trusts. The integral nature of the Trusts interventions fall back onto the basic, ecologically sound principles of growth, particularly in the more sensitive ecosystems. Balancing the need to reduce human poverty and conserving Nature becomes a permanent tight rope act, a walk which will go on for decades to come. The year under review marked the fifth year of field implementation under the Central India Initiative, which is one of the flagship initiatives of the Trusts, focusing on enhancing tribal livelihoods through Natural Resource Management based livelihood approaches. The Central India Initiative is spread across 130 tribal dominated districts within states of Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and south Rajasthan. The initiative works towards: (i) ensuring year-round food security of tribal communities across the central Indian states; (ii) promotion of allied livelihood Income generation activities promoted by WOTR under the Central India Initiative: A farmer in Dongarpada village, Dhule district, Maharashtra, watering his horticulture plantation. 1 Mihir Shah has a PhD in Applied Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University and is a member of the National Executive of the Ministry of Rural Development. He has written extensively on development issues in India. 15

26 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities The picturesque Araku valley in Visakhapatnam district, Andhra Pradesh, is one of the important coffee tracts in the state; way back in 1920, British Revenue Officers had introduced coffee cultivation in this primitive tribal belt, situated in the Eastern Ghats. Driving into Malivalasa, a small village nestling in these undulating hills, one chances to meet Pangi Chandramma, a marginalised but bold and enthusiastic tribal woman. All of 42 years of age, but illiterate, Pangi has managed to sustain a family of six, raising four children. Primitive agricultural techniques adopted by her over the years, ensured that the two acres of land she possessed did not cater to the needs of her family; consequently, she toiled as a daily wage laborer. Life for Pangi was definitely not a bed of roses. Circa 2000, Pangi planted some coffee saplings supplied by the Coffee Board and Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA). However, despite Pangi s determined efforts, productivity was low only 85 kilograms of coffee fruit per acre (given adoption of best practices, yields upto 400 kilograms per acre can be obtained). In addition, the nexus of local traders and middlemen caused a situation, where she had absolutely no bargaining power and was constrained to sell her produce at Rs.10 Rs. 15 per kg of parchment (equivalent to Rs. 2-3 a kilogram of coffee fruit) - a ridiculously low price. Application of organic manure in order to enhance yields of coffee crop in Ganjaiguda village, Munchiput block, Vishakapatnam district. In 2004, Pangi joined the Small and Marginal Tribal Farmers Mutually Aided Cooperative Society (SAMTFMACS), which was set up by Naandi Foundation, Hyderabad. She showed great interest and participated in all the meetings and training sessions held by SAMTFMACS, whilst at the same time, exhorting other women farmers in her village to do likewise. Complying strictly with the procedures and tips shared by SAMTFMACS, Pangi secured a bumper yield of 715 kilograms in , getting a fair price of Rs 12,870 for the produce Rs. 18 per kilogram of coffee fruit). Over a cuppa, she informs us,.no middlemen will ever come back to us to offer incentives I will drive away these fiends who lure us with advances.as a MACS branch member, I motivate all the farmers in the same line. With the income, Pangi now intends to buy bulls for ploughing more land that she has planned to take on lease for cultivating paddy. Under the Central India Initiative, the Trusts are supporting Naandi Foundation s endeavors towards organic farming since Now, in its second phase, the project envisages to benefit over 10,000 tribal farmers and their families living in Araku valley through promoting and supporting organic coffee cultivation. Amongst other deliverables, the project: (a) has created a centralized coffee processing unit in Araku, which enabled farmers process their produce efficiently and consequently fetch higher prices; (b) aims to obtain premium pricing for two main commodities, namely coffee and pepper; and (c) aims to further strengthen Mutually Aided Cooperative Societies (MACS), i.e. the farmers cooperative, in all aspects of Cooperative Society management and build its capacity to develop external linkages. The project is expected to lead to: (a) farmers being trained in optimum crop management practices and use of enhanced technology in the field to boost crop productivity and thereby increase incomes; (b) 1,395 Metric Tons (MT) of coffee fruit and 316 MT of clean coffee processed in three years ( ); as a result of which, farmers will derive an additional income of Rs. 10,000 through the supply of coffee to the Central Processing Unit (CPU); and (c) development of a strong market for coffee promotion. 16

27 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities interventions such as forest based livelihoods, animal husbandry, improved agriculture, etc.; (iii) supporting community based institutions; and (iv) developing strategic partnerships with various stakeholders for livelihood promotion of tribal communities. The thematic areas of focus are: (i) Kharif Paddy Stabilization; (ii) Kharif Maize Stabilization; (iii) Non Timber Forest Produce; (iv) Diversion Based Irrigation; (v) Strengthening Community Based Organizations; and (vi) Microfinance and Livelihoods. Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CInI), Jamshedpur is the nodal agency for the initiative, promoted with the support of the Trusts, and ensures close engagement with various stakeholders working together towards enhancing tribal livelihoods. As an associate organization of the Trusts, CInI is involved in implementing the key recommendations of SP CInI has developed state specific strategies towards enhancing tribal livelihoods, which, along with the thematic initiatives are being implemented on ground in partnership with different field partners. In the states of Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, CInI focuses on supporting tribal households through improved cultivation practices to enhance crop yields and generate year round food sufficiency. The main focus in this region is towards stabilizing the yield of paddy crop, termed as Kharif Paddy Stabilization strategy, which focuses on improved cultivation practices, capacity building of partners and farmers and ensuring the provision of water harvesting infrastructure for support irrigation. During the year, CInI worked with about 60,000 tribal households through 10 field partners including Professional Assistance Improved varieties of vegetables promoted by AVRDC and grown in a net house at PAU, Ludhiana, Punjab. 17

28 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities for Development Action (PRADAN), New Delhi, Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS), Jamshedpur, Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra (KGVK), Ranchi, Network for Enterprise Enhancement and Development Support (NEEDS), Deoghar and Indian Grameen Services (IGS), Hyderabad, to name a few. The overall results have been encouraging and yields have more than doubled to 3.5 tonnes per hectare, ensuring year-round food sufficiency for households. For the coming Kharif 2010, CInI has developed a detailed roll out plan for Kharif Paddy Stabilization, in close consultation with the field partners, through which it would work with about 70,000 farmers and 12 partners, promoting the complete Package of Practices with technical inputs from Birsa Agriculture University, Ranchi and Upland Rice Research Institute, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. The aim is to achieve average yield of about 4 tonnes/hectare. Institutional building for input - output supply and linkages with formal financial institutions for timely credit needs are being integrated in all thematic initiatives. Simultaneously, CInI has facilitated partnerships with international research institutions such as International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru and AVRDC-World Vegetable Centre, Taiwan. Whilst ICRISAT is providing technical support for promoting low water requiring crops (pulses such as pigeon pea, chick pea, groundnut, etc.) in the upland areas of Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh, to generate additional livelihood resources and improve soil fertility, AVRDC is focusing on validating vegetable varieties, introducing new vegetables and promoting kitchen gardens with tribal households in Jharkhand. This support has led to promotion of vegetable cultivation, pulses, upland crops, etc; supplementing the income at household levels. During the year under review, a pilot programme was carried out under the Kharif Maize Stabilization (KMS) theme in tribal areas of western India. The main focus here was on promoting improved seeds and cultivation practices, along with provision of regular inputs. During Kharif 2009, CInI worked with 500 farmers in the districts of Dahod (Gujarat), Jhabua (Madhya Pradesh) and Banswara and Dungarpur (Rajasthan). The pilot indicated that improved cultivation practices and seeds resulted in an increase in maize yields from 5 quintals/acre to about 8 quintals/acre during Over the coming year, CInI plans to validate its work on Kharif Maize Stabilization, based on past learnings. The endeavour would be to work with about 900 farmers through five field partners towards promoting improved cultivation practices, along with improving soil fertility for ensuring better yields. Specific studies on credit needs of households during the Kharif season, through the livelihood planning exercise, along with opportunities for formal linkages with banking systems, would be undertaken to dovetail financial inclusion within the KMS programme. Institutional framework within the community would also be defined for upscaling the pilot in the coming years. Under the Non Timber Forest Product (NTFP) theme, preparatory work was undertaken during the year through a study in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Vidarbha (Maharashtra), consultations with field organizations and development of a pilot proposal, all of which have helped build a good base for action over the coming year. The pilot project would focus on developing business led NTFP promotion through local village institutions in the Mahakaushal region of Madhya Pradesh. Business plans for each commodity have been developed, along with action plans to initiate interventions on specific commodities. Provision of working 18

29 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities Central India Initiative: Mother Baby trials in Maize conducted in Simalwada village, Dungarpur district, Rajasthan under the Kharif Maize Stabilization programme of CInI. capital for the Peoples Institution would be defined systematically, such that this revolving fund could be used to upscale business, along with promoting new institutions to take up new business activities. Accordingly, financial institutions would be brought in to support and expand the business. Over the coming three years, under this theme, CInI plans to work with about 4,300 households and enhance their income by about 30% vis-à-vis current levels. Village institutions would be strengthened to manage the business on their own and linked to the market. Microfinance and Livelihoods is a cross cutting theme, focusing on linkages with formal financial institutions through the Community Based Organizations and thereby promoting micro enterprises for livelihood enhancement. Being the poorest pocket in Jharkhand, Deoghar district has been selected to pilot the financial inclusion initiative to enhance livelihoods. Within the Deoghar District Initiative, the focus will be on developing Kharif livelihood plans with SHG members, taking into account their credit needs. Planning has been undertaken with about 100 SHGs and based on the credit needs, discussions are underway with the local banks for supporting the members financially. Over the coming year, livelihood planning would be piloted with the SHGs in Deoghar district and based on the learnings, expanded to other field projects across the Central India Initiative. Under the Diversion Based Irrigation Management (DBIM) theme, pilots on Ahar- Pyne revival and Phad Irrigation development are underway. Through these pilots, CInI is working with two field partners and about 500 households to revive traditional irrigation systems and strengthen the village institutions to manage and maintain them subsequently. Over the coming year, CInI would also initiate action research on traditional irrigation systems such as Kattas in tribal areas of Orissa and tanks within Chhattisgarh. Revival of these systems 19

30 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities would help in enhancing agricultural yields, especially paddy, maize and even vegetables. During the year, a new project was initiated with Gramin Vikas Trust focusing on promoting sustainable agriculture and livelihood enhancement initiatives amongst 5,000 tribal families in Kanker district, Chhattisgarh. Notably, this is the first project in the state under the Central India Initiative and plans are on the anvil to intensify work. Upto March 2010, the Central India Initiative had reached out to about 450,000 households through projects with 25 field partners in 40 districts encompassing the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. The initiative plans to cover a million tribal households across 109 districts by Within the Sukhi Baliraja Initiative (SBI), the Trusts are focusing on alleviating agrarian distress in six districts of Vidarbha through nine on-going projects with local implementing partners. Keeping in mind the lack of knowledge of basic agronomic practices in the region, these organisations provide continuous hand-holding support to farmers from sowing to harvesting. Demonstration plots are being used to promote adoption of agricultural practices which would reduce input costs. Farmers have also been provided with high quality seeds and information on correct dosage/application of fertilizers/ pesticides, amongst other interventions to improve quality and quantity of production. As part of crop diversification, cotton-legume intercropping technology is being promoted through which farmers can produce cotton and protein rich legumes. An impact assessment study carried out by the Trusts for Kharif 2008 season highlighted that farmers have gained an additional income of Rs. 2,000/acre from intercropping cotton with legumes such as moong dal and pulses. With only 10% of land in the region being irrigated, it is essential to conserve rainwater through harvesting and Soil Crop diversification activities promoted by MITTRA under the Sukhi Baliraja Initiative: Intercropping cotton with pigeon-pea for enhancing yields in cotton in Matoda village, Buldana district, Maharashtra. 20

31 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities Sukhi Baliraja Initiative: Cultivation of Lac being promoted by MITTRA as an alternate source of income generation in Bori village, Washim district, Maharashtra. and Water Conservation (SWC) techniques. Consequently, farm bunds, which are essential to retain rainwater for cultivation and prevent erosion of top soil, have been constructed extensively throughout the project areas. Other interventions being implemented for rainwater harvesting include constructing farm ponds for facilitating groundwater recharge and reviving traditional systems of irrigation such as the Phad irrigation system. As part of the livestock development component of the programme, 45 Livestock Development Centres (LDCs) covering 100 villages with an outreach of 15,000 households have been set up. These are currently providing specialized services such as de-worming, artificial insemination, fodder development as well as conducting community awareness campaigns and animal health checkup camps. Four local licensed Agriculture Input Centers (AICs) have been established through Producer Groups (PGs) to ensure timely supply and availability of quality agriculture inputs. To expand and upscale the SBI, the Trusts have partnered with the Government of Maharashtra (GoM) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) through the Convergence of Agricultural Interventions in Maharashtra (CAIM) programme. The programme covers the same six distress districts where SBI has been operationalised. Over a period of eight years, this ambitious programme is slated to cover 286,000 households across 1,200 villages through an outlay of Rs billion. For Kharif 2010, roll-out plans have been developed for three components of the SBI CAIM programme, i.e. agriculture, microfinance and marketing. The agriculture plan will be implemented in 186 villages, with the support of Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth (PDKV), Akola and the Reviving the Green Revolution (RGR) Cell, Ludhiana, through local partners. Market analysis and value chain studies have been conducted for milk marketing, Cotton, Red Gram and Soybean to facilitate and develop market linkage for farmer produce. Further, a 21

32 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities The Vidarbha region, located in the northeastern part of Maharashtra consists of 11 districts, of which six, i.e. Amravati, Yavatmal, Washim, Wardha, Buldana and Akola have been declared as distress regions by the Government of Maharashtra owing to the spate of farmer suicides over the past 7-8 years. Presently, approximately 90% of the total cropped area is rain-fed, with cotton, soybean and pigeon pea in Kharif and wheat and gram in Rabi being the main crops grown in the region. However, a few drought years coupled with lower yields, poor market access, lack of institutional credit, dependence on money-lenders, presence of middlemen and unfair trade practices have built the foundation for a brewing agrarian distress situation. The unpredictable monsoon further aggravates the situation, often causing complete crop failure, delayed sowing and crop loss due to untimely showers. Additionally, the region s agricultural extension services are virtually absent, leaving farmers to follow unreliable and at times, vested advice of local suppliers of pesticides, fertilizers and seeds, who entice farmers into using new products especially on a credit basis. Bereft of scientific advice the farmers tend to follow non-recommended and excessive dosages of fertilizers and pesticides, leading to increased input cost without significant net gain. In 2008, to address and alleviate farmers distress, the Trusts, along with Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT), initiated the comprehensive livelihood focused Sukhi Baliraja Initiative (SBI) having a total outreach of 25,600 households across 320 villages of the six distress districts and achieved a fair amount of success in its first year of operation. Concurrently, the Government of Maharashtra (GoM) initiated a bilateral project, namely, Convergence of Agricultural Interventions in Maharashtra Program (CAIM) with the support of the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), to address the issue of agrarian distress in the Vidarbha region and invited the Trusts to participate within the programme. Importantly, the overall goal of CAIM is in line with that of SBI, i.e. to contribute towards the development of resilient production, sustainable and diversified household incomes and on-farm / off-farm livelihoods, thereby enabling households to face production and market related risks without falling back into poverty and distress. The CAIM programme has a total outreach of 286,000 households across 1,200 villages, located in the same six distress districts wherein SBI is currently operating and hence, provides an opportunity to jointly upscale and intensify efforts in the region. The programme would be officially launched in May 2010, implemented over an 8 year period, through a total outlay of Rs. 5,470 Million, co-financed mainly by GoM, IFAD, Banks and the Trusts. Notably, the Trusts proposed grant outlay towards this project, over this period, will exceed Rs. 753 million. The Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board (MSAMB), Pune has been nominated as the Lead Programme Agency for CAIM. Accordingly, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed with MSAMB to operationalise the programme and build further collaborations in areas of mutual interest. The SBI CAIM programme comprises four main components: (1) Enhancing Crop Production through Improved Sustainable Agricultural Practices comprising three 3 sub-components: (i) promoting sustainable agricultural practices such as Low External Input Sustainable Agricultural Practices (LEISA); (ii) in-situ Soil and Water Conservation (SWC); and (iii) livestock and dairy development. Activities are being implemented through local partner organizations, with technical experts providing support in the fields of agriculture, natural resource management and livestock. (2) Micro-credit Support and Development of Micro-credit Enterprises which aims at facilitating active participation from the farmers/families lacking access to institutional credit by building microfinance linkages, promotion of Self Help Groups (SHG), Federations, Producers Groups, Cooperatives and Producers Companies. Under this, it is envisaged that about 600 SHGs would be promoted and strengthened, wherein they would be linked to the banks. About 150 Producers Groups (co-operatives) would be formed for agricultural marketing, which would endeavour to generate funds through business activities such input supply, marketing of produce, etc. (3) Market Development and Linkages which aims to create community-based multi-purpose cooperatives and Producer Companies, which would collectively market the farmers produce. As the market is a major driver in terms of sustaining interventions such as crop diversification, organic farming, dairy, etc.; a focused approach for studying the market chain for all these interventions is being undertaken. Market linkages would be developed with the major private players, with emphasis on delineating the middle men. Village level youths/groups would be promoted and provided with infrastructural support for value addition and marketing of the agricultural products. Market linkage studies for sectors such as organic farming, dairy and livestock development, goatery development, etc., would be undertaken. (4) Social Support Mechanisms for Distressed Families - the economic impact of farmers suicide forces women into drudgery and the children to drop-out from school. Interventions under this component target the youth, through provision of all round residential vocational training. Further, local implementing organizations are providing psycho-social support to households that have experienced suicides and a cash flow study of 600 suicide households is being conducted to identify their economic status and ensure that they receive the benefits of government packages and programmes. 22

33 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities detailed marketing strategy has been developed for Kharif Increasing salinity of land and water resources in coastal areas is one of the serious environmental problems in Gujarat over the past 30 years. Prolonged use of saline water for irrigation has led to a decline in agricultural yields and decreased soil fertility, rendering the land unsuitable for future cultivation. Salinity has also affected underground water aquifers, leaving over 1,500 villages with drinking water unfit for human consumption. In 2002, in an effort to facilitate a solution to this environmental catastrophe, the Trusts, along with their partner organizations, launched the Kharash Vistarotthan Yojana (KVY), earlier known as the Gujarat Coastal Salinity Prevention & Mitigation Initiative. In recognition of the complexity and the multifaceted nature of the problems of coastal salinity, it was felt that an effective solution required joint efforts of both, government and civil society organizations. Consequently, in February 2005, the Trusts set up the Coastal Salinity Prevention Cell (CSPC) in Ahmedabad, which: (i) functions as the nodal agency for KVY; (ii) acts as the knowledge bank on all things related to coastal salinity in Gujarat; and (iii) networks and develops linkages with government and other agencies, besides focusing on innovations. The ongoing field programmes within KVY are focused on four thematic areas: (a) minimizing impact of salinity by recharging groundwater; (b) promoting sustainable farming systems under saline conditions; (c) promoting nonfarm based livelihoods; and (d) provision of safe drinking water and sanitation in distress villages. Under KVY, the Coastal Area Development Programme (CADP) is envisaged to ensure availability of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities and is being supported by the Trusts, through the CSPC, in 300 coastal villages, spread across 21 talukas in nine districts, in collaboration with Water and Sanitation Management Organisation (WASMO), Government of Gujarat and 10 partnering Kharash Vistarotthan Yojana: Spreading awareness on sanitation through communication material in Ringaniyala Mota village, Amreli district, Gujarat, under the CADP. 23

34 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities Non-Profit Organisations. The programme is designed to be implemented within a timeframe of two years, integrating in village drinking water facilities, water resources management, sanitation and roof top rain water harvesting. It is envisaged to provide sanitation facilities to 25,000 households, besides drinking water to over 100,000 households. During the year, the Trusts supported the preparatory phase, focusing on enhancing the capacities of the village level groups and preparation of comprehensive village level action plans for the 300 project villages. The total budget for the preparatory phase of the project was Rs million, of which, the Trust s contribution was Rs million. The Preparatory Phase has ended and as on March 2010, 300 Water Committees have been formed in the villages. Besides, 264 Detailed Technical Reports (DTR) have been prepared and accepted by village level Water Committees in the Gram Sabha and 186 villages are geared to commence implementation activities. A sanitation model has been finalised in consultation with the support organisations. The programme has received a good response from the community, with more than 5% of the community contribution having been collected in around 210 villages. The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation has confirmed its partnership within the second phase of the CADP, slated to commence in June Through the CSPC, the Trusts are collaborating with General Electric (GE), U.S.A. towards the TATA-GE Special Drinking Water and Sanitation Project, which envisages addressing the issue of supply of safe drinking water and sanitation in 10 salinity affected coastal villages of Porbandar and Junagadh districts, with a view to benefit 4,000 households (25,000 beneficiaries), of which 40% are classified as Below Poverty Level (BPL). Water supply and safe hygiene practices go hand in hand and promoting the latter is also an integral component of the overall project. Water quality problem, primarily, the high levels of salinity, is being addressed through the adoption of appropriate technological solutions, namely Kharash Vistarotthan Yojana: Use of sprinklers being promoted by AKRSP(I) for efficient water utilization in this groundnut field in Balana village, Junagadh district, Gujarat. 24

35 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities Reverse Osmosis (RO) processes / Ultra Violet (UV) Filtration, and the extensive technical expertise and backup support of GE provides the technical backbone for the establishment of water supply systems in the identified problem villages. The overall budget for the various components of the programme is estimated at Rs Million, of which, the Trusts have committed Rs Million. During the year, implementation of project activities relating to construction of physical structures, community mobilization, etc. have been started by support organisations. The RO equipments have been received from GE and the installation of the same would be initiated by Eureka Forbes Limited shortly. Consequently, the project would be commissioned in a phased manner, commencing May From the originally identified ten villages, two dropped out and in their place, two fresh villages were identified. Due to village level implementation issues, the project is delayed by four months. RO house construction has already been completed in eight villages and allied activities such as laying distribution pipelines and construction of storage tanks are underway. The Trusts also supported field projects, being implemented in partnership with five major organizations, namely Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (India) (AKRSP(I)), Ahmedabad; Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF), Kodinar; Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development (TCSRD), Mithapur; Vikas - Centre for Development, Ahmedabad; and Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), Anand. These reached out to over 10,000 households across more than 138 coastal villages. The field projects have successfully demonstrated an integrated NRM approach towards mitigating salinity. During the year, 500 Million Cubic Feet of water was recharged through various activities such as farm ponds, farm bunds, recharge wells and stream treatment. More than 600 farmers adopted micro irrigation systems, which helped in judicious use of water. The learnings and successful pilots on promotion of salinity tolerant agricultural practices will be further supplemented through appropriate water resources development in the near future. In the coming year, the overall focus of KVY would be to enhance sustainable agriculture through changing cropping pattern; introduction of less water intensive crops and creating a system to manage the upcoming demands of such crops from farmers. The Trusts Central Himalayan rural development initiative, the Himmothan Pariyojana (HMP), operationalised in 2002, systematically addresses some of the key rural development issues facing the people of the region, which is identified by a unique topography, steep slopes, varying elevations and niche climatic conditions. The Central Himalayan region is unique in that it consists of predominantly high mountain districts with a habitation belt between 3,000 to 3,500 metres above mean sea level. Every aspect of rural life is labour intensive, while basic needs like water and sanitation often remain largely unattended. It was to address such issues of water, sanitation and livelihoods in this region that the HMP was initiated. In 2004, HMP s activities received due recognition from the Government of Uttarakhand (GoUK) in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Trusts and the state government, valid for a period of ten years. The MoU sets out the commitment of the Trusts and GoUK to ensure the timely realization of goals under Himmothan Pariyojana. The Himmotthan Society (Himmotthan), Dehradun, registered in 2007, is the nodal agency for the initiative and is supported by the Trusts. Amongst other things, Himmotthan: (a) plays the role of an idea incubator by exploring new innovations, 25

36 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities particularly in the areas of Natural Resource Management (NRM), livelihood strategies and up-scaling select pilots; (b) develops a knowledge bank and database on the status and management needs of natural resources and rural development issues in Uttarakhand and identifies areas of livelihood potential; (c) facilitates linkages between the state Government, partner non-profit organisations and technical institutions to develop sustainable and scalable strategies; (d) creates a unique identity for this initiative through brand building efforts; (e) assists in the monitoring of the on-going projects under HMP and provide technical inputs to organizations participating in this programme; and (f) acts as a network and coordinating unit between all HMP partners. As a nodal agency, Himmotthan is providing handson support to all implementing organizations in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. ENV- DAS India continues providing support for monitoring and supervising the Trusts drinking water and sanitation projects under Himmothan Pariyojana. Similarly Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (CHIRAG), Sitla advises the Trusts on catchment area treatment, along with geo-hydrological inputs from Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (ACWADAM), Pune. Over the last year, Himmotthan was involved in the implementation of the Integrated Fodder - Livestock Development Project (IFLDP), which endeavors to promote rural livelihoods and enhance incomes of about 8,000 households from 80 villages in 15 project areas, spread over seven hill districts of Uttarakhand, through an environmentally sustainable, integrated livestock management programme. Himmotthan also continued implementing the Commons, Livelihoods and Markets programme, which focuses on the necessity of continued availability of natural resources based livelihoods in the Himalayan region. Operationalised in April 2009 Himmothan Pariyojana: Federation formation meeting, Mandal cluster, Gopeshwar, Chamoli district, Uttarakhand. 26

37 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities the project involves researching and piloting on issues relevant to the Central Himalayan regions, to ensure secure access, sustainable strategies and market linkages, directly benefiting 13,000 beneficiaries across 2,000 households in 48 villages in Uttarakhand. Key components within the project include: (i) developing a High Altitude programme for upper Himalayan communities; (ii) developing a systematic microfinance programme to integrate microfinance in all existing livelihood based programmes; (iii) a Non-Timber Forest Produce programme, mainly focusing on medicinal and aromatic plants; (iv) Rural Tourism; (v) Hydrology, spring conservation and water resources; and (vi) Climate Change. Himmotthan has also, over the last year, built up a base for expanding HMP to the neighboring state of Himachal Pradesh. Consequently, through a small grant, pre-feasibility exercises were carried out in 20 villages of Sirmour district, through which, 10 villages were shortlisted and would be taken up for drinking water and sanitation interventions over the coming year. Himmotthan also initiated five agricultural and livelihood research projects at the Dr. Y.S. Parmar University for Horticulture and Forestry (YSPU), Solan to encourage productivity and diversification in the Central Himalayan regions. Slated to cover over 2,000 farmers (880 with direct involvement in the projects, while another 1,450 as indirect beneficiaries), the projects are housed within five key departments of YSPU. The projects focus on: (a) promoting the use of biofertilizers in vegetable cultivation; (b) adoption of micro-irrigation in Himachal Pradesh; (c) increasing productivity of quality honey through demonstration of scientific management; (d) popularization of locally fabricated indirect solar driers among the hill farmers of Himachal Pradesh; and (e) management of Two-spotted Spider Mite, other insect pests and diseases with the help of the predator (Neoseiulus (Amblyseius) longispinosus), Neem products and other eco-friendly approaches under polyhouse conditions. Phase 2 of the water and sanitation component of Himmothan Pariyojana is currently underway, facilitated through grants to Himalayan Gram Vikas Samiti (HGVS), Gangolihat, Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust (HIHT), Jolly Grant, Shri Bhuveneshwari Mahila Ashram (SBMA), Anjanisain and Institute of Himalayan Environmental Research & Education (INHERE), Masi. These four organizations are in the process of reaching out to 2,228 households (15,209 beneficiaries) covering 47 villages across Garhwal and Kumaon regions of Uttarakhand. 2,500 sanitation units and 68 water supply schemes are in the process of being constructed. Water availability is expected to increase from between 4 and 15 Litres Per Capita per Day (LPCD) to 40 LPCD at public stand posts and 70 LPCD for individual connections. During Phase 1 ( ), water and sanitation projects carried out by four organisations covered 43 villages, benefiting 2,773 households comprising 18,620 beneficiaries. A total of 89 drinking water schemes, 206 kms of water supply pipelines, 160 Rain Water Harvesting Structures (RWHT) and 1,442 sanitation units were constructed. With the aim of assessing the sustainability of these interventions, the Trusts organised an independent impact assessment exercise, through a sample size of 164 households spread over 10 villages. The study findings were: (a) time taken for fetching water reduced from 5 hours per day to 0.5 hours per day; (b) water availability increased from 24 LPCD to 77 LPCD. Notably, the water quantity available from the source is more than 200 LPCD, which is much more than the quantity consumed; (c) various types of hygiene and sanitation activities led to 90% of households utilizing latrines from previous 11%; (d) hand washing after defecation 27

38 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities September 10, It was a day that all villagers (263 of them) of Kheda Talla, a small, but scattered village, located within Jaunpur block of Tehri Garhwal district in Uttarakhand, had waited for all their lives - the availability of clean drinking water at their doorstep. Amidst applause, overcast skies and accompanied by a persistent drizzle, the ribbon was cut at a simple ceremony to inaugurate the water supply scheme that would ensure clean drinking water for all 43 households at their doorsteps. Ever since I can remember, the villagers, particularly women, are forced to trek 4-5 hours daily across several kilometers every day to fetch water for drinking and household use, informs Maya Devi, an octogenarian, flashing a toothless grin. My daughter is always late for her classes she helps me fetch water. At times, she suffers from stomach cramps and diarrhea says Kamini, yet another villager, who has turned up in her best attire. In November 2006, Kheda Talla was selected by the Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust (HIHT), Dehradun, as one of the 48 villages under PHASE 2 of Himmothan Pariyojana, for enhancing health through drinking water and sanitation interventions. Notably, the Trusts are partnering with Conrad N. Hilton Foundation within interventions in ten villages under this project. Drinking water at the doorsteps.changing lives for inhabitants of Kheda Talla. At the outset, Kheda Talla underwent a one year participatory Planning Phase for formation and training of the representative Management Society (MS), which is responsible for planning, implementing and managing the scheme. The Planning Phase confirmed the demand of the community of Kheda Talla and its willingness to contribute towards implementation of activities, besides bearing the entire expense of Operation and Maintenance (O&M) of the assets that would be created through the project. The Implementation Phase that followed focused on setting up two gravity based water supply schemes and individual items that included 36 latrines, 41 soak pits, 41 vermi compost pits and 43 garbage pits. A supply main fetches water from the source, located 7.5 kilometers away amidst dense forests and stores it within a clear water reservoir, post which the water is filtered through a slow sand filter and then supplied to individuals through distribution supply lines that measure almost 6 kilometers in length. Nine months later, the results indicate that the scheme is a boon for villagers. Besides saving upto 80% of their time spent earlier towards collecting water, the project has ensured access to disinfected, clear water within a stone s throw from their residences. Water availability has increased from 8.69 litres per capita per day (lpcd) to 275 lpcd for Kheda tok and 119 lpcd for Sirwa tok, the two hamlets that constitute Kheda Talla. The sanitation interventions carried out have led to 100% latrine coverage (earlier 25%). The village wears a clean look, thanks to raised awareness and construction of latrines, garbage pits, soak pits and vermi compost pits. Water borne diseases, such as diarrhea, have reduced drastically. Women, as well as men, acknowledge the importance of safe pregnancy and childbirth. They are willing to seek medical intervention, thereby reducing mother/child mortality rate during childbirth significantly. 100% immunization has been achieved and the health of both, mother and child has improved, thereby reducing medical expenses significantly. 28

39 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities and before eating increased from 25% to 100%; and (e) 100% of households began using safe drinking water for drinking and cooking within project villages. The Uttarakhand Bamboo and Fibre Development Board (UBFDB), Dehradun, is focusing on reaching out to 1,300 direct and 5,000 indirect beneficiaries in 32 villages spread across four districts of Uttarakhand, helping enhance household incomes by upto Rs. 30,000 annually. As on March 2010, 20 hectares (ha) of Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) had been completed, along with 275 ha of bamboo / ringal plantations. Four Community Facility Centers (CFC) have been established and nearly Rs. 800,000 worth of products developed in these community clusters have been sold so far. The Trusts also continued to support the Centre for Organic Farming (COF), based at the Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board (UOCB), Dehradun. In its first year of activities under the second phase, COF was able to carry out a baseline survey of 800 farmers, besides developing and publishing technical manuals for Internal Control Systems and Organic Food Storage and Packing. During Kharif 2009, the Organic Basmati Export Programme (OBEP) helped around 2,010 farmers secure an increased price of Rs. 3,000-3,700 per quintal, resulting in sale of Basmati paddy to the tune of Rs. 66 million. COF also participated at the Spirit of Uttarakhand a produce fair located at Dilli Haat, Delhi and the organic produce on display attracted many buyers. During the year, the integration of microfinance within the Himmothan Pariyojana programmes continued. Following a state level exploratory study conducted during , an 18 month pilot on community based microfinance development was initiated in Pithoragarh Himmothan Pariyojana: A woman in Mundoli village, Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, with her medicinal and aromatic herb nursery set up within the Commons, Livelihoods and Markets project being implemented by Himmotthan. 29

40 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities district, with Himalayan Gram Vikas Sansthan (HGVS) as the implementing partner. Simultaneously, cash flow studies were initiated in Pithoragarh to understand the financial needs of the local communities and develop suitable financial products. Microfinance, as a strategy, has now been included by Himmotthan in its future initiatives. Overall, the ongoing interventions within Himmothan Pariyojana will continue to focus on common land management and utilization, sustainable livelihood development, spring conservation, alternative environmentally friendly energy, Carbon credits and studies of related markets and market interventions and linkages. Projects over the coming year will include those on natural resources, fodder, vegetables, medicinal and aromatic plants, NTFPs and local markets, energy and the carbon credit market. To achieve long term sustainability, village level institutional strengthening is given priority. Ongoing projects on water and sanitation are now being extended to incorporate community spring hydrology and conservation action - this field constitutes of disseminating knowledge on the geohydrology of mountain drainage basins to the local residents with the goal of increasing stream flows. Elements of convergence with other programmes of Himmothan Pariyojana, as also adopting a cluster of villages for similar interventions would be central to the design of new projects; consequently, Himmotthan would ensure integration and a cluster approach while selecting the villages. Furthermore, whilst continuing its ongoing work, Himmotthan will continue to focus on Knowledge Management, Database development and Research. These will also feed into its growing interest in developing more intensive physical, technical and financial monitoring and evaluation systems for programmes within Himmothan Pariyojana. Providing potable water and promoting sanitation in order to enhance the health of rural communities forms an integral part of the Trusts grant making efforts across various initiatives. The Drinking Water and Sanitation programme adopts a twin pronged approach, wherein community and individual based drinking water interventions are dovetailed with sanitation and hygiene education. Besides the Tata-GE Special Drinking Water Programme and the Coastal Area Development Programme (CADP), during the year, the Trusts developed a partnership with the Safe Water Network (SWN), to launch the Small Water Enterprise Kiosk initiative in India. Through an initial pilot that was sanctioned during , water quality issues; primarily, the high levels of fluoride, will be addressed through the adoption of appropriate technological solutions, namely through Reverse Osmosis (RO) units. Taking into account the unique quality related problems of the existing drinking water sources, and the need to factor in a technological solution to address the same, SWN is piloting this drinking water project in 10 selected fluoride-affected villages covering 4,000 households (24,000 beneficiaries) in Warangal and Nalgonda districts of Andhra Pradesh. Post commissioning of the small water kiosks, it is expected that each household (comprising four individuals on an average) would have access to atleast 20 litres of safe potable water for drinking / cooking purposes daily, at a cost not exceeding Rs. 0.20/ litre, thereby ensuring that the weaker sections are also adequately covered under the initiative. The project is unique in the sense that it envisages an alternative financing model for part recovery of capital costs within three years and full recovery of Operations and Maintenance (O&M) costs at inception. During the year, the Trusts were also in early stages of discussions with Tata Chemicals Limited for piloting a nanotechnology based 30

41 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities water purification system, namely, Tata Swach (Nanotech Water Purifier TM), which has been developed by a consortium of Tata companies. Tata Swach produces safe drinking water without using electric power, which is often not available in rural areas. Over the coming year, the Trusts propose to work with Tata Chemicals Limited towards piloting Tata Swach across rural households in Maharashtra and Karnataka. To ensure its adoption amongst rural households, the roll-out would be specifically designed, focusing on attitudinal changes at household level and dovetailed with on-going water and sanitation projects, which already incorporate health and hygiene education. From the next year onwards, these drinking water projects would form part of the new Drinking Water and Sanitation Initiative that would be launched by the Trusts and managed by the Programme, Planning and Partnership (PPP) Cell. The Reviving the Green Revolution initiative was operationalised by the Trusts in April 2002, to promote diversification in agriculture to make it sustainable and economically profitable, especially to small and marginal farmers. In Punjab, the initiative focuses on, amongst other things: (a) promoting agricultural diversification by demonstrating and popularizing alternate cropping systems to the presently widely prevailing practice of cultivating rice wheat; and (b) demonstrating the benefits of Integrated Pest Management in Cotton, Basmati, Maize, etc. All efforts in this endeavor are directed to minimize overexploitation of groundwater, improve soil health and reduce cost of cultivation through judicious use of agro chemicals. The Trusts chief partners within the initiative have been the various departments at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, involved in development and demonstration of various innovative concepts Integrated Pest Management in Cotton being popularized by DoA under the Reviving the Green Revolution Initiative: Clean roads alongside cotton fields in Kot Bhai Bhagu village, Muktsar district, Punjab, check the spread of Mealy Bug. 31

42 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities to farmers and the Department of Agriculture (DoA), Government of Punjab (GoP), Chandigarh, which has been instrumental in upscaling the dissemination of the technologies to a large number of farmers. Over the last eight years, much has emerged from research undertaken and then piloted at field level by PAU. The sustainability of production and economic profitability through management of water resources, especially groundwater and soil fertility, reduced cost of production and competitive alternate channels of marketing have become the thrust areas of the Trusts interventions. The overall success within the initiative, coupled with a major expansion and coverage within the projects, encouraged the Trusts to upscale the level of funding individual projects to a centralized organization with a dedicated team through operationalizing the Reviving Green Revolution (RGR) Cell, which is a registered body housed at the PAU with formal institutional structure and is responsible for prioritization of thrust areas of funding within the initiative, besides monitoring progress of ongoing projects. Moreover, the RGR Cell also functions as an idea incubator. During , the RGR Cell operationalised the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in Cotton project successfully in 300 villages spread across the cotton belt of Punjab in partnership with DoA. An impact assessment study of the interventions revealed that optimization of agronomic practices such as selection of varieties, sowing time, sowing methods, soil nutrition, weeding, irrigation, need based application of pesticides etc., resulted in 35% reduction in number of sprays which led to 40% reduction in the cost of sprays in Cotton. Besides cotton, IPM technologies in Basmati rice were demonstrated on a large scale across 150 villages in the Majha belt of Punjab. IPM is also being promoted for other crops, including wheat, potato, groundnut, maize and vegetables. The RGR Cell has developed linkages with various departments within PAU, besides the DoA, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary & Animal Sciences University (GADVASU), Ludhiana and Haryana Agricultural University (HAU), Hisar. To address key issues affecting speedy transfer of technology to a large number of farmers, the RGR Cell operationalised a new project introducing mobile based agro advisory services in Punjab in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which, in its preliminary phase, covers dissemination of IPM technologies for cotton, Basmati, wheat and potato crops (details in case study). The Trusts also supported Department of Entomology (DoE), PAU, towards the development of a website on IPM in cotton, through which about 1,200 farmers, scouts and other extension personnel were trained. The efforts also involved developing pest database maps and documentation of insect bio-diversity in Bt cotton, besides mapping of cotton crop area in villages based on GIS and Geographical Positioning System (GPS), for broader visualization of insect pest attacks and facilitation of a macro Decisions Support System for controlling damages in case of severe attack. The DoE also worked on developing management strategies for the control of Mealy Bug, which has emerged as a major threat to cotton during the past three years. Removal of weeds from around cotton fields and waste lands and spot treatments were recommended for the control of Mealy Bug, thereby checking the carry over of this pest and cutting down the costs of sprays. Sowing of barrier crops, such as jowar, bajra and maize around the cotton crop was also recommended for effective management of this pest. Yet another project with the DoE focused on evolving management strategies for the control of Varroa mite in honey bees, which has become a serious threat to commercial bee keeping. 32

43 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities The pulsating beat of a rustic Punjabi song greets our ears as we pull over into a dhaba on the busy Mansa Sirsa road in the heartland of green Punjab. Tired from our journey, we settle down for a simple, but tasty lunch. We are joined by Dana Singh, a successful cotton grower from the nearby village of Jhandu Ke, who waxes eloquent about mkrishi - a new technology that promises to revolutionize agriculture in Punjab. Over some rajma and maa ki - dal, Dana Singh recounts the day, last year, when his village was adopted under the mkrishi project, which has proved to be a boon for the farmers, a majority of whom remain cut off from the advancements in technology. Dana Singh using the mkrishi application on his mobile phone to receive information on pest identification. In the past, farmers in Punjab have been used to administering indiscriminate and excessive doses of urea, pesticides and insecticides, often with disastrous consequences on the environment. In 2009, the Reviving the Green Revolution (RGR) Cell, Ludhiana operationalised the mkrishi project, introducing mobile-based agro advisory services in Punjab, in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). As an early adopter of mkrishi, Dana Singh learnt to identify various insect pests and consequently administer needbased insecticides. He reduced the number of sprays from 8 (in 2008) to 3 (in 2009), due to which, the cost of cultivation reduced significantly. Dana Singh was also instrumental in sharing his new-found knowledge with neighboring farmers; in the process, popularizing the mkrishi application. Showing us his prized mobile handset, loaded with the mkrishi application, Dana Singh reflects, Previously, I was ignorant about many aspects of cotton cultivation, including sowing of varieties / hybrids / Bt cotton hybrids, application of recommended dosages of pesticides, etc. that were recommended by the experts at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana. Now, I strictly follow the package of practices and in case of problems, I refer to the frequently asked questions within the mkrishi application on my mobile handset. When I cannot get a satisfactory solution, I share my problem with the expert at PAU through a voice message. Thanks to mkrishi, I have managed to obtain a net profit of Rs. 49,200 per hectare! Services under the mkrishi application aim to provide farmers with all necessary information, including pest identification / disease diagnosis, sampling and decision making criteria, pest / disease developmental models linked to weather networks, bio rational pest control methods, along with currently available pesticides and their safety issues and environmental impacts. The project is being implemented across two phases. The ongoing pilot phase covers 120 farmers from six villages over a period of two years and includes collection, compilation and dissemination of information on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) technologies for cotton, wheat, Basmati and potato crops. The second phase would include the introduction of additional services supported by mkrishi, as per the farmers requirements, including weather prediction, personalized agro advice, ad-push, local news feed and mandi price (market) information. During the first phase of the project itself, TCS will establish a business model to deliver services on a sustainable, commercial basis within the next phase. With mobile penetration and usage coming of age in India, the mkrishi project promises excellent potential in ensuring the farmer with access to vital information at the right time and solving issues related to crop production. Undoubtedly this would go a long way in improving productivity over a wide range of crops. 33

44 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities The Department of Plant Pathology (DoPP) focused on popularizing integrated disease management in potato through seed treatment, appropriate cultural practices and fungicides spray technology, by conducting 10 demonstrations at farmers fields in Hoshiarpur district. This resulted in successfully controlling various diseases such as late blight, black scurf and common scab. Emphasis was laid on use of disease free seed and proper disposal of diseased seed tubers, besides seed treatment of potato tubers with recommended fungicides before sowing. Similarly, demonstrations for the management of common diseases in wheat were carried out across 30 acres of selected farmers fields in three villages in Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur districts. In spite of a serious epidemic of yellow rust in wheat, the farmers in project areas successfully controlled the disease through timely application of fungicides at the right stage. The Trusts are also supporting the Department of Extension Education (DoEE) towards promoting kitchen gardens for household consumption of vegetables, fruits and pulses. The interventions cover a total 10 villages in ten districts of Punjab, reaching out to 50 families per village. A total of 800 farmers were covered during Through the Trusts support, AVRDC focused on improving vegetable production and consumption in Punjab. A modified net-house design suiting the local conditions was developed for cultivating vegetables under protected conditions. Experiments are in progress for cultivating vegetables such as Capsicum, Brinjal, Tomato, Okra, Garden Pea, Cucumber and French beans under net houses. Some non-traditional vegetables like Kangkong and Basella have also been introduced to provide additional sources of nutrition and vegetables for year round utilization of net houses. The Department of Agronomy organised ten demonstrations in the districts of Jalandhar, Reviving the Green Revolution: This lady grows vegetables in a Nutrition Garden in Nagra village, Sangrur district, Punjab, as part of DoEE s efforts to promote household consumption of vegetables, fruits and pulses. 34

45 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities Kapurthala, Patiala and Fatehgarh Sahib, popularizing the recycling of rice residue, using Happy Seeder and Rotavators. The objective here was to incorporate rice residue rather than burn it. The demonstrations proved that savings in fuel and irrigation to the tune of 25% could be achieved. More importantly, it prevented environmental pollution that would have occurred through burning of the residue. Plans are on the anvil to collaborate with the DoA to further upscale the adoption of this practice. A new project promoting the accelerated method of breeding durum and bread wheat was operationalised during the year. Consequently, a beginning has been made to produce cross combinations through hybridization during the off-season and further crossing with maize to produce hybrids of wheat. From time immemorial, due to good soil health and copious water availability, the farmers of Tamil Nadu have a set cropping pattern in command areas, tank-fed areas and well irrigated areas, which predominantly consists of paddy, sugarcane, coconut and other hydrophilic crops. However, due to the changing rainfall pattern over the past few years, ground water depletion, lack of flows in the perennial rivers, scarcity of labor etc., the existing cropping pattern has ceased to be economically viable. Considering the scarce water availability, the need of the hour is to reduce the area under rice, sugarcane, banana and other hydrophilic crops in order to accommodate other less water intensive crops like oilseeds, pulses, cotton and maize over a greater area. After Punjab, the state of Tamil Nadu played an active role in the Green Revolution, but is currently facing similar problems of depleting water resources and increasing cost of production due to excessive use of agrochemicals. Amidst this scenario, taking inspiration from the results in Punjab, the Trusts have expanded their engagement within the agricultural sector to Tamil Nadu, through Reviving the Green Revolution: Subsistence farming is promoted in Javadi Hills, Vellore district, Tamil Nadu, as part of TNAU s efforts towards enhancing livelihoods of dry land farmers. 35

46 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities supporting projects with the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore, with a view to encourage diversification. The projects, targeting the farmers in Tamil Nadu are: (a) refining IPM technologies for managing pests and diseases in Rice and Vegetables; (b) popularizing dry land technologies for enhancing the livelihood of dry land farmers through farmers participatory approach; (c) disseminating resilient and productive varieties to improve income and livelihood security of rain fed rice farmers; (d) popularizing small millets in hilly tribal areas and small farms; and (e) popularizing Azolla, as feed supplement among rural women and tribal population. During the year, PMK 3 and PM (Anna R 4) were developed as two, resilient varieties which have almost doubled yield of rice for farmers, vis-à-vis the traditional varieties. Finger millet variety Co (Ra) 14, Little millet variety Co (Samai) 4 and Kodo millet variety Co 3 were promoted along with the complete Package of Practices for ensuring higher yield. Buy-back guarantee and linkage with some departmental stores have also been undertaken and women SHGs have been organized for collective marketing. Finally, Azolla nurseries were established in tsunami affected villages of Nagapattinam district and market linkages have been developed for Azolla in poultry industries. During the year, new two collaborative projects were operationalised with the TNAU, focusing on: (a) demonstrating IPM technology in cotton, maize and fruit crops; and (b) providing training to farmers in hybrid seed production in maize, sorghum, bajra to strengthen livelihood of people in Tamil Nadu. The RGR Cell would continue disseminating IPM technology, with a view to covering over 900 villages across the cotton belt of Punjab, over the next two years. It would also upscale IPM in Basmati across 450 villages in the districts of Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Gurdaspur, in collaboration with the DoA. The RGR Cell will also explore the piloting of a self sustaining business model for mkrishi mobile based agro advisory services. The business model would concentrate on paid services to farmers for crop advisory on pest management, weather forecasting, fertilizer dose, information on mandi (market) price, etc. Also on the cards is an expansion of the initiative through setting up regional centres in south and central India over the next two years. Finally, the RGR Cell would facilitate marketing interventions in agriculture and leverage additional resources from various government departments. North East India comprises eight states - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. The region occupies 262,179 square kilometers with a population of 39 million (2001 Census) and is socially, culturally and politically very complex. Subsistence agriculture is the dominant economic activity (2001 Census) in the region, engaging 55% of the population. This is supplemented with limited horticulture, animal husbandry and handicrafts. Forest and wildlife resources also contribute substantially towards meeting the gaps in income. However, the region is held back from progressing in its development due to its isolation and ethnic sensitivity. The North East Initiative (NEI) was launched in as part of the Trusts regional immersion strategy. In the first phase, the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland were identified because of various strategic reasons. These three states, inhabited by 90% tribal population, have similar terrain and climatic conditions as well as problems associated with such physiogeographic regions. The NEI focuses on: (a) better land use for improved agriculture; (b) diversifying and enhancing on-farm and off-farm 36

47 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities income; and (c) natural resource management. During the year under review, the Trusts supported two pilot projects in Nagaland, which were implemented through Nagaland Beekeeping and Honey Mission (NBHM), Kohima and Nagaland Empowerment of People through Economic Development (NEPED), Kohima. NBHM focused on exploring and developing the enormous potential of rock bee harvesting in the Patkai-Saramati (Eastern Himalayas) region of Nagaland. More than 100 rock bee harvesters have been trained and collection of rock bee honey is being revived in the villages, leading to generation of income from the sale of honey and bee wax. NEPED worked towards enhancing income generation of rural communities across 20 villages in 10 districts of Nagaland through community based piggery, by addressing some of the basic constraints that curtail the productivity and profitability of piggery. During the year, piglets were distributed to individual families in these 20 villages and they were trained on improved and hygienic pig rearing techniques. The project has potential for replication in other parts of the region. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), New Delhi, partnered with the Trusts to conduct an appraisal of the pigsub-sector in Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, bringing out recommendations for enhancing effectiveness of interventions. ILRI also worked closely with NEPED in implementing the piggery project in Nagaland. A participatory study on pig epidemiology in Nagaland was done to identify the type and extent of human and animal disease risks associated with piggery. Eight human health hazards were consequently identified in the study. ILRI feels that there is great scope for using livestock as a pathway for poverty reduction in the hilly and tribal areas and it is hoped that the Trusts involvement in the pig sector will become more intensive in the coming years. North East Initiative: Rock bee harvesters in Kiphire district, Nagaland, with improved tools and equipments for honey extraction. 37

48 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities During the year, new projects were also sanctioned to Centre for Environment Protection (CEP), Aizawl, Mizoram; Entrepreneurs Associate (EA), Kohima, Nagaland; and Eleutheros Christian Society (ECS), Tuensang, Nagaland. While the project being implemented by CEP focuses on showcasing simple, low cost, appropriate technologies at demonstration sites in Aizawl, Kolasib, Lunglei and Serchhip districts, to improve the system of shifting cultivation for sustainable agricultural development and improving rural livelihood of people, EA is promoting mithun 2 rearing in the community forests of Thetsumi village in Phek district, Nagaland as an incentive to conserve the forest and also enhance livelihoods. Finally, ECS is promoting sustainable livelihoods across 600 households in 10 villages of Tuensang district, Nagaland, through Wadi (orchards) and establishing market linkages. The NEI Cell, formed during the year as the nodal agency for the initiative, conducted strategy workshops in Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland, based on which a comprehensive two-year strategy for engagement in the region is being formulated. The Trusts have supported the North Gujarat Sustainable Groundwater Initiative (NGI) over the past eight years, which aims to present new perspectives and practical solutions through interventions in sustainable ground water management. The pilot phase of the project tested a range of physical interventions in agricultural water management in Banaskantha, Mehsana and Sabarkantha districts of north Gujarat and subsequently identified a set of interventions that could reduce water use in agriculture and improve groundwater balance in the region, without causing adverse impacts North Gujarat Initiative: Multi-cropping Bottle guard and pomegranate being cultivated using drip irrigation in Salempura village, Banaskantha district, Gujarat. 2 Mithun (Bos frontalis), a semi domesticated free ranging cattle species from the Gaur family, is used as a ceremonial animal and plays an important role in the economical, social and cultural life of the Nagas, including tribes from the other North-eastern states. 38

49 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities on farm economy and rural livelihoods. The second phase of support came to an end during June The impact of the project reached areas far beyond the designated project villages and talukas. Several thousand adopters of water demand management technologies and practices were able to enhance the productivity of water use manifold, thereby increasing their income from agriculture substantially. The programme also resulted into the setting up of the Society for Integrated Land and Water Management (SOFILWM) - a professional nonprofit organisation committed to carry forward the learning s of the programme. An impact assessment study of the programme was subsequently undertaken, which observed that the overall (crop yield and cost reduction) gain through the project was Rs. 7,072/acre. The introduction of high value orchard crops with drip irrigation, besides the adoption of micro irrigation devices in vegetables and cash crops had raised water productivity five-fold. Use of vermi-culture and composting had not only improved the availability of quality manure for soil nutrient management, but also presented new opportunities for women to earn income. Apart from this, increased employment of family and landless labour and improvement in quality and quantity of drinking water for human and livestock consumption was reported. Better quality of farm products, increasing possibility of harvesting an early crop and reduced labour requirements for certain operations were some other indirect benefits accruing to the farmers. In order to consolidate gains, whilst also expanding activities to other areas of North Gujarat and Rajasthan, a third phase of support to the NGI was sanctioned during the year, towards ensuring sustainable groundwater use in semi arid and arid regions through promotion of improved farmer management of land and water resources. Access to finance for the poor, who have been largely excluded from the formal financial banking sector in the country, is an essential component of livelihood promotion. Microfinance has therefore been a key strategy within most initiatives supported by the Trusts. The main thrust areas for the Trusts as part of their microfinance work is to develop demonstration of community based microfinance approaches while building human resources and enabling environment for the sector. Within the Sakh-Se-Vikas (SSV) - Development through Credit regional microfinance initiative in Rajasthan, the year focused on consolidation and quality enhancement of existing projects and preparatory work for expansion in west Rajasthan, in partnership with the Government of Rajasthan. The SSV initiative seeks to promote community based microfinance and livelihoods programmes through providing access to basic financial services of savings, timely and affordable credit and insurance as the first step. Building strong, community owned, self-help based institutions is the core strategy of the initiative to ensure sustainability of these programmes. As on March 2010, the initiative reached out to approximately 65,000 households through 4,900 Self-Help Groups (SHG) across 12 districts of Rajasthan. Of these, 74% households belong to Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) communities. Against cumulative savings of Rs. 129 million, an institutional credit of Rs. 230 million has been mobilized till date. Of the 65,000 members, 29% availed credit for investment in livelihood activities. 14% members are supported through livelihood support services for agriculture and livestock around ensuring access to quality inputs, extension services, veterinary care and marketing linkages. 16% of the total member households have atleast one adult member covered under a life insurance product. Of the 39

50 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities 20 SHG federations promoted and supported so far through the initiative, 12 cover their full operational costs. Field partners include Association for Rural Advancement through Voluntary Action and Local Involvement (ARAVALI), Jaipur, Grameen Development Services in Ajmer district, Ibtada in Alwar district, Jan Shikha Evam Vikas Sangathan (PEDO) in Dungarpur, Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) in Dholpur and Sirohi and Self-Reliant Initiatives for Joint Action (SRIJAN) in Pali. Through the project with ARAVALI, the Trusts have supported eight field level implementing partners. Further, to promote the growth of the microfinance sector in the state and leverage the learnings of SSV into the mainstream, the Trust seeded the Centre for microfinance (CmF) in 2005, along with other stakeholders - government, banks, non-profits and academicians. CmF, based in Jaipur, is the nodal agency for SSV in the state, providing technical support to enhance quality of SSV projects and incubating new ideas and initiatives. The year marked the completion of a decade of support to two major field programmes in Alwar and Dungarpur districts, which account for more than half of the outreach of SSV. An external impact assessment study undertaken for the programme in Alwar, implemented by Ibtada, highlights the following key achievements: (a) average household savings of households with more than 5 years membership in SHGs is Rs. 24,130 i.e., 2.3 times the average savings of control group; (b) average loan outstanding of mature SHG households from money-lenders is Rs. 27,688 i.e., 33% less than Rs. 41,091 for control group; (c) income of households has also shown progressive increase vis-à-vis number of years in SHG, with members having more than 5 year old membership in SHGs reporting annual household income of Rs. 76,621 i.e., 1.3 times the income of Rs. 59,174 Sakh Se Vikas: Women members managing financial transactions in an SHG meeting in Dunakaker village, Abu Road block, Sirohi district, Rajasthan. 40

51 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities The Dholpur district in north-eastern Rajasthan is remote, drought prone and historically notorious for bandits that dwell amongst its ravines. With limited irrigation facilities and a highly skewed land-holding pattern (53% households owning only 16% of cultivable land), agriculture is mainly for subsistence purpose. Proximity to Delhi makes Dholpur an attractive milk catchment area; however, the milk trade is dominated by dudhiyas (private middlemen) who give credit to the poor households for purchase of milch animals and then milk these households through charging high interest of 36-60% per annum on the credit amount and a lower than market price for the milk which is pledged till the time the credit is repaid. In 2004, Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) began implementing the District Poverty Initiative Project (DPIP)1 in 126 villages across two blocks of Dholpur and dairy promotion was identified as the major area for livelihood intervention. While the DPIP focused only on asset creation for the Below Poverty Line (BPL) households, the Trusts support provided for addressing critical gaps in strengthening backward and forward linkages for dairy, ranging from timely and quality veterinary care, supply of cattle feed and a Bulk Cooling Unit (BCU) enabling the aggregation and direct supply of milk from members to organized buyers like Mother Dairy. The Self-Help Groups (SHGs) of the members provided a platform for members to save regularly and through inter-lending and access to bank loans come out of the trap of dudhiyas and other money-lenders. Promotion of dairy activities by PRADAN under the DPIP has helped women enhance their incomes. Meet Komal - a feisty woman belonging to the Scheduled Caste community - living in Aari village. In 2004, Komal possessed around 2 hectares of land, more than half of which was undulating wasteland. It was around that time that she, along with a dozen odd women decided to join one such SHG and purchased two buffaloes each under the DPIP. However, funds were scarce and she was constrained to borrow Rs. 6,800 from the money lender at a 3% monthly interest, since, as per the norms within the DPIP, 20% of the costs of the buffaloes needed to be borne by the beneficiary. Initially, I used to sell the milk to that rascal dudhiya. However, even after selling all my produce, I used to find it difficult to repay the interest for the loan, recalls Komal, Soon thereafter, her SHG convinced Mother Dairy to set up a milk collection center in their village so that they could get an optimum price for their milk. In 2006, her SHG got linked to the bank and managed to secure loans of Rs. 26,000 and Rs. 120,000, through which Komal cleared her dues with the money lender. Now, we don t need to go to local money lenders we have our own bank, she proudly exclaims. Dairy activity has enhanced income generation opportunities for Komal, who now manages the milk collection center for Mother Dairy earning anything between Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 3,500. She has also commenced selling feed for the animals, fetching a commission of Rs. 15 per bag, whilst selling 40 to 50 bags each month. Besides, she managed to open a new grocery shop for her son, thereby enhancing the family income by a further Rs. 3,000 a month. To help more poor women like her gain control over their lives, Komal has helped to form five more SHGs in her village. For the vast masses of India living on the margins of poverty, access to efficient and reliable financial services can be the slender thread of hope for increasing their scale of operation, or perhaps, diversification into a new source of livelihood as has been the case in Dholpur. Further, when economic benefits to a family come through the woman, which is the uniqueness of the SHG as an institution, it empowers the woman socially as well. 1 In August 2000, the Government of Rajasthan initiated the Rs 6,000 million livelihoods enhancement District Poverty Initiatives Programme (DPIP) focused in seven districts of Rajasthan. 41

52 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities of control group. Another major change is the progressive decrease in income from migration and remittances and enhanced income from local livelihoods of agriculture, livestock and small businesses; and (d) quality of housing has shown an improvement with only 19% of mature SHG members living in Katcha dwellings vis-àvis 42% of control sample. Number of electricity connections among mature households is also considerably higher than control group by 21%. A new phase of support is on the cards next fiscal, which will build on the above achievements through better designed and technically supported comprehensive livelihood interventions in agriculture and livestock. A two year collaborative project with the state government s Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD), aimed at improving quality of DWCD promoted groups and enhancing capacities of their staff in two blocks, one each in Alwar and Dungarpur districts, was successfully completed during the year. The project was implemented by CmF, along with two SSV field partners Ibtada in Alwar and PEDO in Dungarpur. 272 new groups were formed during the two year period, taking the total number of groups supported under the project to 734. A significant improvement in quality of groups has been witnessed during the project period with the percentage of groups in A-category increasing from 26% to 82%. Attendance in group meetings increased from 52% to 83%, number of groups using own savings for inter-loaning increased from 60% to 93% with remarkable increase in quantum of amount i.e. from Rs. 6,835 to Rs. 14,058 per group. 81% of group funds are now being used by members for various activities (41% at the time of project operationalisation). There was an appreciable increase in percentage of active borrowers i.e. from 36% to 65%. Notably, on-time loan repayment rate improved from 59% to 88%, increasing the confidence of the bankers in the project blocks. Based on the success achieved in the project, the DWCD has expressed keen interest to upscale the project in other districts in the state, along with CmF. As part of its district initiative in Dungarpur, CmF is partnering with the Bank of Baroda to implement the latter s Centenary Year Project in the district. A key highlight of the project is the additional credit flow of Rs. 303 million to approximately 14,512 SHG members over a period of two and a half years. Of this, approximately Rs. 70 million has been channelized to SHGs promoted by PEDO. An impact assessment undertaken by CmF for the PEDO promoted SHGs reveals additional income generation of Rs. 9,500 per annum for members who took up dairying, of Rs. 9,940 per annum for members who invested in cultivating vegetables and high value crops such as ginger, chilies and turmeric and of Rs. 18,000 per annum for members who invested the credit in non-farm enterprises. The livelihood support services provided by PEDO have played a crucial role in sustaining income generation from the increased credit made available to members for these purposes. In its role as the nodal agency for SSV, CmF initiated two pilots during the year on bridge financing and insurance with a view to strengthen the credit and risk mitigation components respectively in the existing field projects. In a few districts in the state, banks have been less forthcoming in lending to Self-Help Groups. For such SHGs of three partners, CmF facilitated alternative linkages with Kalanjiam Development Financial Services (KDFS) a section 25 Company. During the year, credit to the tune of Rs million was provided to 284 SHGs. 42

53 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities Despite the fact that insurance can be used as an effective tool for minimizing life and livelihoods related risks and vulnerabilities of the poor and is an important financial service envisaged as part of the SSV initiative, the coverage under insurance has remained low. Reasons include lack of scale to attract insurance companies, poor claim settlement rates, lack of suitable products vis-àvis paying capacity of the poor, etc. To address these issues, CmF designed and launched a pilot project with five partners, through which it provided dedicated field staff in each of these locations and is training and handholding them on a regular basis to undertake insurance literacy of member households, develop partnerships with insurance companies for suitable products and ensure proper documentation and follow ups for claim settlements. The Trusts are collaborating with the Government of Rajasthan and the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) in its six- year Mitigation of Poverty in West Rajasthan (MPOWER) project in the region. The project seeks to cover 86,800 poor households through microfinance and contextually designed livelihood programmes. During the year, CmF undertook preparatory work for the project through conducting a detailed baseline of the project blocks, orientation of project officials appointed by the government and bankers and undertaking joint selection of the field level Facilitating Non-Government Organizations (FNGOs). 11 FNGOs have been selected for six blocks and project implementation will commence in the coming year. During the coming year, major focus would be on expansion in west Rajasthan through participation in the MPOWER project. The Trusts would be supporting the microfinance and community based institution building component of the overall project to develop a strong foundation, along with support for Community Banking Programme being promoted by Kalanjiam Foundation: Women from the Shanarpatti SHG Federation at work in a Terracotta making unit in Shanarpatti village, Dindigul district, Tamil Nadu. 43

54 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities innovations such as information technology based solutions for microfinance in sparsely populated desert regions and pilots on generating alternative livelihoods options for the poor. Around 2,500 3,000 SHGs covering approximately 40,000 households would be formed during the coming year. CmF would upscale the partnership with Bank of Baroda and pilot project with DWCD in an intensive manner in two districts for addressing demand and supply gaps in the microfinance sector through improving quality and systems of SHGs, thereby enabling them to access credit from banks. Another major microfinance programme being supported by the Trusts for over a decade now is the Community Banking Programme of Kalanjiam Foundation, Madurai. The current phase of the programme seeks to consolidate the work in existing federations through offering more microfinance products and initiating livelihood interventions and expansion in 40 locations. As on March 2010, the Programme reached out to 396,822 poor women across 138 locations in 37 districts, spread across 11 states, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, to name a few. The Programme in the coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu is now being managed under a separate initiative, which also reaches out to over 77,000 members. Cumulative savings mobilized in the 138 locations during the year stand at Rs. 452 million. Over the years, the programme has been able to leverage Rs billion as bank credit for the SHGs for various household and productive purposes. As many as 544,705 women and their spouses were covered under life insurance and 51,769 members were covered under health insurance. The Programme, Planning and Partnership (PPP) Cell was set up in July 2008 in Mumbai with the aim of: (a) providing resource support to enhance the quality of the Trusts RLC programmes; (b) developing the Trusts RLC portfolio; and (c) acting as an anchor between the Trusts management, Cells and associate organizations. The PPP Cell initiates and leads activities under three broad heads, namely: (a) Programme where the focus is on programme monitoring and impact assessment; Knowledge Management; and Information and Communication Technology. (b) Planning which looks at idea incubation, handling key projects and operationalizing the SP (c) Partnership which includes facilitating strategic partnerships with stakeholders (donors, government, civil society, media, academic institutions, etc.) and various Tata Trusts and Corporate Sustainability (CS) arm of Tata Group companies. During the year, the PPP Cell was involved in the operationalisation of the CAIM programme in Vidarbha in close liaison with the SBI team based in Amravati. Within the North East Initiative, the PPP Cell was involved in monitoring of the on-going projects besides identification of potential partners and development of new projects. In the absence of a Team Leader within the Kharash Vistarotthan Yojana, the PPP Cell took charge of the overall management of the initiative. The PPP Cell was also involved in coordinating activities under the Drinking Water and Sanitation programmes of the Trust (highlighted earlier within the chapter). The PPP Cell also engaged in the designing and fine-tuning of various segments of the Automation exercise at the Trusts, i.e. Grant Management, Knowledge Management, Document Management System (DMS), to name a few. Data generated will be of significant assistance in providing better analysis of initiative / grant-wise progress and identifying areas in need of further engagement to achieve the goals set out in the Strategic Plan The Trusts are influential players in the field of 44

55 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities development work and philanthropy in India. Given its experience and profile, the Trusts have the potential to play a critical role in highlighting issues that they and the development community at large, have a stake in. This can be done in partnership with other grant making agencies, with civil society organizations, academic institutions, the government and the media. Successful partnerships could lead to co-funding, leveraging funds for associate organizations, exchange of information on best practices, commissioning studies and other networking activities to help position the Trusts as a strategic grant maker. During the year partnerships were explored with American foundations such as the Hilton Foundation. Over the coming year, the PPP Cell will facilitate exploring linkages and collaborative work between the Trusts and the Corporate Sustainability (CS) arm of various Tata companies. The Trusts disbursals during the year under review were Rs. 1, million (US $ million) towards 124 grants. What must be highlighted here is that from this amount, Rs. 600 million was disbursed to the Tata Education and Development Trust; consequently, disbursals towards programme grants amount to Rs million (US $ million), as compared to Rs million towards 86 grants during This constitutes a healthy 28% increase in disbursals, compared to last year. The Trusts would continue strengthening their operations across different locations in the country in its attempts to engage with the sector and strengthen regional initiatives, with the ultimate goal of enhancing rural livelihoods , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts 45

56 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities Rural Livelihoods and Communities List of Partners WATER SECTOR ACTION RESEARCH IWMI-Tata Water Policy Research Programme, Hyderabad Self Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action (SRIJAN), New Delhi CENTRAL INDIA INITIATIVE (CInI) Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CInI) Cell, Jamshedpur Gramin Vikas Trust, Jhabua AVRDC-The World Vegetable Centre, Hyderabad International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN), New Delhi Society for Upliftment of People with People Organization and Rural Technology (SUPPORT), Hazaribag Network for Enterprise Enhancement & Development Support (NEEDS), Deoghar Agrarian Assistance Association (AAA), Dumka Sri Ramakrishna Sarada Math and Mission, Hazaribag Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS), Jamshedpur Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra (KGVK), Ranchi Nav Bharat Jagriti Kendra (NBJK), Ranchi Harsha Trust, Bhubaneshwar Naandi Foundation, Hyderabad Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN), Hyderabad Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), Anand Sahayog Community Coordination Network (CCN), Vishakhapatnam Indian Grameen Services (IGS), Hyderabad Chaitanya, Pune Shristi, Bhubaneshwar Maharashtra Institute of Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (MITTRA), Nasik Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), Ahmednagar N. M. Sadguru Water & Development Foundation (Sadguru), Dahod Rajasthan Rural Institute of Development and Management (RRIDMA), Udaipur Gramin Vikas Trust, Jhabua Action for Social Advancement (ASA), Bhopal Vikram Sarabhai Centre for Development Interaction (VIKSAT), Ahmedabad 46

57 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities Sukhi Baliraja Initiative Dilasa Sansthan, Yavatmal Chetna Samajseva Mandal (CSM), Yavatmal Vikas Ganga Samajsevi Sanstha (VGSS), Yavatmal Indian Grameen Services (IGS), Hyderabad Narottam Lalbhai Rural Development Fund (NLRDF), Ahmedabad Apeksha Homeo Society, Amravati Swayam Shikshan Prayog, Mumbai Maharashtra Institute for Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (MITTRA), Nashik KHARASH VISTAROTTHAN YOJANA (KVY) (Gujarat Coastal Salinity Ingress Prevention and Mitigation Initiative) Coastal Salinity Prevention Cell (CSPC), Ahmedabad VIKAS - Centre for Development, Ahmedabad Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (India) (AKRSP(I)), Ahmedabad Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF), Kodinar Vivekanand Research and Training Institute (VRTI), Mandvi, Kutch Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development (TCSRD), Mithapur Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), Anand Saurashtra Voluntary Action (SAVA), Porbandar Water and Sanitation Management Organisation (WASMO). Gandhinagar HIMMOTHAN PARIYOJANA Himmotthan, Dehradun Department of Entomology and Apiculture, Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Solan Department of Environmental Science, Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Solan Department of Soil Science and Water Management, Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Solan Department of Vegetable Science, Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Solan Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF), Solan Himalayan Gram Vikas Samiti (HGVS), Gangolihat, Pithoragarh Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust (HIHT), Jolly Grant, Dehradun Shri Bhuveneshwari Mahila Ashram (SBMA), Anjansain, Tehri Garhwal Institute of Himalayan Environmental Research & Education (INHERE), Masi, Almora Centre for Organic Farming, Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board (UOCB), Dehradun Uttarakhand Bamboo and Fiber Development Board (UBFDB), Dehradun Himalayan Gram Vikas Samiti (HGVS), Gangolihat, Pithoragarh 47

58 Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities REVIVING THE GREEN REVOLUTION Reviving the Green Revolution (RGR) Cell, Ludhiana Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana Directorate of Extension Education, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana Department of Agronomy, Agromet and Forestry, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana Department of Entomology, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana Department of Plant Pathology, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana Department of Agriculture, Government of Punjab (GoP), Chandigarh Centre for Plant Protection Studies & Centre for Agricultural Rural Development Studies, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore Centre for Soil and Crop Management Studies, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore Department of Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore Department of Environment Science, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore NORTH EAST INITIATIVE Nagaland Empowerment of People through Economic Development (NEPED), Kohima Nagaland Bee and Honey Mission, Government of Nagaland, Kohima International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), New Delhi Entrepreneurs Associate, Kohima Eleutheros Christian Society (ECS), Tuensang Centre for Environment Protection (CEP), Kohima DROUGHT PROOFING IN WEST RAJASTHAN H.H. Maharaja Hanwant Singhji Charitable Trust (MHSCT), Jodhpur School of Desert Sciences (SDS), Jodhpur SAKH SE VIKAS (RAJASTHAN MICROFINANCE INITIATIVE) Centre for microfinance (CmF), Jaipur Jan Shiksha Evam Vikas Sangathan (PEDO), Dungarpur Ibtada, Alwar Association for Rural Advancement through Voluntary Action & Local Involvement (ARAVALI), Jaipur ACCESS Development Services, New Delhi Self-Reliant Initiatives for Joint Action (SRIJAN), New Delhi Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN), New Delhi Grameen Development Services, Lucknow Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN), New Delhi 48

59 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Rural Livelihoods and Communities DEVELOPMENT AND MICROFINANCE Kalanjiam Foundation, Madurai Development of Humane Action (DHAN) Foundation, Madurai Just Change Trust, Nilgris OTHERS Society for Integrated Land & Water Management (SOFILWM), Ahmedabad Safe Water Network India (SWN), New Delhi Cornell Sathguru Foundation, Hyderabad Tata Education and Development Trust, Mumbai The World Zoroastrian Organisation Trust, Navsari Sakh Se Vikas: Credit-based goat rearing has been adopted by the household of an SHG member in Ajmer district, Rajasthan. 49

60 Institutional Grants: Education Education The Education portfolio of the Trusts has two sub-sections, i.e. (a) Elementary Education; and (b) Higher Education. Presently, Elementary Education comprises about 85% of the total disbursals of the Education portfolio. In 2009, after several years of advocacy by civil society organisations, the Parliament passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act. The Right to Education (RTE) Act is a landmark law and makes education a fundamental right for children between age group of six to fourteen years. It enables every child to demand free elementary education in a school in his / her neighbourhood. Notably, the RTE would be applicable for 9 million out-of-school children in India. While RTE reiterates the responsibility of the State towards providing quality education to every child, a very large percentage of children drop out before completing 10 years of schooling. One out of two children is unable to read and write independently despite after five years of schooling. A majority of these belong to Dalit, tribal and minority communities. In this context, RTE would need to be supplemented with reform of teacher education, to equip with suitable training and professional development an adequate number of teachers who can then provide meaningful and child-centered education as envisaged in the National Curricular Framework. Thus, the crucial dimensions of work under the Elementary Education Portfolio of the Trusts would be as follows: Through a variety of interventions, efforts would be made towards improving the quality of education in elementary schools with a focus on tribal, rural and urban poor communities. Alongside, support for teacher education, children s literature and knowledge building would continue, given its influence on quality and functioning of the elementary education system. Through District Level Initiatives, focus would be on educationally backward regions and marginalized communities, especially tribal, Dalit and nomadic communities. This includes suitable resource allocation, capacity building for preparation and implementation of strategies based on identified needs, intensive monitoring and support. The Trusts, therefore, are involved in conceptualizing interventions apart from regular monitoring. During the year, the Trusts focused its grant making efforts within Elementary Education through the following three sub themes: District Education Initiatives Reforming Elementary Education Nurturing Education as a Discipline The Trusts work within District Education Initiatives covers: (i) Chamrajanagar and Yadgir districts in Karnataka; (ii) Nandurbar district in Maharashtra; and (iii) Khunti district in Jharkhand. Working within the government 50

61 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Education For Mahadev, the five years of schooling were a disappointing experience. Despite attending classes regularly, he was unable to read or write. Not that there was a problem with Mahadev.rather, it was the quality of education imparted at his school, a non-descript rundown building in Hattikuni village, Yadgir district, Karnataka that was at fault. Things changed in 2008, after Kalike Samruddhi Upakram - the district education initiative of the Trusts commissioned a baseline study in the district to understand the macro and micro level issues related to education. One of the key observations that emerged from the study was that 27% of the sample children who were studying in the class 5 were unable to read simple text and write. Consequently, KSU, in an attempt to enhance reading and writing skills of children such as Mahadev, operationalised its Reading Improvement Program (RIP) in July Children learning to read as part of the Reading Improvement Programme. The RIP was implemented in 27 centres across Yadgir district for children studying in standards 3, 4 and 5, having difficulties in reading and writing, through classes held by trained village animators over two hours after regular school ended. At the outset, a baseline test was conducted and children were placed in groups, depending on their scores. Activities and assignments commensurate with the abilities of the groups were developed. Animators too underwent regular training sessions. The programme was regularly monitored by the KSU team and after seven months, a mid-term assessment of the children was carried out. Encouragingly, 53% of the children participating in the RIP had acquired appreciable readingwriting skills and moved into a higher ability group. When I visited the center, all the children in the class were actively participating and engaged with the materials provided and the animator was actively involved, devoting individual attention to each child. Thanks to this RIP, my son is able to read and write in a short span of seven months, says Mohan, Mahadev s father. My students had difficulties in acquiring reading and writing skills in Kannada though we had tried our best in teaching the language. The RIP, which was activity-based, encouraged individual participation, thereby enhancing the skills of the children. Besides, their confidence levels also increased, informs Hamanna the school headmaster. KSU was operationalised in 2007 and has evolved as a significant sub-component under the Trusts Elementary Education portfolio. The initiative focuses on long term investment for improving the quality of pre-school to high school education in the districts of Yadgir and Chamarajanagar, Karnataka. In January 2009, the initiative commenced direct implementation through the Trusts support and focuses on enhancing reading and writing skills among children, strengthening school development and monitoring committee members to ensure their participation in the school process, providing access to safe drinking and sanitation in selected schools and carrying out studies related to education in the district. By March 2011, the RIP aims to cover 1,200 children from 30 schools in Yadgir district, resulting in a 70% improvement in their reading skills, thereby spelling a better future for them. Further, it is envisaged that potable drinking water and hygienic sanitation facilities would be provided in 20 schools and over 80% of the children would use them. 51

62 Institutional Grants: Education schools and / or with school-going children for improving the learning levels in the core subjects is a key component across districts, focusing on enhancing the quality of classroom transactions. In Yadgir and Chamrajanagar districts, there is a special focus on empowering the community for playing an active role towards ensuring the functioning of schools. Likewise, interventions within Nandurbar have a unique component that focuses on life skills education in middle / high schools, while in Khunti, the focus is on supporting special bridge courses and hostels for adolescent girls to help them continue secondary education. In 2007, the Trusts operationalised the Kalike Samruddhi Upakram (KSU) (Learning Enhancement Initiative) in Karnataka, focusing on Yadgir and Chamrajanagar districts. Both districts have literacy levels that lag behind overall literacy rates in Karnataka. While the initiative addresses locally specific challenges, district level interventions are organized around the following principles: (i) facilitating systemic reform in elementary education by working with the existing system and strengthening the same; (ii) working with multiple stakeholders to influence and enhance the child s learning; (iii) recognizing and enhancing the active role of the teacher in creating child centered classrooms; and (iv) developing process oriented interventions to address challenges in making elementary education accessible, meaningful and enjoyable for children. During the year, the Trusts piloted direct implementation of interventions in Yadgir, focusing on reading improvement, community involvement in monitoring school functioning and preparatory work for water and sanitation interventions along with supporting the work of select partner organisations. Based on the baseline and mid-term assessments of the reading improvement programme, 53% of the children moved into the higher ability group. A key grant within the initiative made to Deenabandhu, Chamrajanagar, came to an end during the year. Over a three year period, the Trusts support enabled the organisation to provide professional inputs to 10 in-house teachers and about 30 government school teachers in 18 schools of Chamarajanagar, benefitting about 1,800 school children in the subjects of Science, Mathematics and Geography, increasing their class participation and retention in schools. The grant also led to the establishment of a Teacher Resource Center (TRC) in Deenabandhu School and setting up of four School Based Resource Centers (SBRC), which also act as composite nodal centres for the remaining schools in the vicinity. An impact study carried out by an independent consultant, on behalf of the Trusts, indicated that the number of children scoring above 50% in Mathematics and Science had increased from 31% to 81% and 8% to 75% respectively. The teachers also felt that the interventions had brought about positive changes in the way they taught the children in the classroom. Finally, the study reiterated the continued need for educational interventions of this type in highly backward areas such as Chamarajanagar. Nandurbar is primarily a tribal district situated in the north-west region of Maharashtra and ranks as the lowest out of the 35 districts in the state on the Literacy and Human Development Index. Educational and development indices are impacted by number of economic and socio-cultural factors. While there are several educational challenges in the district, the Trusts, post a baseline study, are focusing their interventions on enhancing the quality of services from pre-school to high-school levels by: (a) supporting select schools and Anganwadis 52

63 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Education Don t disturb: Introducing pre-school component in the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Anganwadi as part of the District Education Initiative in Nandurbar district, Maharashtra. through training of teachers, providing curricular material and onsite support; (b) providing academic support to children through Bal Bhavan Centres run by trained village youth and supplementing school education; (c) setting up resource centers for building an institutional base in the district and also engaging with trainee teachers from D.Ed. college in the district; and (d) developing relevant teaching learning material for teachers and children. The district level work in Nandurbar is being carried out by resource agencies such as Gram Mangal, Thane, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE), Mumbai, Centre for Learning Resources, Pune and Quality Education Support Trust (QUEST), Thane that work in tandem with field level organizations such as Jeevan Vidya, Nandurbar and Dr. Hegdewar Seva Samiti (HSS), Nandurbar. An impact study undertaken by Gram Mangal on Anganwadi interventions implemented by Jeevan Vidya highlighted positive behavioral changes amongst Anganwadi teachers, as well as increased availability of teaching learning material and activities like free play, art experiences, etc. Encouragingly, a 10%-15% increase in the attendance of school children has also been highlighted. Similarly a team from the SNDT University, Mumbai, evaluated the quality of workshops conducted by QUEST along with the quality of the books and multimedia package used during the training. The report highlighted significant difference in language skills between the students in the experimental group and the control group (non-intervention group). The education system in Khunti district, Jharkhand is plagued with non functioning schools, poor school environment, inadequate facilities for secondary education, non availability 53

64 Institutional Grants: Education of context specific appropriate reading material, rampant teachers absenteeism and high dropout rates among girls, coupled with the larger problem of poverty. Consequently, the Trusts interventions which commenced during focus initially on: (a) improving access at the secondary school level, by interventions such as supporting hostels and high schools for girls, besides helping out-of-school children to appear for National Open School Exams; (b) quality improvement initiatives like provision of academic support / coaching classes for high school students; (c) setting up / enhancing quality of Early Childhood Education centers while developing contextually relevant teaching learning material; and (d) supporting programmes for children with special needs in Khunti. Two new grants were made during the year to Vikas Bharti, Bishunpur and Foundation for Emancipation of Marginalised (FEMALE), Rania. Both organisations are focusing on Rania block within Khunti district. Whilst Vikas Bharati aims to empower outof-school adolescent girls from Munda tribe by imparting quality education and preparing them to appear for National Institute for Open Schooling (NIOS) exams, whilst also providing skill based training, FEMALE has been supported towards setting up twelve Balwadis in nine villages, reaching out to children within the age group of three to six years from Munda, Muslim and Scheduled Caste (SC) communities. Resource support is being provided by Centre for Learning Resources, Pune and Jan Swasthya Sahayog, Bilaspur, focusing on early childhood education and health, respectively. Grants within the Reforming Elementary Education sub theme focus on supporting quality interventions that address critical and Bridge course conducted by Vikas Bharti for adolescent out-of-school girls as part of the District Education Initiative in Khunti district, Jharkhand. 54

65 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Education established gaps within elementary education. The thrust is on supporting projects in the field that address issues of quality of education through partnership with the government and the community and developing focused initiatives to address neglected areas in elementary education. Areas of focus include improving access to education in underserved areas, teacher development, and development of children s literature and educational material. The key areas of engagement for grants under the sub-theme of Systemic Reform revolve around: (a) intensive involvement in government schools for the improvement of learning levels of children through direct engagement with children by local youth trained by the organisations, working in / after the school; (b) development of supplementary curricular material and promoting its use among students and teachers; (c) intensifying community involvement for strengthening functioning of schools; (d) teacher trainings with follow-up / classroom support in order to facilitate change in pedagogic practice among teachers; and (e) engagement with cluster / block / district level authorities for enhancing effectiveness of school based support and supervision. The Trusts continued their support to Naandi Foundation, Hyderabad; Lokmitra, Raebareli; and Better Education through Innovation (BETI), Lucknow. During the year, the grant to Samavesh, Bhopal, came to an end and an impact study was commissioned in August 2009 by the Trusts through an independent team of two academic reviewers. Amongst other things, the study highlighted that 80% of the intervention students tested were able to establish the sound-symbol correspondence (the first level of competence identified) as against 41% children from the Systemic Reform to Improve Quality of Elementary Education: Children learning the alphabet at the Academic Support Centre run by Naandi Foundation in Ladpura village, Sheopur district, Madhya Pradesh. 55

66 Institutional Grants: Education control / non intervention group schools. Similarly, 32% of the intervention children were able to do comprehension (the highest level of competence included in the written tests) as against 5% in the control group schools. For reading achievement, the study highlighted that less than 10% of students from the intervention schools were at the basic alphabet level, while the corresponding figure in control group schools was over 19%. In Mathematics, the difference between the children from the intervention and control group schools was less pronounced in the first level of competence, i.e. identifying missing numbers from a series - 73% intervention students were able to accomplish the task as compared to 65% among the control group students. However, for higher complexity levels in Mathematics, the difference between the two groups was substantial. To elaborate, for addition, while 43% children were able to solve carry forward questions and 27% were able to perform borrowing in subtraction from the intervention areas, only 9% and 2% from the control group schools were able to solve similar addition and subtraction problems respectively. Subsequent phase of support to Samavesh was sanctioned during the year under review, which would build on past work, whilst also focusing on fresh areas of engagement. The Trusts are supporting organisations providing service delivery in urban slums, remote rural locations and areas where the government system has not reached or is unable to serve certain communities. Ongoing grants include those to Palakneeti Pariwar, Pune; Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), New Delhi; both working in urban areas and Urmul Jyoti Sansthan (UJS), Nokha, working in western Rajasthan. During the year, the second phase of Improving Access to Quality Education: A comics workshop conducted by Muskaan for basti children in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. 56

67 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Education support to Muskaan, Bhopal came to an end, post which an independent impact assessment of educational interventions was undertaken. The study concluded that in the last 10 years of active work in Bhopal, Muskaan had established its capacities at different levels of working with the children, mobilizing the community, partnering with the government and initiating interventions beyond education to enhance overall community development. The tracking done by Muskaan and testing done during the impact assessment indicate important changes in the trend of learning levels among children in classes 3-5 under their School Strengthening Programme and Jeevan Shiksha Pahel (Learning Centres). While the baseline indicated that ability to read text in Hindi fluently (level 4-5 competencies) was as low as 0-10% in children from classes II-IV, in the impact assessment, 55% students were at level 4 or 5 in language. Similarly, in the baseline, while 30-60% were at level I (alphabet level competency), children in this category had come down to 0-9%. Overall academic trends indicated that the Learning Centre was able to facilitate children to reach level 3 of mathematics and level 4 of language within a span of 2 years. The report commended Muskaan s efforts towards ensuring community participation and proactively involving families of children, which had led to a number of girls continuing their education over the past 10 years. The government has acknowledged Muskaan s work through the Rajya Shiksha Kendra, inviting it as a resource agency and has established a formal partnership with government schools. The Trusts commenced a new phase of support to Muskaan during the year. Professionally trained cadre of teachers with requite skills, knowledge and motivation form a backbone for translating educational reforms into reality in a classroom. Quality of pre-service teacher education becomes critical in this context. Various education commissions have emphasized the need to strengthen pre-service teacher education. However, barring exceptions like the Bachelor of Elementary Education (B.El. Ed.) by Delhi University, pre-service teacher education has seen limited transformation during the last decade that focused on Universalisation of Elementary Education. Recognizing this gap, the Teacher Development Initiative (TDI) of the Trusts works towards supporting: (a) innovation in the area of pre-service and inservice teacher development; (b) setting up of Teacher Resource Centres; (c) fellowships for teachers to conduct classroom-based research; (d) linkages of institutes of higher learning and schools to teacher education colleges; and (e) knowledge building on teacher development and education research centres. The Rashtreeya Vidyalaya Educational Consortium (RVEC), Bangalore, has been supported under the TDI towards enabling the Karnataka Education Network (KEN) 1 to strengthen pre-service primary teacher education in D. Ed. colleges of Karnataka. During the year, an impact assessment of the grant was undertaken by an independent education scholar. Key findings indicate that KEN is the first-of-its-kind network of non-profit organisations with the aim of impacting quality of pre-service teacher education. Through multi-layered programmes, the objectives set by KEN over a two-year period were achieved to a large extent. All 78 students from two colleges who participated in the weekly student-teacher workshops found the sessions to be relevant and useful vis-à-vis gaining confidence, overcoming inhibitions about speaking in English, as well as math phobia, enhanced interest in Kannada 1 The network has been formed by five organisations from Karnataka, all of whom are Trusts partners, namely, RVEC, Suvidya, Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti (BGVS), Deenabandhu and Dhwani, which have come together with a common vision of creating a community of teachers and educators committed to educational change through classroom innovations. 57

68 Institutional Grants: Education Teacher Development Initiative: Teachers participating in the Mindful Learning Workshop conducted by The Teacher Foundation, Bengaluru. literature, etc. Further, over 135 lecturers from over 18 districts participated in the two day faculty workshop organised by KEN; almost all found it useful. Finally, around 2,000 students and 25 lecturers participated in outreach events (exhibitions cum - workshops) organised in eight locations in Karnataka and feedback obtained from all indicated that they found the exposure to be very useful. A new phase of support has been subsequently initiated with RVEC towards developing the Vidya Shilpa project of KEN to deepen its interventions while broadening the scope. The Trusts launched Parag Publication Initiative in 2005 with the aim of promoting development and dissemination of quality children s literature and educational publishing in various Indian languages, supporting professional development among illustrators, writers and publishers and dissemination of professional writing, besides facilitating networking among publishers and educationalists. A new grant made within the initiative to Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, supports activities aimed at enriching communication material for children, including books, educational video, animation and interactive learning material, which can also be used for children with special needs. Ongoing support to Eklavya, Bhopal, enabled growth of the publication programme, which, besides developing new titles, focused on increasing outreach of the publications through setting up new outlet centres called Pitaras in Baran, Rajasthan; Sevagram, Maharashtra; and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, besides catering to bulk orders from state government schools in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Acting upon one of the key recommendations of the Strategic Review of Education towards Nurturing Education as a Discipline, the Trusts have focused its resources in: (a) 58

69 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Education Elementary Education has traditionally been neglected and left out of the University, there being only two focused programmes of its kind in the country. Consequently, avenues for further study of elementary school teachers, enabling them to advance in their careers and become teacher educators are limited. In 2002, the M.A. Education (Elementary) programme was designed in response to a felt need to bring elementary education into the ambit of the University, for research, study and teaching - to support the development of the discipline through these processes and to contribute to the development of professionals in this sector. The programme was developed in a unique collaborative mode, involving institutions of higher education and leading voluntary sector organisations who have had made significant and innovative contributions to the field of elementary education. Post the development of a curriculum, with inputs from experts from all over the country, the programme was accepted by and is housed at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, anchored by the Centre for Studies in the Sociology of Education. The first batch of 25 students was admitted in May Mr. R. K. Krishna Kumar confers a M.A. Elementary Education degree on a student at the convocation. The programme is unique as it approaches the study of education from the foundational disciplines - philosophy, sociology and psychology (child development, cognition and learning) and opens up opportunities to study education, besides developing professionals who can contribute to curriculum, teacher education, education administration, policy and research. Its dual mode of delivery (distance learning and contact) enables experts from various organisations located in different parts of the country to contribute to teaching, whilst also enabling people already working in institutions to study and qualify professionally for elementary education. Each semester begins with about three weeks spent on the TISS campus for face to face teaching. In addition to nine basic, compulsory courses, students are required to study three optional courses of their choice and also undertake a field attachment in which they engage with some practical aspect of educational work, in the context of an innovative institution. The Trusts helped set up this programme under its subtheme Professionalising Elementary Education. Since then, over the last four batches, a total of 103 students have been admitted into the programme and so far, three batches of students (total 50) have graduated. The National Council for Teacher Education has cited this as an innovative programme, in its new National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (2009). External reviewers have noted that the programme is able to attract students with very high commitment and high expectations. Students report gains they have made in the course of this programme. Now, I understand why we are doing what we are doing says one student, who was already a gifted and intuitive teacher and administrator, and feels that the programme has contributed to grounding her work. Sociology of Education helped to open up my views - I worked with a Dalit organisation, specifically, after this programme. I have developed as a reader - I read and reflect and have now become an independent learner, feels yet another student. A critical mass of students is now beginning to form, who are in a position to begin to make their presence felt in the system. Students have been writing in newspapers, based on their learning from this programme; besides, materials developed for study in this programme are being translated into other Indian languages. Several teachers have changed their careers, during the course of the programme or soon after, and are now also beginning to return for higher education research. 59

70 Institutional Grants: Education linking higher education with elementary education through collaborative networks, fellowships and research; (b) knowledge building for informed action and policy; and (c) professionalizing elementary education. Over the past three years, the Trusts have supported three Delhi based higher education institutions that constitute the University School Resource Network (USRN), to create meaningful linkages between institutes of higher learning and elementary schools. These include Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, Institute of Home Economics (IHE), New Delhi and Delhi University. During this period, 24 elementary school teachers from diverse backgrounds successfully completed their research under the Teacher Fellowship programme. A library resource has been set up, comprising a rich collection of over 900 titles, including books in the realms of Curriculum Studies, Pedagogical Studies, Teacher Education and Children s literature, video and audio recordings of events hosted by the Regional Resource Centre for Elementary Education (RRCEE) and journals. Notably, the Network has developed and launched a web portal to create an online community of practitioners, which currently has over 950 registered users from diverse backgrounds, including teacher educators, student-teachers, teachers, academicians and others. There are over 1,100 educational readings uploaded on this portal, both in Hindi and English. With the aim of creating a platform for wider deliberation on issues bearing on education, the RRCEE organized eight Public lectures and Film Screening events over the last two years, whilst also providing academic support to the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET) based in Delhi, in the exercise of Teacher Education Curriculum Renewal of the two year D.Ed. (ETE) programme. Finally, the project led to the setting up of a resource centre in a Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) school, which now offers a wide range of activities, reading materials and designed theme corners for students and teachers would mark the fifth year of implementation of the Strategic Plan for Education, 2005, during which, the Elementary Education portfolio would focus on consolidation of its work, rather than initiating new focus areas. District Initiatives would be a key area of growth and engagement for the portfolio. Convergence within work under the Education, Health and Rural Livelihoods & Communities portfolios of the Trusts would be piloted in select locations. Under Parag Publication Initiative, the focus would be on completing preparatory work for setting up of the Centre for Children s Literature, in collaboration with strategic partners. The Teacher Development Initiative would focus on participatory action research to gauge the impact of Teacher Resource Centres, whilst also setting up the Policy Planning Evaluation Desk for strengthening the Trusts engagement in teacher education. Finally, the Trusts would continue to support interventions, research and development of resource material on early literacy in various Indian languages. The Trusts set up the Higher Education Cell in partnership with Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bengaluru in July 2007 with the idea of deepening their engagement in Higher Education (HE) in India. The Cell engages with the Higher Education sector through collaborative research in the field of HE; institutional collaborations with key partners such as government agencies, research centres, universities and undergraduate colleges for developing cutting-edge knowledge resources for higher education; documentation and archiving to create a rich HE database, and 60

71 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Education grant development and management for the Trusts. The Cell has identified inter-institutional collaborations, interdisciplinarity in research and teaching, and integration of hitherto segregated forms of knowledge production (such as natural sciences and social sciences) as significant strategies through which the relevance of higher education could be increased and its capacity to address contemporary challenges enhanced. The interventions of the Cell work through five sectoral and thematic initiatives, namely, Networked Higher Education, Regional Language Resources, Gender, Social Justice in Higher Education and Integrated Science Education. The larger objective of the different initiatives of the Cell is to develop innovative approaches and efficient working models to address the current gap areas in Indian higher education. Through the work of the initiatives, the Cell primarily supports activities such as Curriculum Development, Production of Resource Materials, Teacher Training Initiatives, Skill-building for Students and Research Capacity Enhancement. The thematic of Networked Higher Education seeks to address among other things, the digital divide as it exists in India s HE system by building consortial resource-sharing models. In , the Trusts small grant to INFLIBNET, Ahmedabad, helped develop the strategies for creating a digital resource consortium among nearly 40 Under Graduate (UG) colleges in Maharashtra with a view to upscaling the model. A pilot project for the installation of Institutional Repositories (IRs) and training in digital access was operationalised in nine undergraduate colleges across three states, Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra, in collaboration with the Ford Foundation and the Social Justice initiative of the Cell. The design of the larger consortial model for research training and e-resource access was also developed. The proposal, which is awaiting approval for funding from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), will now be operationalised in collaboration with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). Discussion Sessions at the Workshop on Translation of Feminist Concepts into Kannada held at Kuppali, Shimoga district, Karnataka: Eminent feminists and scholars in dialogue. 61

72 Institutional Grants: Education Leelamma is a gender educator for the Mahila Samakhya, Kerala. She is one of the participants in the informal reading group that has contributed to the shaping of the Malayalam Reader in Gender History. The Reader provides women like her who work in the rural areas as well as undergraduate students of the social sciences and humanities in Kerala with a rich, versatile and relevant resource in their regional language. The Reader is structured so as to be useful to the many diverse groups interested in questions of gender students, teachers, gender educators, learners in reading groups outside formal education, Non-Profit Organisations, governmental organisations like Mahila Samakhya, and general readers. This provides an opportunity for incorporating a wide spectrum of views and analyses on each issue. Given that gender studies as a field of inquiry cuts across various disciplines, the Reader is inherently interdisciplinary in its frame and content. It draws useful connections between past events and contemporary social, political and economic issues. The structure and content of the Reader also enable both a high degree of learning without the involvement of a teacher as well as support group learning practices. The Reader thus productively integrates different kinds of questions and methods of learning in ways that a traditional textbook would be unable to do. The themes covered in the Reader deal with issues of work, sexuality, marriage, family and politics, and were decided after a series of meetings and workshops with different groups of readers in colleges as well as organisations like the Kerala Mahila Samakhya and the Self Employed Women s Organisation (SEWA) Kerala. These themes were then developed and reviewed again by smaller reading groups of students and general readers in a truly participatory project. The introduction to the Reader covers the theoretical debates and different schools in the discipline of history, and each chapter ends with questions that encourage students of history to revisit the debates and issues covered in the introduction in light of the material covered in that chapter. Women in the informal reading groups have insisted that the Reader include not only questions about women but also introduce work done by women historians, to showcase women as producers of knowledge. The Reader offers a way to address several gaps in the existing regional language higher education and informal learning system, a way that can productively be replicated in other fields of learning and in different parts of India, feels Leelamma. Long-standing and deep-rooted issues in the education system, such as problems of motivating and training teachers to change pedagogic practices, finding ways to bridge social gaps between students and teachers, and improving syllabi, will take time to overcome. But projects such as this one offer more immediately practical ways to improve the quality of higher education in regional languages. As a bonus, the project also contributes to enhancing resources for informal and adult education. The Regional Language Resources initiative of the HE Cell intervenes in Higher Education contexts where students do not have adequate access to English, which is the mandated medium of tertiary education in India. Through the small grants to Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, and Samaj Prabodhan Patrika, Belgaum, four Social Science Readers were published in four disciplines and two languages in ranging across issues in history and international relations (Read details in case study). Translations and material production initiatives were undertaken by Centre for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies and Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad, and Kannada University, Hampi to produce new pedagogic resources in regional languages, which were field-tested in three institutions. Modules for teacher training in bilingual pedagogic skills were developed and a network of undergraduate teachers has been established for dissemination of training. This entire compendium of work is expected to strengthen social science research and training, bridging the gap between debates and issues in English and in the regional languages. The key objective of the Gender Initiative is to develop innovative teaching and research programmes in order to influence policy and advocacy efforts, as well as to build successful models for training and strategic implementation. The Trusts supported curriculum development 62

73 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Education Students of the Under-Graduate Certificate Course in Women and Development reflect on encountering Women s Studies during their visit to the WSC, Pune, as part of the programme for building teaching capacities. programmes at School of Women s Studies (SWS), Jadavpur University; Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women s Studies Centre (WSC), Pune University and Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bengaluru. During the year, the partner institutions also organized and conducted seminars and workshops towards building and enhancing capacities of students and researchers in this space. The Cell also commissioned a study on Mapping Gender Training in Tamil Nadu that has been completed, and published on the Cell s website. Apart from this, two undergraduate and four postgraduate courses, and one M.Phil level course, were introduced in three Universities. A consortium of six undergraduate colleges was established by Pune University, and materials produced by the Centre were field-tested. Work is also underway on the production of Readers in Marathi and Malayalam in collaboration with the Regional Language Resources initiative. The Social Justice initiative seeks to make higher education hospitable to hitherto marginalised students by: (a) improving the quality of their access to the institutions; and (b) getting institutions to recognize the centrality of social diversity questions to the sphere of higher education. In , baseline data for the work in the initiative was collated through a study on the access, equity and quality dimensions of higher education in the general arts and sciences segment in Kerala by Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. The pilot model of the initiative s campus diversity project was operationalised in nine colleges across three states, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala in collaboration with the Ford Foundation and the Networked Higher Education initiative. The objective of the Integrated Science Education (ISE) initiative is to develop and pilot integrated research programmes and curricula that carve out innovative areas of engagement at the interface of the natural sciences and the social sciences. During the year, the Trusts continued 63

74 Institutional Grants: Education support to the Centre for Contemporary Studies (CCS), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, which conducted internal research directed towards developing an interdisciplinary approach towards science education. The findings of these studies will be included in the third edition of their postgraduate course to be conducted in Work on a position paper on Integrated Science Education in India was initiated with a review of the field by the Department of Education, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and a consultation held at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune. The initiative has also incubated three research themes: Science- Technology-Society Studies, Cognition, and Environment, and has been in discussion with its collaborators on the feasibility of developing Integrated Science Courses that will be fieldtested in science institutes such as the IISERs and the Indian Institute of Science in The portfolio also targets the strengthening of inter-institutional collaborations, particularly in Asia. This objective was furthered by the Trusts support for scholarship programmes in diverse institutions. In , the Ratan Tata Scholarships for a Master s Programme in the U.K completed its first year successfully. Grant support to University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India (UPIASI) Asia Fellowship was suspended due to unavailability of additional funding. Through the portfolio, the Trusts encourage and strengthen a research culture that feeds into teaching; consequently, the PhD programme at the CSCS, Bangalore was able to strengthen this model during the year under review by converting faculty research into courses at the postgraduate level. During the year under review, the disbursals towards programme grants amounted to Rs million (US $ 3.50 million) towards 51 grants, (which includes Rs million towards Higher Education grants) as compared to Rs million towards 60 grants during This constitutes a 13% drop compared to last year s disbursals, most of which can be attributed towards the Trusts funds being previously earmarked for certain other ongoing commitments. Consequently, many disbursals planned for have been deferred to the coming financial year , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts

75 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Education Education List of Partners ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (A) REFORMING ELEMENTARY EDUCATION District Education Initiatives Chamrajanagar and Yadgir Districts, Karnataka Movement for Alternatives and Youth Awareness (MAYA), Karnataka Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti (BGVS), Karnataka The Teacher Foundation (TTF), Bengaluru Kalike Samruddhi Upakram (KSU), Bengaluru Deenabandhu, Chamrajnagar Vishwa Bharathi Vidyodaya Trust, Gudalur Nandurbar District, Maharashtra Maharashtra Institute of Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (MITTRA), Nasik Quality Education Support Trust (QUEST), Thane Gram Mangal, Thane Jeevan Vidya, Nandurbar Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE), Mumbai Dr. Hegdewar Seva Samiti (HSS), Nandurbar North Maharashtra University (NMU), Jalgaon Khunti District, Jharkhand Nav Bharat Jagriti Kendra (NBJK), Hazaribag Vikas Bharati, Bishunpur Foundation for Emancipation of Marginalised (FEMALE), Rania Systemic Reform Through Collaborative Projects to Improve Quality of Elementary Education Naandi Foundation, Hyderabad Samavesh, Bhopal Lokmitra, Raebareli Better Education through Innovation (BETI), Lucknow Samavesh, Madhya Pradesh Improving Access to Quality Education Urmul Jyoti Sansthan (UJS), Nokha Palakneeti Pariwar, Pune Aga Khan Foundation, New Delhi Muskaan, Bhopal Curricular Interventions Centre for Environment Education (CEE), Hyderabad Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune 65

76 Institutional Grants: Education Teacher Development Initiative Rashtreeya Vidyalaya Educational Consortium (RVEC), Bangalore Quality Education Support Trust (QUEST), Mumbai Suvidya, Bengaluru The Teacher Foundation (Shraddha Trust), Bengaluru Vakkom Moulavi Foundation Trust (VMFT), Trivandrum, Kerala Pravah, New Delhi Parag - Publication Initiative Nirantar, New Delhi Vanasthali Rural Development Centre, Pune Eklavya, Bhopal Bombay Community Public Trust (BCPT), Mumbai Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, IIT, Mumbai (B) NURTURING EDUCATION AS A DISCIPLINE University School Resource Network (USRN) - Linking Higher Education with Elementary Education Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi Institute of Home Economics (IHE), New Delhi Delhi University, New Delhi Professionalizing Elementary Education Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai Knowledge Building for Informed Action and Policy Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta (CSSSC), Kolkata Pragat Shikshan Sansthan (PSS), Phaltan (C) ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION Learning Centre Initiative Govind Dham Shikshan Sadhana Trust (GDSST), Belgaum Aamhi Aamchya Arogya Sathi (AAAS), Gadhchiroli Viswa Bharathi Vidyodaya Trust (VBVT), Gudalur HIGHER EDUCATION Higher Education Cell (HEC), Centre for the Study of Culture & Society (CSCS), Bengaluru London School of Economics (LSE), London School of Women s Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru Centre for Studies in Social Sciences (CSSSC), Kolkata University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India (UPIASI), New Delhi Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women s Studies Centre, University of Pune, Pune OTHERS Society for Assistance to Children in Difficult Situation (SATHI), Raichur Bai Navajbai Tata Zoroastrian Girls School, Navsari 66

77 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Health Health The first decade of the new millennium has come to an end and has ushered changes witnessed never before, in the history of modern India. The country has emerged as a more confident nation with better economic progress to showcase and gains made in the social sector. The birth rate declined from 27.2 in 1997 to 22.8 in 2008, the death rate declined from 8.9 to 7.4 per 1,000 population over the same period and the natural growth rate declined from 18.3 in 1993 to 15.4 in Compared to the last decade, life expectancy at birth has increased from 59.7 years for males and 60.9 years for females in to over 62.6 years for males and 64.2 years for females in Infant Mortality Rate has declined considerably (71 in 1995) during the last decade and reached 53 per 1,000 live births in However, rural (61) & urban (37) differentials are still high and this rural-urban dichotomy is marked across all the indicators. While this is well known, it reiterates the fact that our efforts at recording better gains in rural India still have a long way to go. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), infectious / communicable diseases still account for 56% of the years of life lost, while non communicable diseases have emerged as a big threat and account for another 30%; injuries accounting for the remaining 14%. The malnutrition data (as presented in the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) - III) also highlights the sub-optimal state of children under three years of age and women, in particular. Malnutrition has emerged as a leading problem in the country across age groups and sexes, with both under-nutrition and over-nutrition emerging as potential threats to the health of the people. Co-existence of non-communicable diseases like Diabetes in rural India among patients with low weight and possible undernutrition is another issue, which needs to be kept in mind while rolling out services and programmes. In this context and the backdrop of the Strategic Plan 2011 (Health), the Trusts focus on the following four sub themes through their grant making activities: 1. Rural Health Programme, in which the Trusts support innovative delivery systems that emphasize preventive care, seek to develop close linkages with community outreach programmes, and focus on the rural population, community based health workers, and early diagnosis of major diseases, including Tuberculosis, Malaria, etc. 2. Specialized Health Care Services, which support initiatives in the field of mental health, developmental disability and inclusion, palliative care of the terminally ill, promote access and availability of safe blood, etc. 3. Human Resources and Health Systems Developemt, which have helped in improving the capacities and skills of both organisations and individuals, for careers in public and community health. The Trusts have also 1 Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI) and Sample Registration System (SRS); October

78 Institutional Grants: Health encouraged specialist institutions to offer skill development programmes, especially for those working in the non-profit sector. 4. Clinical Establishment, in which the Trusts support existing health institutions in upgrading services through procurement of instruments, equipments and construction. At the Trusts, the year was spent undertaking a number of impact evaluations, many of which have provided new insights. Mental Health is an important area of engagement for the health portfolio of the Trusts. The guidelines for the implementation of the National Mental Health Programme during the eleventh five year plan mentions its integration into the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) / National Urban Health Mission (NUHM), which is an important development, but would require a strong will to execute. Inspite of the vast challenges facing the country, the Trusts have focused on selective groups Homeless Women with Mental Illness being one such group with whom the Trusts have now worked for several years. In collaboration with its partners, the Trusts stressed on provision of Mental Health services in primary care settings, in both rural and urban India. A case in point is Association for Health Welfare in the Nilgiris (ASHWINI), Gudalur, which has integrated mental health services within its rural health programme. The idea of mainstreaming and integration was successfully achieved and is in line with the Trusts aim for comprehensive primary health care and not stand alone programmes. The Banyan, Chennai, Ashadeep, Guwahati and Karuna Trust, Mysore continued their efforts to rescue, treat and rehabilitate homeless women with mental illness. Ashadeep has involved other civil society organisations in the North-East and in one case, even the local government, to provide mental health services to the people. Karuna Trust is in the process of demonstrating integration of mental health services in the Primary Health Centres in Karnataka. Notably, during the year, Jan Swasthya Sahyog (JSS), Bilaspur, commenced Mental Health services within their comprehensive primary health care programme, out of their own assessment of the felt need. This is commendable, since it emphasizes the need for such services in Reintegration of women back to their families is a major step in their rehabilitation, which started at this Transit Care centre run by Karuna Trust in Chickahalli village, Mysore district, Karnataka. all areas of the country, including the most backward, as served by JSS. Generating evidence on effectiveness and efficacy of past work and incorporating learnings into a new phase of support was the key line of action throughout the year. Consequently, The Banyan, Chennai, Ashadeep, Guwahati and the Manasa project of Karuna Trust, Mysore, underwent evaluation by a third party, which provided rich evidence, 68

79 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Health both quantitative and qualitative, on their work. There is little pre-existing information on programme effectiveness with this constituency. Across all projects, the stress is to adopt and use standard methodologies and tools for diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation and to document the same. This movement in the Health portfolio perhaps began with the Mental Health projects and at the end of the year, it is fair to state that all mental health projects are on their way to adopting standard tools and methods. Standardization should ensure that homeless people receive the best standards of care that uphold their human rights, through processes that are proven, valid and reliable. Perhaps, the Trusts mental health programmes have set the dice rolling in this direction, although the full- scale adoption might take more time and effort. Since , household expenditure on health has been growing at a rate of 14% per annum 2. The largest proportion of this expenditure is on procurement of medicines, since these are not uniformly available at government facilities. This is a major cause of rural indebtedness and of several families falling below the poverty line a fact well documented. This is but one aspect of the family burden in taking care of those with mental illness. An impact evaluation study was carried out in early 2010, wherein the families of 35 reintegrated women of the Manasa project of Karuna Trust were visited. The study revealed that one in three patients who were reintegrated Substance abuse is one of the leading health problems in India, and community health programs use communication channels to address felt needs: A class on ill effects of alcoholism conducted by a health worker of ASHWINI in Gudalur Adivasi Hospital, Gudalur, the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. 2 National Health Profile of India- 2008; Central Bureau of Health Intelligence 69

80 Institutional Grants: Health was not considered as a burden by their family members. Taking care of person with mental illness was a moderate burden for 17 families and severe burden for 8 families. The Banyan has been providing disability allowance to patients with mental illness, not only to partly relieve their financial burden, but also as an incentive to promote treatment compliance. In its research Disability allowance of the Banyan A case study on reintegrated clients and their care givers ; Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health (BALM), Chennai, concluded that financial incentive was an important reason for increasing self-respect and self-worth of the person with mental illness and helps in meeting expenses associated with the follow up care and compensating for loss of wages. A continuum of care is required for person with mental illness; consequently, even after the homeless women with mental illness were reintegrated with their families, comprehensive follow up care, i.e. both, continuing treatment and rehabilitation services are important. However, follow-up care was a difficult area and it was observed that there were high levels of disability post reintegration, a finding shared by all the mental health projects supported by the Trusts, perhaps due to lack of rehabilitation services post reintegration, which were expected from the family and the community. Supplementing and complementing National Health Programmes is an area of focus for the Trusts. The Trusts support work with Children with developmental disabilities to promote inclusion of children without and with such disabilities studying together in the same class in a rural context (Rajasthan Mahila Kalyan Mandal (RMKM), Ajmer). On the other hand, Communication Developmental Eclectic Approach to Language Learning Trust (ComDEALL Trust), Bengaluru, is engaged in generating training and therapeutic material for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Setu Developmental Intervention Centre, Ahmedabad, has taken Early Intervention services for Children With Special Needs to the door step of people, thereby eliminating the barrier of poor access. Finally, Latika Roy Foundation (LRMF) continues to engage Graph: The IDEAS Scale scores 3 show that around 53% of the clients suffered from mild disability, 20% from moderate disability and about 27% from severe disability, indicating the need for rehabilitation services. Similar results were observed in reintegrated clients within projects of Ashadeep and Karuna Trust. 3 A study of thirty reintegrated clients of The Banyan in south India : a research commissioned by BALM 70

81 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Health As an infant, Rajesh had no major problems, save for allergic bronchitis. Rajesh could easily identify body parts as a two year old, recalls Ram, his father. But then, we started getting worried when at three years, he stopped following instructions and seldom responded to being called by his name. He would play by himself, mumbling incoherently all the time. Over the next 2 years, we visited several institutions, including one that dealt with mental and neurological disorders, followed by one that dealt with speech and hearing disorders; then again, a pediatrician who specialized in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). During these two years, he was repeatedly assessed on various measures and given a diagnosis of ASD, but very little help was offered that made any difference to his life. Then, one muggy afternoon in June 2008, five year old Rajesh was brought to the Communication Developmental Eclectic Approach to Language Learning (ComDEALL) Trust, Bangalore, for a consultation. Ram had heard about the early intervention programme at DEALL and hoped that Rajesh would finally get the help that he needed. While a diagnosis of ASD was confirmed and the parents told that with intensive intervention he could improve considerably, the DEALL team was not too keen on admitting him, given that admissions for the year were full. Additionally, Rajesh was over 5 years of age and at DEALL, admission for younger children with ASD was prioritized in order to maximize outputs. A dejected Ram persisted. After the need for a lot of additional support was made clear to the family, Rajesh was admitted. At that time, his developmental skills hovered between 6 to 36 months, across different domains. After 10 months of intervention, Rajesh showed excellent progress in eye contact, attention and sitting tolerance; however, it was felt that he needed to continue at DEALL for another year. Now, a year later, Rajesh has age appropriate skills in most developmental domains with the exception of writing and is now able to hold his own in group settings and in communicating with peers. The family and we agree that he should move out of the regular program in DEALL and be enrolled full time in school with some additional individual support at our end, says an elated Dr. Karanth, Director, ComDEALL Trust. Rajesh learns to eat independently, in the presence of therapists from ComDEALL Trust. Established in 2003, the ComDEALL Trust serves the needs of children with communication disorders in the ASD - Specific Language Impairment, Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia, Pervasive Developmental Disorder and Autism. It runs an Early Intervention (EI) programme that aims at the successful integration of children with communication disorders into regular mainstream schools, subsequent to intensive preschool intervention provided at the ComDEALL centres. Specialised Healthcare Services forms one of the sub-themes within the Health portfolio of the Trusts, under which they support initiatives in the field of mental illness, children with disability and inclusion, cancer research, to name a few. Persons with disability, especially children, are often among the poorest and most marginalized and discriminated against and, in many cases, excluded from mainstream society. Children suffer from a range of developmental disabilities - cerebral palsy being the commonest -while other causes include ASD, mental retardation, etc. The Trusts have a long history of support to the sector. 71

82 Institutional Grants: Health with the district government to include an Early Intervention (EI) service in the district hospital at Dehradun. Encouragingly, all these programmes now observe a reducing trend in age at which children are first diagnosed with a developmental disorder - a cherished goal of any Early Intervention programme. (See graph below) Profiling rural health practices and ill health has been a significant area of work undertaken by JSS. An innovative approach called Cellimedicine saw JSS initiating the use of cell phones by all its peripheral health workers to consult their seniors (including doctors, specialists in their Primary Health Centres and Community Health Centres and faculty doctors at the local medical colleges) to make accurate diagnosis. JSS also carried out three research studies during the year. The project came to an end during , and, as reported by JSS in its project completion report, the key learning has been the realization that a health worker requires constant support, not only of logistics, continuing training and learning, bidirectional feedback and monitoring, but also of a continual evolution of the roles and maintenance of the vision and roles after the initial froth and enthusiasm have settled! 4 The determinants of health in India continue to improve, but still lag behind desired levels. A large majority of the population still does not use toilets and have no access to drainage 5. Worryingly, National Family Health Survey - 3 data has shown worsening nutrition levels among the children with 45% stunted, 40% under-weight and 23% wasted. 79% of children between 6-35 months and 59% of pregnant women were found anemic. At the Trusts, efforts are underway to integrate different programmes to show visible and comprehensive improvement in the quality of life of people. The Health portfolio has identified reducing child malnutrition as one of its goals; consequently, the Health, Education and Rural Livelihoods portfolios of the Trusts are working together to ensure an environment that will provide a healthy childhood. Initial work in this direction will start in Nandurbar district of Maharashtra in the coming year. In addition to this, many of the existing programmes will also see more integration with other elements to make the outcomes more comprehensive. 4 Quoted from the Final Report of the Project on Consolidating Primary Health Care Services and Addressing select Public Health Questions in Primary Health Care through Service Delivery and Action Based Research in Rural Chhattisgarh (December 2006 to February 2010) 5 Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI),

83 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Health When Jaya gave birth to a baby girl at Doon Hospital in Dehradun, hemorrhaging could have transformed this joyous event into a tragedy. Her rare blood type, combined with a low supply at the hospital, led to a potential life threatening situation. But then, these are the kinds of situations where the Indian Medical Association Blood Bank of Uttarakhand (IMABBUK), Dehradun has carved a niche. The organisation managed to quickly fulfill the urgent need for replacement blood and today, a grateful Jaya has joined IMABBUK as a volunteer, helping out in blood donation drives. The shortage of blood in India remains a blot on its society. Unlike developed countries, voluntary blood donations in India reflect abysmal figures. Collection of blood from non-remunerative blood donors has been globally recognized as the ideal method towards ensuring safety of blood and blood components. The shortage of blood could be considerably reduced by promoting voluntary non-remunerative blood donations. Lack of awareness is one of the major reasons behind the pitiable state of blood transfusion services in India, which suffer from inadequate political commitment, low priority, fragmentation and lack of resources. Myths and lack of information amongst communities further prevent a large number of people from donating blood. Consequently, communities need to be motivated to donate blood and locally appropriate solutions to the common problems that have so far been hindering voluntary donation by masses need to be developed. Spreading awareness on voluntary blood donation: Poster and slogan writing competition at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun. In this bleak scenario, the IMABBUK, is focusing on social marketing of voluntary blood donation to overcome the shortage of blood in Uttarakhand. At the outset, in 2008, a research study was conducted to ascertain the blood requirement and the status of transfusion services of the state. Based on the needs and priorities generated by the study, appropriate strategies were developed to implement suitable remedial measures to promote voluntary blood donation, convert voluntary donors into regular donors and, through them, spread the message to others. Youth (considered more impressionable and at low risk) were especially encouraged to become a part of the blood donation movement. Painting competitions, quizzes, puppet shows, road shows, marathons, etc. were organized to educate and motivate them. Apart from conventional methods of imparting education and creating awareness among the public, active cooperation of various media - both electronic and print - were used to boost the program. Training of staff engaged in motivation, recruitment and retention of donors is a vital component of any blood donation initiative; notably, IMABBUK is a recognized training centre, having successfully trained a number of institutions and individuals. IMABBUK s unstinting efforts have led to considerable awareness amongst the people of Uttarakhand. Starting from a modest average collection of 900 blood units per month in 2006, the blood bank has attained an average collection of 1,500 units per month in just the second year of the project, contributing to over 60% of the voluntary blood supply of Uttarakhand. Operationalised in August 2008 and supported by the Trusts under its sub-theme of Specialized Health Care Services, the project, over a three year period, aims to cover eight districts of the state, improving awareness on safe blood donation, attempting to bridge the gap between demand and supply and advocating rational use of blood. 73

84 Institutional Grants: Health Many organisations supported by the Trusts are evolving into training centres. Notably, organisations such as JSS, LRMF, RMKM, ComDEALL Trust, ASHWINI, BALM and Ashadeep, all long-standing partners of the Trusts, are on their way to becoming Resource Centres in their respective fields. Several new challenges were addressed through support to key partners - MOHAN Foundation, Chennai, received support to prepare transplant coordinators in order to improve cadaveric organ donation throughout the country. The organisation is a pioneer in this field and has done yeoman service to popularize the concept of organ donation. This project will help increase availability of such skilled transplant coordinators across the country. Investing in people and building their skills to counter health challenges is a demanding task. However, people s health in people s hands is a philosophy which many of our partner organisations espouse. JSS has addressed this challenge over the past few years and now, richer by the experience, is ready to invest in formal training programmes for health functionaries at village or cluster levels. Majority of these are barely literate, but constant investment in their knowledge and skills, coupled with persistence and faith in their innate intelligence have reaped dividends. Lack of trained human resource has become a crisis of sorts and the Trusts faced this in several of its projects during the year. Speech therapists are difficult to access outside major city centres making speech therapy difficult; similarly, occupational therapists in cities are migrating overseas in search of greener Communication is most effective when local people using local language and examples convey information in informal settings, such as home: A Health worker from ASHWINI counsels a woman on safe motherhood techniques in Mudugulli village, the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. 74

85 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Health pastures. With alternative solutions being the need of the hour, most of the Trusts projects are investing in local people by building both, their knowledge and skills, such that care continues to be provided. Setu, for example, invested in teaching parents (read mothers) in being an integral part of the care process of their child with developmental disability. Setu also reaches out to the homes of these children, meeting families, thereby creating a conducive environment for the child. Such support includes counseling sessions provided to parents, which helps them overcome their own stress. Such counseling sessions are also conducted by ComDEALL and LRMF and are successful. The National Health Policy 2002 emphasized the need to train more personnel in Public Health, citing that the discipline has an interface with many other developmental sectors and that specialization in Public Health may be encouraged not only for medical doctors, but also for non-medical graduates from the allied fields of public health, engineering, microbiology and other natural sciences. The Government of India has proposed a National Council for Human Resources within its Health Draft Bill, The Trusts have had a long history of supporting programmes that train and build human resources in public health. Investing in young minds is the work of the Community Health Learning Program of Community Health Cell (CHC), Bengaluru, supported by the Trusts, which takes young people on a journey of health and its determinants. During the year, eight full time interns participated and are undergoing a learning process. Similarly, Children s Kidney Care Centre (CKCC), St. Johns Medical College Hospital, Bengaluru continues to train pediatric nephrologists, helping increase availability of their services across other centres, success having been achieved in few hospitals, which have started or augmented existing pediatric nephrology services. Finally, the Sir Ratan Tata Community With adequate training, supervision, and support, people can perform tasks of great importance as routine matter: A Health worker from ASHWINI monitors a child s growth in Mudugulli village, the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. Ophthalmology Fellowship Programme offered by Medical Research Foundation (MRF), Chennai (Sankara Nethralaya) continues to train ophthalmologists in phaco-cataract surgery to prevent cataract related blindness. Under the fellowship, MRF is pioneering virtual reality surgery to train surgeons in phaco surgeries, the software for which has been procured with the support of the Trusts. Giving priority to school health programmes has also been envisaged by the National Health Policy These programmes focus on preventive-health education, providing regular health check-ups, and promotion of healthseeking behaviour among children. Under the 75

86 Institutional Grants: Health School Health Check Programme of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the Trusts support Jehangir Hospital, Pune in providing corrective surgeries to school children with cardiac disorders; the latter having entered into a MoU with the state government for this purpose. These children (in the age group of 7 15 years) belong to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families from the districts of Pune, Nandurbar, Dhule and Nashik in Maharashtra. The Government is the major contributor and the gap has been filled in by the Trusts. The preliminary screening is done by the respective district health teams and a specialist confirmation is then requested from Jehangir Hospital. The treatment is planned and coordinated by the office of the Civil Surgeon of the select districts. This support is provided under the sub-theme of Clinical Establishment. During the year, 15 children underwent surgical correction; majority from Nandurbar district. Similarly, the Trusts supported Bel Air Hospital, Panchgani (a leading HIV/AIDS care and support centre) renovate its buildings and other structures to provide quality health care services to people. During the year, the Trusts disbursed Rs million (US $ 1.01 million) towards 19 grants, as against Rs million towards 19 grants during However, pertinent to note that disbursal figures of the previous year included sums of Rs. 100 million and Rs. 5 million that were earmarked to the Tata Medical Centre Trust, Kolkata and Taj Public Services Welfare Trust, Mumbai, respectively. Thus, discounting these figures, the financial disbursals of the year under review indicate a slight increase of 3%, when compared with the last fiscal. The suggestion of inter-sectoral programmes involving health, drinking water and sanitation, nutrition and primary education of the girl child is finding increasing crescendo within the Trusts and the coming year would see more such integrated programme roll outs, a beginning having been made in Nandurbar district. Finally, as efforts in Mental Health and with children with developmental disabilities gains momentum, the Trusts would carve out these two areas of work as separate initiatives over the coming financial year, with a view to enhance focus , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts 76

87 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Health Health List of Partners RURAL HEALTH PROGRAMMES Jan Swasthya Sahyog (JSS), Bilaspur Association for Health Welfare in the Nilgiris (ASHWINI), Gudalur SPECIALISED HEALTH CARE SERVICES Rajasthan Mahila Kalyan Mandal (RMKM), Ajmer Ashadeep, Guwahati The Banyan, Chennai Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health (BALM), Chennai ComDEALL Trust, Bengaluru Latika Roy Memorial Foundation (LRMF), Dehradun SETU Developmental Intervention Centre, Ahmedabad Karuna Trust, B R Hills, Karnataka The W.Z.O. Trust Funds, Mumbai Indian Medical Association Blood Bank Society of Uttarakhand (IMABBUK), Dehradun HUMAN RESOURCES AND HEALTH SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT Jehangir Hospital, Pune Mohan Foundation, Chennai Community Health Cell (CHC), Society for Community Health Awareness, Research and Action (SOCHARA), Bengaluru Children s Kidney Care Centre (CKCC), St. Johns Medical College Hospital, Bengaluru Medical Research Foundation (MRF), Chennai CLINICAL ESTABLISHMENT Jehangir Hospital, Pune Bel- Air Hospital, Mumbai The Chottanikkara Medical Relief Society, Chottanikkara Tata Medical Centre Trust (TMCT), Kolkata 77

88 Institutional Grants: Enhancing Civil Society & Governance Enhancing Civil Society & Governance In 1995, the Trusts grant making in this field was initiated as the Public Initiatives portfolio, focusing on supporting citizen action and engagement. Subsequently, in 2002, based on the recommendations of the Strategic Plan 2006, the Trusts collected its various grants in building capacities of civil society organisations into this portfolio, which then came to be known as Enhancing Civil Society and Governance. The prominence of civil society initiatives across India has evolved over the last twenty years. During the year under review, the portfolio focused on two key initiatives, namely: Encouraging youth action for development through the Youth and Civil Society initiative Professionalizing the non-profit sector through the Roopantaran initiative, focusing on Human Resource and Organization Development. The Youth and Civil Society Initiative recognizes the potential role of young people as change agents. Youth, popularly defined as age between the years 15 to 28, is a diverse group. Five key transitions identified for youth in the World Development Report (WDR 2007) are learning, working, staying healthy, forming families and exercising citizenship, which are inter-related in that the actualization of one is linked to the fulfillment of the other. Youth, as a demographic group, show openness, capacity for bringing change and challenging prevailing societal trends. In a complex world, with strong divisive inclination, there is need to build spaces for young people to develop a critical perspective on global and local issues. The building of young people s perspective must be backed by enhancing their skills to initiate effective action. Building value-based democratic institutions is an integral part of youth-led action. Initiated in 2003, the initiative focuses on building social perspective, attitude and life skills of youth, leading to their overall development. It also creates opportunities for enhanced self awareness, deepening understanding of the societal context and their role in bringing change in their immediate context. During the year under review, the Trusts continued their support to Pravah, New Delhi, PUKAR, Mumbai, Janvikas, Ahmedabad, Foundation for Education and Development (FED), Jaipur, Samvada, Bengaluru, Jagori Rural Charitable Trust (JRCT), Kangra, Akshara, Mumbai, Dhriiti, New Delhi, Vidya Poshak, Dharwar and Aajeevika Bureau, Udaipur. As part of Pravah s Change Looms 1 programme, seven teams were selected for team building and developing their leadership skills. Pravah strengthened and expanded its strategic collaborations and incubations with support to other organizations under the Streaming 2 1 Change Looms is a programme that supports those young people (18-27) and teams who have set up and are running independent initiatives and projects for social change. 2 Through the Streaming programme, Pravah aims to identify start up organizations with an interest in youth development. The programme also identifies existing organizations, which want to deepen their engagement with youth. 78

89 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Enhancing Civil Society & Governance Youth and Civil Society Initiative: Partners of the Streaming programme in a meeting held at Sambhalpur, Orissa. programme. Through the Sir Ratan Tata Trust Fund for Youth Focused Action, Pravah collaborated with Thoughtshop Foundation, Kolkata, to nurture youth facilitators to run Youth Resource Cells as part of para clubs in Kolkata. Saher, Mumbai, Patang, Sambalpur and Pravah s Jaipur Initiative were supported under this Fund. During the year, Commutiny- Youth Collective (CYC), New Delhi extended fellowship support to nine of the 25 Fellows from the first year, and selected 20 Fellows for its second batch, for building their leadership skills. It has also developed its media-based programme, working through comics, video films, writing and the use of virtual social networks, for youth development. The grant to Janvikas has helped establish 29 Youth Development Centres, with an overall outreach of 8,500 youth across nine districts of Gujarat, covering 32 towns and 735 villages, which, apart from building the perspective of young people through training, creative campaigns and conventions, also offered support for youth-led community development in their villages. The grant to FED has helped it to reach out to 486 adolescents in two blocks of Jaipur district, to attain essential learning skills, besides mobilizing 33 youth groups and 29 women s groups, which have been participating actively in local community development and governance processes. The grant has since been completed, and the planning for the next phase is likely to be finalised in An impact study of the grant was commissioned during the year and revealed that of the 486 adolescents that completed the residential camps, 92% attained the minimum learning level of grade 3. 54% of these adolescents have since been mainstreamed into regular schools (against the proposed 35%), and 179 have since applied for their middle school examination. Of these, 19 have cleared grade 8 board examinations. In addition to this, 41% have shown marked 79

90 Institutional Grants: Enhancing Civil Society & Governance improvement in their attitude towards caste and gender discrimination; and 37% in their knowledge about health and hygiene. During the year under review, Vidya Poshak continued to support 2,050 students from north Karnataka, while enrolling and providing financial assistance to 2,100 additional students from poor families, to enable them complete their professional education. It also developed its campus based youth-leadership programme by working with 100 college students. During the year, the Trusts supported pilot with Aajeevika Bureau (AB) focusing on integration of youth development in their work on building capacities of migrant youth came to an end. Under this project, AB undertook: (a) registration and photo identification of 7,589 migrant youth across four blocks of Udaipur and Rajsamand districts, Rajasthan; (b) training and upgrading skills of 181 migrant youth for higher incomes; (c) employment counseling and providing placements to 254 youth; (d) mobilization and orientation of 53 youth outreach volunteers called Shramik mitras; (e) formation of five labour collectives with an outreach of approximately 600 migrant youth; and (f) networking of employers and creating placement opportunities in five cities. An assessment of impact, which collected data from randomly selected 70 trained youth, highlighted: (a) retention of 59% in trades, where trainees have been placed; (b) an increase in income ranging from Rs. 1,500/- per month to Rs. 7,200/- depending on the trade and city of work; (c) remittance of 60% of this increased income home, which is used for meeting household expenditures; and (d) a reduction in substance abuse after the programme reported by 59%. Similarly, Samvada ran alternate livelihoods training programmes, through which over 50 marginalized youth from rural areas around Bengaluru were trained in sustainable agriculture, child care management and eco-tourism. Samvada also organized a national consultation in Bengaluru to bring focus on the status of vocational training in India. Finally, Dhriiti trained 84 youth from the University of Delhi under its Entrepreneur of Tomorrow programme. It also initiated its work in Jharkhand and undertook training on entrepreneurship for youth in Jamshedpur. The year under review saw a significant expansion of the Youth and Civil Society initiative, with the operationalisation of new grants to JRCT, PUKAR and Thoughtshop Foundation. The support to JRCT is towards mobilizing 75 youth groups in Kangra and Chamba valley (Himachal Pradesh), training 40 youth leaders to work in the community, instituting community radio in its work area, and strengthening its school intervention towards making them gendersensitive. During the year, PUKAR launched the second phase of its Youth Fellowship programme, which is expected to reach out to more than 1,000 youth across Mumbai and smaller towns in Maharashtra over three years, by engaging them in action research projects. Finally, Thoughtshop Foundation is setting up neighbourhood level Youth Resource Cells to undertake local action in areas of gender violence, environment, human rights and water and sanitation. It has so far instituted ten such Cells across rural and urban areas of West Bengal, by training youth Fellows, their groups and the community. Set up in 2007, the Strategic Resource Group (SRG) 3 has been working to strengthen youth programming and mainstream youth development in organizations working with 80 3 The SRG comprises professionals hired jointly by Pravah and the Trusts, besides their own internal team members.

91 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Enhancing Civil Society & Governance When Uma Singh was asked to elaborate on her experience with the Youth Resource Club, she was not sure where to begin. That is because my journey with Thoughtshop Foundation began three years ago and since then, I have gone through many stages as a workshop participant, as a youth volunteer, as a youth fellow, and now a youth trainer, says Uma. She had just completed her graduation and like many confused youth, did not know what to do with her life. An important milestone in this process was her fellowship. It helped me gather knowledge to challenge and be involved in issues that concern my community and society at large. During the fellowship, I successfully facilitated workshops and events with young people. Facilitating, researching, presenting our work to different groups helped me understand the process and at the same time build my confidence, recollects Uma. Uma Singh interacting with Fellows at a Partnership meet in Bhubaneswar, Orissa. As a Youth Trainer, her very first responsibility was coordinating the Fellowship activities for the first quarter. This involved preparing the quarterly calendar, designing sessions for every week, etc. Managing such a large group of many new Fellows was a task in itself. Just as we were taken through a smooth process from self to society, it was now our task to transfer this to the fellows. When I facilitated the sessions I was very clear of the objective that we were set to achieve, explains Uma. As a trainer, she has organised many camps and also helped the groups to hold action projects within their groups. From the first orientation camp to the very recent Human Rights one, it has been a long, long journey, especially for me, she feels. The Youth and Civil Society Initiative of the Trusts recognizes the potential role of young people as change agents, within which, Thoughtshop Foundation (TF) is a key partner. This Kolkata based non-profit works to address social communication needs in the field of development. TF was earlier supported by the Trusts under the Sir Ratan Tata Trust Fund for Youth Focused Action, which recognises the need to encourage more organisations to take up youth development as well as to support newer, nascent youth groups. Through this support, TF undertook preparatory work for a Youth Resource Cell (YRC) located within a larger youth club or a Community Based Organisation (CBO). Through the Trusts ongoing support, TF is piloting eight such YRCs in para clubs local neighbourhood clubs - in Kolkata. These clubs usually organize cultural functions and run social activities, such as blood donation camps in their neighbourhood. YRCs created as a part of these para clubs provide a team of trained young people to plan, implement and sustain a wide range of developmental issues. They act as watchdogs and through their networks and alliances, open a window for youth to social entrepreneurship. The pilot phase is, through these eight Cells, evolving their clubs as going beyond traditional charity into deeper development in their paras. My journey as a trainer has helped me realise my life goal. Since I began my journey with TF, I have been involved in issues that concern our society. When I joined, I was clueless; then, as a Fellow, I got glimpses of what I wanted to do. As a Trainer I have been able to sharpen my vision. I envision a group in my para through which I shall create a space for myself, challenge injustice, empower the young people to dream and together we shall enjoy, empower as well as sustain ourselves. And make the world a better place to live! 81

92 Institutional Grants: Enhancing Civil Society & Governance young people. The SRG also aims to create a more collaborative sector where organizations can learn from each other. During the year, the SRG conducted eleven reviews and five proposal appraisals. Besides, reviews of ongoing grants as well as grants that were coming to an end were undertaken. During the coming year, the Youth and Civil Society Initiative will work within a youth rights framework, focusing on the Rights to Justice, Recognition, Self-Determination and Solidarity. Recognizing that the rights remain indivisible, inter-dependent and must be approached as an integral whole, for a substantive realization of citizenship; the Initiative will focus on enhancing the quality of life of youth. This will be operationalised by Expanding learning opportunities for youth, ensuring access to health, and enhancing their work opportunities. Institutional building is essentially an evolving process. Though ideally, institutional building should be a proactive process and in tandem with the growth of the organization, more often organizations respond to situations and crises as they occur. Planned institutional building processes identify and address internal issues which are fettering the organization s effectiveness and tasks, to release energies for the development tasks. The Roopantaran (meaning Transformation ) initiative of the Trusts works with a vision to enable the nonprofit sector to realize potential for facilitating social change through human and institutional development. Roopantaran works with existing partners of the Trusts, which includes nonprofits, community based organizations and research institutions/large organizations. Institutional building is primarily a process based approach with process-consultation as its foundation. Roopantaran sees the outcomes of this process in terms of developing sustainability, resources to sustain impact and programmatic performance of non-profit organizations. Sustainability includes: (a) clear and internalized vision, mission, philosophy and goals; (b) organizational autonomy; (c) sound organizational processes; (d) leadership; and (e) the ability to manage environment. Resources to sustain impact include: (a) human resources; (b) management systems and practices; (c) legal structure and governance; and (d) financial resources and organizational structure. Finally, programmatic performance would mean: (a) impact on society; (b) programme quality; (c) community empowerment; and (d) networking and external relations. The Trusts have collaborated with the Human and Institutional Development Forum (HIDF), Bengaluru, to provide vital technical resources to partners, which are as critical as financial support for the initiative. During the year, Roopantaran linked itself closer with the institutional assessment as part of the grant making process of the Trusts. An Institutional Appreciation Sheet was designed to help the Trusts programmes team members understand the current institutional status of a potential partner while designing grants. This would also enable provision of appropriate capacity building support within the projects. On organization change, during the year, the initiative reached out to four organizations by supporting their enquiry into their own institutional issues. Interventions were supported in three Trusts partners Lokmitra, Raebareli; Community Coordination Network, Vishakhapatnam; and Harsha Trust, Bhubaneswar. Broadly, the areas of planned change in these organisations range from revisiting the vision and structure to 82

93 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Enhancing Civil Society & Governance match the culture of the community the organisation is working with; expanding and building human resource management and development systems to meet the demand of scaling up; and building on systems, structure and relationships in order to meet the changing context or task. Roopantaran is working on a challenging area of developing a do-able and simple impact assessment framework and information system that will monitor the impact of the organisational change intervention in the organisation s work and the constituency that it is hoping to influence. Developing competencies to anchor and facilitate organization change within various thematic areas of development has been a focus of the initiative. HIDF offered a fellowship programme that provided ongoing capacity building support to internal anchors of change processes, besides helping organizations develop their own plans for organization development. Seven organizations participated in the programme. While focusing on whole system change, the initiative also realized that sometimes the needs of organizations are more focused and specific. Addressing the need for strengthening financial systems, for instance, could also be linked with organizational issues of planning and governance. This approach was piloted with one partner of the Trusts education portfolio. Roopantaran focuses on building capacities for institution building, of which knowledge is an integral element. Towards this, HIDF launched the portal www. changepaths.org. Reaching out to a spectrum of individuals and organizations in development, the portal aims to be a key space for dialogue, discussion, sharing resources and experiences. The Trusts supports Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) towards its human resource development efforts, including induction of new professionals through its apprenticeship and early training. The focus of the project is on staff development, including Roopantaran Initiative: Group sharing and learning process being undertaken by a batch of Development Apprentices in the Foundation Course II facilitated by PRADAN. 83

94 Institutional Grants: Enhancing Civil Society & Governance leadership development, process awareness and sensitivity, training on livelihoods, finance appreciation and livelihoods development. A two phase programme on facilitating change through training has been initiated. Besides working with non profits, the initiative focuses on Community Based Organizations (CBO). It sees these as more than instruments for delivering services. It recognizes that to sustain and effectively carry out social change programmes, it is important to build institutional capacities of CBOs and their parent institutions. Three sub-initiatives which are woven together in action are: (a) direct support; (b) people s competency development; and (c) sector building through knowledge building and innovations. During the year, a knowledge building initiative on community based organizations was launched in collaboration with the National Livelihood Resource Centre, Ratlam, PRADAN and Aga Khan Foundation, New Delhi. The participatory research programme engages with the question - What are the necessary and sufficient conditions that need to be created to facilitate emergence of member owned and governed poor people s collectives in various livelihood sectors? It aims to understand the generic principles and process steps toward pre-organisation, organisation, facilitation and institution building of people s collectives. The research process is expected to lead to improved practices in the nine participating organizations and also for others in the sector. Detailed study and business planning was facilitated by the initiative for a seed cooperative promoted by Gramin Vikas Trust (GVT) in Jhabua (Madhya Pradesh). Such support will continue during the coming year. A detailed scoping study was undertaken on setting up of the Community based enterprises fund, which will support mature business enterprises owned by communities by bridging their specific financial and technical support needs. This fund is expected to be set up during the coming year. The experience of Roopantaran so far has clearly shown the significance of expert facilitation and the need of financial resources for Institutional Building. Our review shows that it is important to respond to the immediate need of the organization, while undertaking a more planned intervention as in a classic organisational development approach. A famous organisational development expert, Edgar Schien, has written that the moment one enters an organisation and starts discussion on issues, intervention has started, and something has changed. This is not to say that a classic, system- wide, organic approach to organizational development is not needed in the non-profit development sector. It is needed and it is long term. However, what the Roopantaran experience has shown is that a quick response time for institutional building needs, integrated into the grant making process, has to be evolved. Based on this review, a revised approach to Roopantaran is being initiated in Roopantaran will partner with the programmes team of the Trusts to integrate institutional building in their portfolio to achieve their strategic goals, i.e. institutional building support will be integrated into the grants of different portfolios as far as possible. Roopantaran would therefore provide more technical resources with small financial resources for addressing immediate needs. This will help to put the Trusts seriousness in building responsive and effective civil-society organizations at the centre of its work. During the year under review, the Trusts disbursed Rs million (US$ 1.31 million) towards 19 grants as against Rs million towards 19 grants during

95 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Enhancing Civil Society & Governance , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts Youth and Civil Society Initiative: Students at a FUN Camp organised by Pravah in Upper Bir, Himachal Pradesh. 85

96 Institutional Grants: Enhancing Civil Society & Governance Enhancing Civil Society & Governance List of Partners YOUTH AND CIVIL SOCIETY Anjali, Kolkata Centre for Civil Society (CCS), New Delhi Pravah, New Delhi Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action & Research (PUKAR), Mumbai Thoughtshop Foundation, Kolkata Jagori Rural Charitable Trust (JRCT), Kangra Aajeevika Bureau, Udaipur Janvikas, Ahmedabad Foundation for Education and Development (FED), Jaipur Samvada, Bengaluru Vidya Poshak, Dharwad Akshara, Mumbai Dhriti, New Delhi ROOPANTARAN INSTITUTION BUILDING INITIATIVE Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN), New Delhi Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (India) (AKRSP(I)), Ahmedabad Human and Institutional Development Forum (HIDF), Bengaluru Mobile Crèches, New Delhi Jan Shiksha Evam Vikas Samiti (PEDO), Dungarpur Harsha Trust, Bhubaneswar 86

97 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Arts & Culture Arts & Culture The Trusts Arts & Culture programme is defined along two priorities: (1) Institutional revitalization of India s arts practices; and (2) Conservation of India s historical legacy in literature, print, music and film. India has the unique benefit, rare among the developing nations, of a significant and enviable arts infrastructure, set up after Independence in the form of museums, theatre, dance and music spaces, and in its literature, music and drama akademis. However, as the P.N. Haksar Committee Review of India s Central Akademis first showed in 1992, and confirmed by many independent reports since then, this infrastructure is in an advanced and critical state of decay. The consequences of this decay are being acutely felt at two levels. At one level is the very real possibility that the holdings of these institutions, which include a significant part of India s heritage, in painting, print and celluloid, could be lost. At another level, the acute loss is felt in the collapse of a support system for performance and exhibition spaces. While several major national infrastructure initiatives are in place in India (such as the Rs. 880 billion Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, which is meant to improve the quality of life and infrastructure in small and big cities across India), such initiatives never include the problems of arts infrastructure. The purpose of the Trusts programme is therefore to partner key institutions, and in a phased manner develop new strategies for institutional revitalization and conservation. While the conservation component seeks to partner major national institutions, and has a major focus on partnering Universities, institutional revitalization primarily addresses Tier II and Tier III cities in India. Under its Strategic Plan 2011, the Arts & Culture portfolio therefore focuses on two key initiatives: Arts, Institutions and Infrastructures; and Arts and Culture Industries. Arts, Institutions and Infrastructure: As stated in the Strategic Plan 2011, the overall purpose of the initiative is to develop strategic institutional and infrastructural support for the arts. It would do this through a threefold strategy that focuses on: (a) seeding Cells and other partnership structures in select institutions which have major strategic significance; (b) directly supporting public arts initiatives with a focus on Tier II and III towns; and (c) supporting arts networks through strategically located nodal agencies. The Trust has incubated and presently supports six major Cells in different locations, covering the fields of theatre, music, film and design. These are the Theatre Infrastructure Cell (at the India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore), the James Beveridge Media Resource Cell (at the A. J. Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre (AJK-MCRC), Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi), the Design Resource Cell 87

98 Institutional Grants: Arts & Culture Public talk at James Beveridge Media Resource Centre: The Trusts have incubated the Centre as a research cell to do interdisciplinary and advanced research in Media. (at the School of Interior Design, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology SID- CEPT, Ahmedabad), the Lalit Kala Kendra (at the Centre for Performing Arts, University of Pune), the Media Lab (at the Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata), and the Centre for Experimental Media Arts at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bengaluru. All of these Cells have been very active in the past year. Key outcomes have occurred in area of publication, especially of major conservation and documentation work, curriculum building and dissemination with a focus on smaller cities. Worth special mention is the Design Resource Cell s work in traditional crafts and environment, seen in its three publications, Study of Parsee Houses in the Region of Udvada; Tracing the History of Godowns in Fort Kochin & Mattanchhery, Kerala; and Life in Havelis of Jaipur. In addition, the Cell completed a project on the history of interior design in Gujarat and Saurashtra, and conducted a Design for Dialogues seminar which explored the idea of using the design process as a tool in itself. Overall, the Cell has published 12 books and monographs, firmly establishing itself as a pioneer in design research in the country. The books have been well received by academic and professional circles, both in India and abroad. A second, related, project bringing conservation together with direct field intervention was the Hoysala Heritage Project, housed at the Srishti School. Located in the temple town of Belur, home of the ruins of the Hoysala kingdom and now a world-heritage site, Srishti students put together projects for conserving ancient houses in the village, along with strategies for conserving textile designs from the Hoysala heritage. Both the Theatre Infrastructure Cell, Bangalore, and the Media Lab, Kolkata, 88

99 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Arts & Culture conducted extensive baseline studies during the past year on how practitioners in smaller towns can directly benefit from dissemination work in the respective areas of theatre practice and film conservation. The theatre baseline covered 136 theatre group representatives interviewed across 10 cities across four states (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Manipur), whereas the Media Lab covered the cities of North 24 Parganas, Naihati, Berhampore and Murshidabad (in West Bengal) in their exploration of the capacity of undergraduate colleges to absorb the material they were assembling as a part of their conservation and archiving work. Both the Cell initiatives were independently reviewed, and key recommendations were received on how the Trusts can take these initiatives to their next levels. One example of the Trusts work within Public Initiatives in Tier II/III Towns is the grant to Puppet, Dharwar, which has been conducting children s summer camps, teacher-training workshops with D.Ed. colleges, workshops with rural school children and with undergraduate colleges (details within case study). Extensive theatre work has also been conducted in several towns in Maharashtra via the Pune University s Lalit Kala Kendra outreach. The Trusts support two major Arts Networks, the India Theatre Forum (ITF) anchored by the Prithvi Theatres, Mumbai, and the Khoj National Network in the visual arts, anchored at Khoj, Delhi. During the year under review, a book on Indian Theatre titled Our Stage: Pleasures and Perils of Theatre Practice in India was published. It documents the major workshop conducted in March 2008 by ITF, in which over 120 theatre groups across the nation had come together. In the book, the country s leading theatre practitioners, administrators and scholars, social scientists and activists interrogate theatre practice in India around Multimedia installation by a visual artist from Bangladesh displayed at 1, Shanti Road, Bengaluru as part of the south Asian residency programme: The Trusts have supported the institutionalization of 1, Shanti Road (an artist led intimate gallery space) under its grant to Khoj International Artists Association. 89

100 Institutional Grants: Arts & Culture Vinod Basargi is a primary school teacher in Kamalapura, a drought prone village in the Gulbarga district of north Karnataka, where the Lambani tribals are the dominant community. He teaches Mathematics, English and Environmental Science to children in Kannada (the official language), which is different from their mother tongue of Lambani, thereby posing a major barrier in communication. But then, Vinod was no quitter. He participated in a two month training workshop, held by Puppet House, Dharwar, on using Theatre and Puppetry for Education. The theatre and puppetry training provided him many techniques to communicate with the students and enabled him to overcome the language barrier whilst teaching. Vinod says, I am using act out methodology, which I have learnt in the workshop. Acting, singing, theatre games and puppetry have helped me interact with the Lambani children, not just in the classroom, but even in the out-of-class sessions. Vinod is now a strong supporter of the concept of introducing basic theatre training for all teacher trainees before they actually step into the profession of teaching. The Trusts have collaborated with India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), Bengaluru, in designing and supporting the grant to Puppet House. As part of this grant, Puppet House does theatre and puppetry training for trainee teachers (D.Ed.), government school teachers, college students and children in north Karnataka. The aim of the project is to encourage arts institutions strategically located in the field, to expand their practice into the areas of elementary and higher education, whilst also opening up possibilities for educational institutions in the region, to seriously consider exploring arts in curricular development and teaching. Vinod Basargi using puppets as a medium to interact with and teach Lambani children. So far, the Trusts support has enabled Puppet House to conduct 5 Teacher Training Workshops, which extensively trained 315 teachers and trainee teachers in the use of theatre and puppetry in teaching and curriculum development in the north Karnataka region. Additionally, through three workshops, Puppet House has trained 75 government school teachers on the importance and use of Theatre for Education. Significantly, the grant has facilitated Puppet House to engage in a focused manner with 300 (underprivileged) children in Dharwar district by providing them training in theatre and puppetry through seven short-term workshops and summer camps. Puppet House has also conducted 10 theatre appreciation courses for 260 college students in the region. These efforts have been positively received by regional educational institutions and have received media acclaim. The Trusts grant has been catalytic in helping Puppet House mobilize institutional and infrastructural support from intermediary institutions across north Karnataka, including two District Institutes of Education & Training (DIET), five Under Graduate colleges, six Government Schools, two non-profit organisations and two University Departments. Thus, the Trusts have been instrumental in enabling Puppet House execute a holistic approach of targeting each key constituency in elementary and higher education in the region. Simultaneously, the Trusts collaboration with IFA and the involvement of intermediary institutions in the region is an instance of the Trusts commitment to garner support to the Arts and Culture sector from various players, including that of government and private donors. 90

101 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Arts & Culture four themes, namely, Locales, Experiments, New Realities, and Training Institutions. The ITF website, intended as a one-stop site for Indian theatre, of interest to various communities of people interested in theatre, including theatre practitioners, critics, press, academics, etc., is now ready ( The prototypes for the e-rang theatre e-journal are ready, as are several major initiatives such as Kala Kalyana, a welfare and social security scheme for rural theatre performers. During the year, the Khoj visual arts network was independently reviewed. The review noted that, with its support to Periferry and 1 Shanti Road, the Trusts had been successful in enabling a significant diversity of regional institutions in arts networks, which had empowered several regional artist groups through access to new resources. Two of the three outreach partners, incubated by the grant, were now in a position of having achieved significant regional and international recognition. Periferry, to take one example, has exhibited its work internationally, developed major global collaborations (such as the Two Rivers project in 2009 that was developed collaboratively between Periferry, Difference Exchange, Chelsea College of Art and Design, and TrAIN, London). They have also been awarded a major grant by the Ford Foundation, as a direct outcome of Trusts support. All three institutions are now widely seen within local arts communities as having created important alternative spaces for arts practice. Arts and Culture Industries: This component of the programme addresses the issues of Conservation. Conservation, following UNESCO categories, is divided into tangible heritage (buildings, paper, celluloid and artefacts), and intangible (theatre/music/dance performance, including traditional performing arts and the crafts sector). Each category requires a different strategy of support. Tangible heritage typically foregrounds the technology of conservation, such as sophisticated laboratory techniques for perpetuating paper or film. Intangible heritage, especially as represented by practitioners of dying performance arts, conventionally requires the inclusion of a livelihoods component. Both components however require comprehensive conservation strategies, where restoration and documentation are extended to dissemination and training. Under its tangible heritage strategy, focusing on conservation and digitisation, the Trusts work for the conservation of paper and celluloid film. The overall strategy is threefold: (1) to undertake direct conservation work, which includes restoration of precious material in danger of being lost forever; (2) to undertake supplementary training and capacity-building work; and (3) to undertake systems of digital dissemination, by which conserved work will be available on public platforms. Over the past year, the Trusts have been in active negotiation with the British Library, London, to partner Indian institutions in the area of print conservation. The second initiative titled The Future of Celluloid, follows the strategy with regard to celluloid film. It partners conservation efforts with projects that would restore films, train teachers in digital archival techniques, and convert the archived objects into materials that can be taught in the undergraduate classroom. The Media Lab at Jadavpur University has set up a full-scale archive that includes digital conservation, archiving of secondary material, training workshops and the integration of training systems into their practical filmmaking courses. They have presently over 600 rare items in their archives, which have been disseminated 91

102 Institutional Grants: Arts & Culture into teaching kits to be used by undergraduate colleges in media studies across West Bengal. Media Lab representatives are now also on the Conservation Board of the National film Archives of India. Under the category of Cultural Livelihoods, the Trusts support a number of small initiatives in the areas of handloom and traditional performing arts. Earlier, the Trusts had given a grant to Dastkar Andhra for a project titled Reskilling Handloom Weavers with the aim of exploring weaving as an alternative rural livelihood option. A second grant had been awarded to Jatan, which works with small farmers, landless farm and non-farm workers and adivasis (tribals) in the Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh. Since 2005, Jatan has organised music and song festivals utsavs of local community artists in Hoshangabad district, and the Trusts supported pilot was towards building a digital collection for documentation and dissemination of oral culture and knowledge of communities. In the past year, the Trusts have partnered the CIDASIA programme at the Centre for the Study of Culture & Society, Bengaluru, to review these grants and to provide a strategy for the Trusts to expand its cultural livelihoods work. Based on the learnings from these projects, the Trusts have been developing a major programmatic intervention strategy into the sector. During , the Trusts disbursed Rs million (US $ 0.33 million) towards eight grants. This is an overall reduction of 35% over the previous year s disbursal of Rs million, which was due to the fact that as many as six out of the fourteen on-going grants came to a closure in the middle of the financial year. The programme has, however, built a strong pipeline in the FY , which will be presented to the Strategy Review of the programme scheduled for early , with a view to assess the overall growth of the Arts and Culture portfolio since 2006 and to chart the way ahead , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts 92

103 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Arts & Culture Arts & Culture List of Partners ARTS, INSTITUTIONS AND INFRASTRUCTURES Shri Prithviraj Kapoor Memorial Trust and Research Foundation, Mumbai Puppet House, Dharwad Centre for Performing Arts, University of Pune, Pune A. J. Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre (AJK-MCRC), Jamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata The Psychoanalytic Therapy and Research Centre, Mumbai School of Interior Design, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (SID CEPT), Ahmedabad Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bengaluru ARTS AND THE CULTURE INDUSTRIES KHOJ International Artists Association, New Delhi MARG Publications, Mumbai Weaver on a frame loom in Kollur village, Adilabad district, Andhra Pradesh: The Trusts supported Dastkar Andhra towards training groups of young weavers and exploring weaving as an alternate rural livelihood option. 93

104 Institutional Grants: Endowments Endowments Non-profit organisations are constrained by, at times, towards expending a significant proportion of their efforts in procuring funds for activities and programmes. With a view to sustaining high quality, cutting edge institutions, the Trusts make endowments which bolster the corpus of the organisation. Once freed from the rigors of generating resources, the Trusts hope that these organisations can focus on their activities. During the year under review, endowment grants were made to Bai Navajbai Tata Zoroastrian Girls School, Navsari, Organisation for Verdant Ambience & Land (OVAL), Mumbai and Tata Medical Centre Trust (TMCT), Kolkata. The Bai Navajbai Tata Zoroastrian Girls School was established in 1857 and over the past 152 years, has imparted quality education to girl children in Navsari, Gujarat. The school had recently embarked on an expansion of its infrastructure, through the Trusts support, which has resulted in the school gradually expanding its infrastructure and educational activities. The interest accruing from the endowment grant helps the school towards bearing the running costs, including salaries for the teachers, whilst providing high quality education to a greater number of students. Through years of neglect and misuse, Cross Maidan, a verdant spot and one of the best known landmarks within the city, has become a filthy, stinking ground, encroached upon by hawkers and pavement dwellers. Through an endowment grant, the Trusts have supported OVAL towards the restoration of the maidan, thereby creating a public space where recreation and social interaction can take place. This grant would also ensure maintenance of the Cross Maidan once the restoration has been completed. Finally, during the year, the Trusts augmented the corpus of the TMCT, which is setting up the Rs.3.30 billion hospital in Kolkata, specializing in the detection and treatment of cancer. Significantly, over the past three years, the Trusts have disbursed Rs. 425 million as endowment grants to TMCT. This corpus is expected to generate an annual income of Rs. 34 million, which would be utilized by TMCT towards the activities of the hospital. Currently, work on construction of the Hospital is in full swing and the facilities are slated to be commissioned around end During , the disbursals towards endowments totaled Rs million (US $ 2.39 million), as against Rs million disbursed during Endowment grants made by the Trusts continue to be monitored through regular reporting procedures and visits undertaken to gauge quality of activities. 94

105 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Endowments Children performing at an event held in Bai Navajbai Tata Zoroastrian Girls School, Navsari , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts 95

106 Institutional Grants: Small Grant Programme Small Grant Programme The Small Grants Programme (SGP) of the With the Trusts fund outlay during the year Trusts has disbursed over Rs. 220 million (US $ being committed towards other programmatic 5 million) through 602 grants sanctioned upto priorities, disbursals saw a sharp 28% decline as March 31, Launched in , the SGP compared to Consequently, during the was originally conceptualized to cater to the year, the Trusts disbursed Rs million (US needs of small welfare oriented organisations $ 0.49 million) towards 45 grants, as compared and subsequently amended to include larger to Rs million disbursed during organisations in need of support for strategic towards 64 grants. Around 79% of the total planning or evaluation, conducting reviews and number of grants made under the SGP fell appraisals and strengthening internal systems. within the regular category. Grants made under the latter head have been classified under special category, as against Under the Central India Initiative, a grant was regular grants made to smaller organisations. given to Collectives for Integrated Livelihood The Trusts also use the SGP as a tool to field test Initiatives (CInI), Jamshedpur to carry out new ideas and innovations, support preparatory action research through demonstrations with phases prior to major long duration projects farmers for promoting improved cultivation and conduct workshops, events and external practices in maize, besides understanding the reviews within key programmatic initiatives. status of maize production in the tribal areas of , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts 96

107 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Small Grant Programme Enhancing yield of Maize under CInI s Kharif Maize Stabilization Strategy: Farmers in Goda village, Banswara district, Rajasthan calculate grain weight per cob, obtained through improved techniques. north Gujarat, south Rajasthan and south west Madhya Pradesh. CInI, together with four of its field partners, initiated field demonstrations with about 500 farmers, wherein improved seeds of GM6 and JVM42 (maize varieties) were tried out along with the capacity building of farmers. Despite being a drought year, the results in the field were encouraging, with yields enhanced from 5 quintals/acre to 8 quintals/acre. In villages, where there was irrigation support, the productivity increased from 5 quintals/acre to 14 quintals/acre. Finally, it was established that close handholding support was essential, so as to ensure that the farmers adopted improved cultivation practices, besides also ensuring timely availability of quality seeds and adoption of the Package of Practices (PoP). Based on the critical learnings, CInI now plans to validate its Kharif Maize Stabilization strategy and upscale it in the coming year. Under the Himmothan Pariyojana, the Trusts have been supporting drinking water and sanitation programmes in Uttarakhand for over seven years. During the year, an attempt was made to expand this programme to the neighboring state of Himachal Pradesh. Consequently, a grant was sanctioned to Social Awareness Through Human Involvement (SATHI), Sirmour, towards carrying out prefeasibility exercises in 20 villages of Sirmour district, through which, the organisation shortlisted 10 villages that would be taken up for drinking water and sanitation interventions over the coming year. Under the Parag Publication Initiative, a grant was made to Sampurna Trust, New Delhi, for carrying out a study of children s literature in language textbooks. Consequently, the 97

108 Institutional Grants: Small Grant Programme organisation completed an analysis of textbooks for classes 3 to 5, including textbooks prescribed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the Rajasthan State Board. Besides, a monograph capturing recommendations for publishers, teacher educators and curriculum makers was also prepared. In the Higher Education portfolio, the Trusts made a grant to the Centre for the Study of Local Cultures (CSLC), Kuvempu University, Shivamogga (Karnataka), towards Teaching Research in Social Sciences: Workshops on Research Methods and Modes. The project identified the problems faced by students coming from non-metropolitan, non-english contexts, and tried to address the problem of linguistic disparity and the gaps in research training through translation and material production initiatives. Another grant was given to the Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET), Ahmedabad, towards a feasibility study to identify a select group of colleges and social science research institutions for assembling a model consortium for access to digital resources by the Networked Higher Education initiative. The objective here was to examine the changes in content and methodology that could be brought about by the digitization of higher education systems through the use of new web-based resourcesharing models, such as digital institutional repositories. The study helped develop a new project which factors in, along with access, a training component for teachers and students to utilize digital resources. Notably, the project is to be upscaled with support from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Finally, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, sought to collate evidence and generate new data for analyzing the issues and challenges in access, equity and quality dimensions of higher education in the general arts and sciences segment. The project examined the current scenario of higher A patient registered in the Footprints project implemented by Institute of Palliative Medicine, Kozhikode, engaged in making artificial ornaments. 98

109 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Small Grant Programme education in Kerala, especially with respect to the status of privatization of higher education, curriculum and pedagogical practices in the general arts and sciences segment, and caste and gender dimensions of the impact of reservations. The baseline generated has helped to design a project for a viable model of social diversity on campus, which focuses on curricular reform, pedagogic change and capacity-building for disadvantaged students in order to increase the quality of access to higher education. The Trusts strongly feel that Public Health programs should look at holistic rehabilitation of a person, including vocational requirements and the burden of families taking care, to be able to achieve gains in socio-medical rehabilitation. Within the thematic area of Health, a grant was made to Pain and Palliative Care Society, Calicut, towards piloting a rehabilitation project undertaken by the Institute of Palliative Medicine (IPM). Titled Footprints, the project focused on vocational rehabilitation of disadvantaged bed ridden and chronically ill patients with mental illness in Kerala. Under this project, such people are trained to manufacture items that are then sold through different distribution channels, providing them with remuneration. This is largely a volunteer driven programme, which increases community ownership and keeps the costs of the project down, leading to very high cost effectiveness. The SGP continues to be a key strategic means by which to expand and diversify the Arts & Culture programme. Under the category of Cultural Livelihoods, the Trusts support a number of small initiatives in the areas of handloom and traditional performing arts. Earlier, the Trusts had given a grant to Dastkar Andhra for a project titled Reskilling Handloom Weavers with the aim of exploring weaving as an alternative rural livelihood option. A second grant had been awarded to Jatan, which works with small farmers, landless farm and non-farm workers and adivasis (tribals) in the Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh. Since 2005, Jatan has organised music and song festivals utsavs of local community artists in Hoshangabad district, and the Trusts supported pilot was towards building a digital collection for documentation and dissemination of oral culture. In the past year, the Trusts have partnered the CIDASIA programme at the Centre for the Study of Culture & Society, Bangalore, to review these grants and to provide a strategy for the Trusts to expand its cultural livelihoods work. Based on the learnings from these projects, the Trusts have been developing a major programmatic intervention strategy into the sector. Over the coming year, the Trusts would continue to support worthy organisations within the country, whilst adding value to the Small Grant Programme 99

110 Institutional Grants: Small Grant Programme Small Grant Programme List of Partners RURAL LIVELIHOODS & COMMUNITIES Water Sector Policy and Research Society for Land & Water Management (SOFILWM), Anand Institute for Resource Analysis and Policy (IRAP), Anand Central India Region Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiative (CInI), Jamshedpur Reach India Trust, Kolkata Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiative (CInI), Jamshedpur PRAYAS - Women Empowerment Society, Jabalpur Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), Ahmednagar Citizen s Foundation, Ranchi Himalayan Region Centre for Ecology Development and Research (CEDAR), New Delhi Social Awareness Through Human Involvement (SATHI), Sirmour Winrock International India, Gurgaon Centre for Ecology Development & Research (CEDAR), New Delhi North-East Region Goodwill Foundation, Aizawl EDUCATION Vidya Poshak, Dharwad Meljol, Mumbai Late Mohanlal Jajjo Public Charitable Trust, Gujarat Sesame Workshop India, Jharkhand Sinaduartola Gramodaya Vikas Vidyalaya (SGVV), Ranchi Jnana Prabodhini Samshodhan Sanstha, Pune Sampurna Trust, New Delhi Mahila Jan Adikar Samiti, Ajmer Organization for Early Literacy Promotion, New Delhi Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), Ranchi Deenabandhu Trust, Charamajnagar Center for Learning Resources (CLR), Pune Institute for Human Development (IHD), Ranchi Zubaan, New Delhi 100

111 Guidelines Institutional Grants: Small Grant Programme Eklavya, Bhopal Nirman Tirth Southpoint School and Vidyashram, Varanasi F K S Foundation, Mumbai Hyderabad Council of Human Welfare, Hyderabad Society for Assistance to Children in Difficult Situation (SATHI), Raichur Centre for the Study of Local Cultures (CSLC), Kuvempu, University Shankataghatta, Shivamogga National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), New Delhi HEALTH Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai Pain and Palliative Care Society, Calicut Help Life, Pune Spina Bifida Foundation (SBF), Mumbai Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy (IICP), Kolkata Muncherjee Nowrojee Banajee Industrial Home for the Blind (MNB Home), Mumbai ARTS & CULTURE Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore NGO Alliance for Governance & Renewal (NAGAR), Mumbai Stree Mukti Sanghatana, Mumbai OTHERS Friends of Vrindavan, Vrindavan Circle of Animal Lovers, New Delhi Gyanoday (Sardar Sewa Singh Rajinder Singh Memorial Charitable Educational Trust), Meerut Maharashtra State Branch of Indian Council of Social Welfare (MSB ICSW), Mumbai Mind Genius Charitable Trust, Mumbai Srishti Welfare Centre, Munnar Action for Ability Development & Inclusion (AADI), New Delhi Gram Seva Trust, Navsari Centre for Ecology Development & Research (CEDAR), New Delhi 101

112 Individual Grants Individual Grants Wide-scale automation of processes has changed life as we know it. Undoubtedly, this has made life easy; however, at the cost of that human touch. The Individual Grants Programme of the Trusts attempts to reach out to individuals in need and strives to include that human touch. Holding on to the philanthropic principles that endorses immense passion for humanity, the Individual Grants Programme continues to be successful in upholding its tradition of identifying and rendering assistance to those who deserve. The Programme has broadened the scope of conventional understanding of charity by involving various qualified professionals and prestigious institutions - medical and educational - into its system, thereby widening the scope of its service delivery. This unique factor characterizes not just the Individual Grants Programme, but also the Trusts holistically, as they fulfill primary objectives. The Individual Grant Programme provides financial assistance to individuals for: Meeting medical expenses during critical illnesses Educational needs for higher education within India and assistance for educationrelated travel overseas. Medical Advances in the field of health and medicine, coupled with the availability of adequate medical facilities within the country, have rendered the possibility of world class treatment within the realm of the Indian populace. However, the high costs associated with such treatment options, , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts 102

113 Guidelines Individual Grants The birth of their second child was a moment of pure joy for Anand and Kamini, a lower middle class couple residing in Thane. However, two weeks later, little Vipul, suffering from a severe cough, turned blue and the distraught parents rushed him to a private nursing home nearby. The diagnosis came as a death knell to the parents who were informed that their little bundle of joy had Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Connection (TAPVC), a rare cyanotic congenital heart defect, in which all four pulmonary veins are malpositioned and make anomalous connections to the systemic venous circulation. Unless corrected, the condition is usually fatal. Due to lack of facilities at the nursing home, Vipul was admitted on an emergency basis to Wockhardt Hospital in Mulund (a suburb of Bombay). Two days later, a life saving surgical procedure was performed, the cost of which was around Rs. 225,000. Its playtime for Vipul.timely corrective surgery has given him a fresh lease of life. Medical: Details of grants sanctioned from April 2009 to March 2010 Unfortunately, post-surgical complications and Vipul s critical condition necessitated further specialized treatment, whilst being hooked on to a ventilator for over a month. After almost two months of hospitalization, the bill amounted to over Rs. 575,000. For Vipul s parents, the amount was indeed astronomical. Employed as an officer in a private concern, Anand was drawing Rs.7,500 a month, which was barely enough to support his family, which included aged parents, wife and an elder child. After borrowing from friends, dipping into their meager savings and receiving Rs. 100,000 from three charitable organisations, the family managed to clear only 50% of the hospital dues. Consequently, in July 2009, a beleaguered Anand applied to the Trusts for assistance, which sanctioned Rs. 230,000 towards reimbursing surgery expenses. The smiles are back.vipul s gurgling and pranks are the centre of attention for the happy family. No. of applications No. sanctioned Rs. in million* % Heart 1, Kidney Cancer 1, Burns Tuberculosis Others 2, Total 5,480 2, * The amount mentioned is for grants sanctioned and will vary from actual disbursals. 103

114 Individual Grants especially in the case of debilitating illnesses, limit the ability of the common man to seek such treatment. With medical insurance yet to make inroads within the country, it is charitable institutions, such as the Trusts, which come to the aid of families in need of support during medical illnesses. Over the past several years, the Trusts, apart from establishing linkages with various government and municipal hospitals, are also exploring and linking up with charitable and private hospitals that give concessions to the poor and needy. During the year, fresh linkages were made with two institutions, besides extending and strengthening links to other departments within hospitals already having a linkage. The new linkages include Indian Cancer Society, Mumbai and Association for Health Welfare in the Nilgiris (ASHWINI), Gudalur, Tamil Nadu. All new linkages established by the Trusts are valid for a specific time period, post which a review is undertaken to decide further action. The Individual Grants Programme has constantly reviewed the services it has rendered, adapting certain norms which are more inclusive in nature. Considering the complexity of medical science and the difference in the ability of every human body to respond to various treatments, leniency towards the bar on ailments has been observed, since minor ailments, at times, can become a cause for concern due to unforeseen complications. During , the Trusts sanctioned Rs million (US $ 4.87 million) towards 2,039 medical grants, which indicates an increase of 23% over the amount sanctioned during This can be mainly attributed to the increase in the number of applications directly received by the Trust. Education The Trusts supports meritorious students through: Scholarships to meritorious students to pursue higher and professional studies in India Travel grants to provide part-travel assistance for studies and professional development abroad , & reflect combined disbursals of both thetrusts 104

115 Guidelines Individual Grants The linkages formed by the Trusts with educational institutes, including colleges of repute in the country in the fields of engineering, medicine and management, are the mainstay of the Studies in India Programme. During the year, the Trusts sanctioned scholarships to 1,688 students under the Studies in India Programme. Apart from the institutional linkages, the Trusts also encouraged direct applications from students pursuing under-graduate courses in the fields of pharmacy, nursing, architecture, law, fine arts, etc., subject to basic eligibility / cut-off percentages set by the Trusts. In June 2009, the Trusts initiated the Sir Ratan Tata Fellowships for a U.K. Masters in Development Studies, with special focus on Developmental Economics, Science-Technology- Society Studies and Public Health. The purpose of this initiative was to fill a long-felt gap in the field of Development Studies, and provide opportunities for exploration of significant new work being done in this area in some British Universities. Three Fellowships were supported last year through Trusts funds, wherein a grant of the rupee equivalent of 20,000 was awarded to each of the three scholars. The Trusts also continued its association with the British Council to award travel grants under the Teachers Exchange Program. Under this, selected teachers visit schools in the United Kingdom to gain an exposure to different teaching and administration methodologies, in addition to developing culture-sensitivity. During , the Trusts enabled 1,687 individuals pursue their dreams for higher education through a grant outlay of Rs million (US $ 1.29 million), as against Rs million to 1,518 applicants in , which constitutes a healthy 27% increase in the amount sanctioned. Over the coming year, the Individual Grants Programme plans to include sports under its ambit. With the aim of addressing the indifferent treatment meted out to sports facilities in the country, the proposed Sports Grant Programme plans to reach out to potential sports champions, frustrated by the lack of infrastructure and crippled by financial constraints, helping them realize their aspirations through sponsorship. The programme is presently being structured and will be fully operationalised in the next financial year. Education: Details of grants sanctioned from April 2009 to March 2010 No. of applications No. sanctioned Rs. in million* % Studies in India 1,688 1, Studies abroad** 1, Short term courses/ Mid-career training abroad Conferences/presentations Others Total 3,317 1, * The amount mentioned is for grants sanctioned and will vary from actual disbursals. ** This includes funds sanctioned under the Sir Ratan Tata Fellowships for a U.K. Masters in Development Studies 105

116 Individual Grants Dr. Veena Goel, Senior Economist (Marketing), Department of Economics and Sociology at the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana was invited by the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association to present her papers at the 19 th Annual Food and Agribusiness World Forum and Symposium Global Challenges Local Solutions, scheduled in June 2009 at Budapest. Dr. Goel has vast teaching experience in the field of agricultural marketing and this invitation provided her with the perfect opportunity to present two of her recent papers, namely, Chain Coordination Mechanisms and Concerns in Sugar Industry in Punjab, and India s Food Security Strategy and Its Impact on the Food Surplus State of Punjab in an international forum, whilst at the same time giving her an exposure to varied perspectives of acclaimed researchers and exploring avenues for collaborative projects. However, the estimated cost of Rs. 91,000 towards travel, registration and visa fees was too steep to bear on her own. Dr. Goel presenting her papers at the Symposium. Supporting quality programmes that focus on feeding the burgeoning population of the country has always been a thrust area of the Trusts. Dr. Goel s request for a travel grant provided another opportunity to the Trusts to support a deserving academic scholar and consequently, Rs. 75,000 was sanctioned towards her international return airfare, registration and visa fees. On her return, Dr. Goel submitted a short report to the Trusts, in which she shared her experience in Budapest. Notably, the panel discussions at the World Forum gave her an opportunity to highlight the problems within the sugar industry in India, particularly Punjab, and espouse the need to establish linkages between the academia and the industry to enhance research. Many delegates, whose countries are confronted with similar problems, concurred with her observations. 106