Friday, August 20, 2010

Engagement of Vehicles by SHG Federations for distribution of SNP and MDM

SHGs and SHG Federations have come a long way after the initiation of Mission Shakti programme by Government of Orissa in 2004. Today they are forced to be reckoned in Koraput District. As an important step in the direction of sustainable income generation activity, adding a great value to the existing Government programmes, Four Block Federations of Koraput district will purchase vehicles and engage them in distribution of SNP and MDM programme.




Main facets of the activities are as follows:



• Two times in the recent past 3 months, stocks of India mix which is supplied for SNP in Koraput district have been seized while being diverted and black marketed in the open market, which raises serious concern about the role of private transporting agencies engaged in supplying these food stuffs at the door steps.

• 10 of the 14 Block Federations in Koraput are vibrant and have got involvement into many important income generating activities like collection of cashew nuts, Haldi (Tamarind), processing of dals etc. It was decided in the District Advisory Committee meetings of Federations to assign the responsibility of distribution of SNP / MDM food stuffs to the SHG Federations.

• Main benefit of the programme will be community involvement and collective supervision in stead of only a profit motive behind the activity.

• It will also give training to the SHGs and Federations in carrying out income generations activities, managing resources and will give confidence to venture into many new areas, which will give new dimensions to the community empowerment and eradication of poverty, especially in this backward and thickly tribal populated district.

• With these objectives, four vehicles will be purchased for Jeypore, Koraput, Borigumma and Kotpad blocks by concerned Mission Shakti Federations and will be engaged in the respective blocks for SNP and MDM programmes.

RAPID MONITORING SYSTEM IN KORAUT DISTRICT

It is a innovative intervention  launched by the Koraput District Administration in order to have effective supervision/monitoring and feed back pertaining to important services like Health, Education, MGNREGA, Public Distribution System & ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme) activities. The main facets of the programme are as follows.




• It is launched as a Pilot initiative with the support of UNICEF.

• Two squads will be formed comprising two persons, a district level Officer and an independent Monitor provided by UNICEF. The squad will start in the morning and go to the randomly selected Gram Panchayat on a given day, visit the Gram Panchayat Office first and then visit all villages in the Gram Panchayat. They will assess and observe whether the School, Anganwadi Centre are functioning smoothly, people are getting PDS in time, ANM/ Anganwadi Workers are staying at Headquarters, whether MGNREGA work is on and the people are getting labour payments in time. They will note down these aspects for every villages in the proforma given to them. They are also supposed to discuss about the delivery of services rendered by government machinery with the villagers.

• Since the Gram Panchayats will be selected randomly, there will be a surprise element involved, it is expected that this assessment will give a real picture regarding delivery of services to common people in remote pockets.

• The findings will be acted upon immediately and will be discussed in the Nodal meetings at Block and District level. Data base will be maintained by the DPMU and a comparative and comprehensive analysis will be made and will be shared with all concerned.

• This monitoring system is based on the brief successful experiment done by the District Administration few months back.