| Civil Society Initiative:
The Bundelkhand Package
Food security and enhanced farm income is the supreme national mission for any government in a country beset with the problem of burgeoning human population and constrained productivity of the agriculture lands due to gradually depleting ground water resources, soil degradation, denudation and degradation of forestlands, and the resultant perpetuation of the vicious cycle of poverty-degradation. The problems of land and environmental degradation are multiplying and compounding with the climate change.
To augment the agriculture productivity, the focus of the government is on the development of rainfed area of the country, including 75 M hectare forestlands whose productive potential needs to be harmonized sustainably in an integrated manner.
Transforming Bundelkhand – Civil Society Initiatives
Civil Society Organisations / Non-governmental organizations (CSO/NGOs) have played a major role in pushing for sustainable development at the regional, national and international level.
The Bundelkhand region straddles parts of both Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. It is predominantly an agrarian economy; over 80% of population is dependent on agriculture, livestock, usufructs from forest and outsourcing income by seasonal migration after Rabi sowing. On an average 96 percent of the farmers’ income is being earned from the crop and livestock enterprise alone. The share of crop component increased and that of dairy decreased with increasing land holding size of the farmers. However, landless villagers’ livelihood was mainly dependent on labour and dairy.
Bundelkhand is one of the largest areas in the country considered to be ‘backward’. It suffers from extreme levels of poverty and environmental degradation. At the same time, people are being forced to migrate for several months every year in search of an uncertain sustenance.
Understanding of Development Priorities through Civil Society
Though the poverty in Bundelkhand is an outcome of several complexly correlated factors, the prominent priority areas that can significantly contribute towards reduction in poverty in the region are:
a. Regeneration of the Natural Resource base: As per official records, the Bundelkhand region recorded 349 mm rainfall in the year 2007, which is 64 per cent less than the normal 972 mm and it is continuously going down from 2003-04.1 Indiscriminate deforestation in the last 70 years has changed the scenario completely. Rapid growth of the human and animal population has resulted in the disappearance of pasturelands and consequent drying up of water bodies. Depletion in ground water table has jeopardized water balance, both for drinking and irrigation thus resulting in food insecurity. Thus regeneration of critical natural resources is important for the development of the region.
b. Ensuring food and livelihood security In 2003-04 Bundelkhand region produced 2.45 million tones of food grains. Registering a decline of 44.67 per cent this dropped down to 1.13 million tonnes in the production year 2006-07. Inappropriate agricul-tural practices, has made farming an occupation limited to subsistence levels. Land holdings per person have become very low due to the population explosion, resulting in low yield (200 kg/ha for wheat) and therefore poor income from the land. Out of the total number of approximately 150000 land holdings, about 67% belong to small and marginal farmers who have less than two hectares of land.
c. Creation of adequate energy infrastructure: Bundelkhand is one of the most energy-starved regions of India. Commercial grid based power is available in villages, towns and even district headquarters for approximately 8 to 10 hours per day; rural areas are the worst affected with supply made available mostly at night. This forces farmers and small business owners to rely on diesel based power generation thus rendereing the economic endeavours unviable.
d. Access to information, technology, finance and markets: The regional population has very poor access to information on developmental plans, schemes and products. The poorly developed service delivery systems result in high cost of access that people in the region can ill-afford. Access to formal credit is low, leading to high dependency on informal players with long-term indebtedness at heavy costs. Inadequate facilities like roads, transportation, warehousing and unreliable communication continue to plague the region.
e. Developing Human Capital: Overdependence on agriculture, lack of alternate livelihood opportunities and poor access to technology, finance and markets has resulted in low skills and capacities among the large segment of rural population in the region, women in particular. Lack of suitable institutions in the region has further aggravated the problem.
f. Supporting Institutional Mechanisms
These development solutions need to come from robust and strong institutional platform that Bundelkhand region has been wanting for a long time. The region lacks such specialised and specifically mandated institution. Development Alternatives a civil society organisation, over last 25 years has developed strong infrastructural base in the region that can be easily developed and transformed to undertake the above mentioned functions.
The priorities have emerged from a spectrum of innovative projects which support the civil society initiatives for the large scale development in the region. The Community centric interventions guided by the principles of social inclusion, gender sensitivity and participation that strengthen their livelihoods govern the social action in Bundelkhand. DA’s initiatives in the region have contributed to strengthening natural resources, development of infrastructure and facilities and a number of successfully running livelihood enterprises.
Bundelkhand Package
Based on the continuous demand Government of India and State Governments has articulated, through the long term development of the region. Government of India has taken note of the special needs of the region and has announced the “Bundelkhand Drought Mitigation Package” primarily to address the vulnerability of the Water and Agriculture sector.
Bundelkhand Package has made budgetary allocations for credit, watershed management, water resources, agriculture, animal husbandry, horticulture and enhancing forest regeneration. The activities identified, have potential for both adaptation and mitigation.
The package is diversified and covers various sectors within agriculture. The details of the sectors and fund allocations are as follows:
Allocation wise the thrust area in the package is on Watershed Management which includes various interventions such as farm ponds, construction of new wells, renovation of existing wells and tanks. The second most import thrust area is that of agriculture advancement wherein modern technologies such as micro irrigation and zero tillage will be introduced. Modernization of the irrigation system and institutional debt are the other major areas.
Gaps and Issues
Whereas the broad allocation of funds under the 7 heads is more or less in line with the objective of achieving the stated target of drought mitigation the second level of breakdown is contentious.
Within agricultural advancement the highest amount of finance has been allocated to warehousing and marketing. This strategy would have been appropriate in states that have high productivity and surplus is not reaching the markets. In conditions such as those prevailing in Bundelkhand and other semi arid regions stress needs to be put at the production end of the system. Hence higher allocation of funds for promotion of technologies such as micro irrigation and zero tillage which reduce the need for water would have been appropriate. In the second stage stress could have been shifted to marketing.
A major criticism of micro irrigation systems has been that they have a high upfront cost. The criticism could have been addressed if the allocation of funds in institutional credit had been loaded in favor of fresh credit and less on debt waivers and crop insurance. In the present scenario with the message being conveyed - the farmers would make repayments even less likely the next time round. Also the need for crop insurance would have been reduced if more credit was available for adoption of efficient technologies which not only reduce the need for water but also increase the productivity of the land.
Needs and Requirements
A major area which is noticeably missing in the package is that of “Institution Strengthening”. The thrust areas are all hard and dependent on finance or technology. Social aspects of drought mitigation such as formation of common interest groups and co-operatives have been overlooked.
A large amount of funding has been set aside for major irrigation works in the Bundelkhand Package (Rs.1,762 crores). However, a major learning out of the existing canal systems in the Bundelkhand region (e.g. the Rajghat Canal) is that only a few farmers within a short distance of the canal on either side are benefiting from it. For the vast majority the canal is an inaccessible resource. Keeping in mind the benefit of larger numbers of people it would have been more beneficial to promote the Command Area Development in a bigger way.
Increased fund allocation for promotion of efficient irrigation systems in Bundelkhand in place of enhancing the market oriented approaches will lead to food security and sovereignty approach.
The core issue for Civil Society organization is managing the different approaches of different organizations who are responsible for executing the Bundelkhand package.
In the whole package it’s not clear that there is an integrated and organized approach to providing services in all areas through CSO.. There are no good open fora for discussing this – there is no platform of decision making – a comment of NGO Staff Member
There is a need for enhanced decision making platforms for CSO, and the Government to facilitate understanding of both objectives and agendas. Terms of Reference (ToR) and Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) are to be discussed and disseminated for the execution of the activities. The outline mechanisms of coordination and arrange agreement of how to implement planned is not clear.
There is an urgent need to increase decentralization of implementation strategies to account for regional differences and approach diversity with sensitivity. In terms of cross cutting issues like gender and social security, support from the central government is essential. However, it is at the local level that these issues need to be addressed. The other area is expand capacity building efforts for state and district level government to execute the programme.
Expand programmes that increase local governance skills in advocacy and accountability, as well as programme that increase central government responsiveness to local concerns. CSO /NGOs have a potential to offer capacity building support at district and state government levels.
The Civil Society organization has a potential for key roles in coordinating delivery of agricultural support and extension system through Bundelkhand Package. q S N Pandey
snpandey@devalt.org Back to Contents |