Regional Center for Development Cooperation

Balangir has been continuously in the news for starvation death, malnutrition, migration and, more recently, swathes of farmer suicides. There is a clear need for interventions to support and guide communities as they battle agricultural distress and food insecurity. Since 2004, we have been working with 50 villages in 10 Gram Panchayats to address the issue.

Core Activities :

Capacity building of farmers.
Promoting the cultivation and use of vermi-compost (a self-sustaining and environmentally friendly fertiliser).
Taking a farmer-led approach to promote SRI (System of Rice Intensification) cultivation patterns.
Compost and liquid manure preparation.
Linking individuals and groups to government schemes they are eligible for.
Demonstrating new, more sustainable agricultural practices to farmers and supporting them as they adopt them.
Education of the wider community on food insecurity issues.
Ensure not a single starvation death at least in our project areas.
Advocacy and campaigning on food security and agricultural issues to influence key decision making.

Recent Achievements :

As a result of the intervention, the number of farmers adopting the SRI method has increased from 180 in the year 2000 to over 2000 last year.
130 farmers now create vermi-compost and 120 farmers have availed support through linkage with the Agriculture Department.
In order to ensure seed quality, sustainability, and independence from the open market, we have set up 40 seed banks, which are now maintained in 40 operational villages in 13 Gram Panchayats.
As a part of an advocacy strategy, discussions were made with district administration, District Collector and District Welfare Officer.

The Governments of India and Odisha have been adopting various schemes and programmes as part of a welfare state strategy, to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) commitments. Under this initiative comes the enactment of MGNREGA, the National Rural Health Mission and the FRA, for example.

Given this backdrop, since 2001 RCDC Balangir has recognised the need to strengthen the existing governance systems of its districts to enable the targeted communities to avail the maximum benefits available to them under the schemes.Through our work, we actively inform PRIs of the schemes and guide them through the application processes so that they can help their communities. We build awareness of and use of RTI to improve transparency and accountability with regard to these schemes.

Core Activities :

Creating and capacity building of SHGs, CBOs, PRIs and other grassroots organisations.
Promotion of SHGs to take up issues and activities.
Building rapport with the District administration.
Alliance building between CBOs.
Encouraging the participation of women in decision making and facilitating the development of women’s SHGs.
Developing a people’s plan for integration with government programmes &schemes.
Advocacy and campaigning, and dissemination of informative publications.

Recent Achievements :

50 village Food Security Committees (FSC) have been united and have formed federations at Gram Panchayat and regional levels to address the issues emerging on those levels.
The FSCs have been working as a pressure group to fight for better implementation of MGNREGA, Public Distribution System (PDS) and other social security schemes.Toll free help line numbers are being used by CBOs for lodging complaints and they are ensuring regular payments under MGNREGA now.
Formation of 46 women SHGs, each trained to maintain their own records, manage a bank account and in how to initiate entrepreneurial activities. Each SHG is also linked to village FSCs so they can participate in village development activities too. The SHGs have been federated at the Panchayat and apex levels.
The SHGs are now directly associated with the government’s mid-day meal scheme and distributing PDS supplies in their area. The SHGs have also facilitated linkages of 143 pregnant women under Janani Suraksha Yojna (JSY) scheme in the Balangir project area.
Jananani Anchalik Mahasanga (JAM), the SHG federation, organised a mega rally to make people, especially the women, aware and assertive on issues of Kendu leaf price and incentives to pluckers, liquor prohibition and increased participation in the Palli Sabha meetings.
As a result of rapport with district administration and other line departments, Block officials worked with RCDC to adopt four peoples’ plans in their five years strategic plan for 2012-17. Also, RCDC Balangir was invited by Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) to provide training to farmers on SRI, dry land farming, mushroom cultivation and other IGP activities.
An interface workshop in Balangir with the district administration, civil society, CBO representatives and the media discussed issues of food insecurity in Balangir and the ways ahead. The workshop yielded the “Balangir Declaration”. RCDC also participated in the fourth national convention on the right to food, with the Right to Food Campaign.

RCDC continues its work on forest-related conflict resolution, but now integrates the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (2006) to ensure people have legal ownership of land that they are entitled to. Our activities always include the facilitation of forest conservation at the community and government levels. Our work reaches 228 villages in 34 GPs of 5 Blocks in Balangir.

We help in the creation of, support and strengthen village-level forest protection groups. The District Forest Federation acts as an overarching support and uniting force in Balangir’s forest protection and we ensure its maintenance and strength.

We have led a campaign to promote forest and land claims for over 50 villages of the Gandharmardan Hills. The campaign aims to hold the government to account over slow and neglectful processing of claims under the FRA.

Core Activities :

Alliance building of CBOs and NGOs to encourage successful implementation of the FRA.
Enhancing knowledge of, and action on, the FRA at village levels.
Capacity building of stakeholders through training on the FRA. Participants are given guidance as well as claim forms, to enable them to file the claims themselves.
Engaging with government departments and PRI members to raise concerns and push forest rights claims through.
Strengthening the District Forest Federation.
Advocacy, campaigning and dissemination of informative publications.

Recent Achievements :

A single platform has been established for advocacy and campaigning around the FRA. A strong alliance is now made up of the RCDC, the DFF, the DLC, the SDLC, CBOs, village-level FPCs and other civil society members. A coordination committee has also been established to monitor the overall implementation of the FRA.
FSCs, SHGs and other CBOs associated have been able to collect information on forest rights claims (FRCs) for 130 villages. They found most to be claims to be unsatisfactory and the FSCs have therefore prepared action points to push the process of FRCs.
Through engagement with government departments, many officials have now made commitments to address concerns relating to FRCs. PRI members are now providing certificates to the entitled beneficiaries as a result of motivation by RCDC.
DFF, the network strengthened by RCDC for advocating forest and NTFP-related issues, is currently been operational in 650 villages across the district. The DFF recently campaigned on Kendu Leaf and succeeded in achieving wage increases for pluckers.