Rural development-I

Rural development

• Rural development is an imperative and inevitable part of the overall development of any country. Rural development requires more focus and issue-centric approach to improve the well-being of rural people.
  • For Bihar, development of rural areas is more important than anything else, because nearly 90 percent of its population live in rural areas.
• The State Government runs a number of rural development programmes, notable among them being —
  • JEEViKA,
  • MGNREG scheme,
  • Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G), and
  • Public Distribution System (PDS).
• The Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) play a crucial role in the implementation of different rural development programmes.
• Among the notable achievements of rural development programmes during the last year, one may mention
  • The substantial expansion of activities by JEEViKA.
    • In 2020-21, JEEViKA had substantially shouldered its share of responsibility, utlising its wide network, in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.
  • Under MGNREG scheme, in 2019-20, the number of job cards issued has increased 7.0 percent to reach a figure of 169.8 lakh. Parallely, the employment generated has increased to 1418.9 lakh person days, recording a growth of 15.0 percent.
  • Further, under PMAY-G, no less than 4.2 lakh houses were built in 2019-20.
  • The State Government had also fully utilised the benefits under PDS by lifting nearly the whole (99.8 percent) of the allotment for the system in 2019-20.
  • The entire PRI system was strengthened further in 2019-20, as indicated by its higher level of grants — Rs. 8549.64 crore in 2019-20, 9.5 percent higher than a year before.

JEEViKA

• To involve the last person in the development of the state and to benefit the poor through state’s economic development, the State Government has created Bihar Rural Livelihood Mission (JEEViKA) which works with the rural poor to provide sustainable livelihood.
• Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society is a society of the State Government, registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
• The organization aims at social and economic empowerment of the rural poor and improve their livelihoods by developing community institutions of the women to enable them access better services and credit from government agencies and institutions.
• Under this programme, named JEEViKA, Self Help Groups (SHG) and their federations at village and cluster levels have been developed as strong institutions for rural community.
• In the past few years, these community-based institutions have emerged as effective medium for implementation of various central and state-run government schemes, directly benefiting the rural masses in a stipulated time frame and at a large scale.
• Presently, SHG federations have got recognition at different platforms for their active participation in creating awareness and implementation of sanitation programme (Lohiya Swachh Bihar Abhiyan), health & nutrition (family dietary, poshan maah), environment (Jal-Jeevan-Hariyali), social issues (prohibition, abolition of dowry and child marriage) and promotion of livelihoods of the ultra-poor under Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana.
• Achieving the target of 10 lakh Self-Help Groups was an important agenda of the project. The project, through its grounded strategies and consistent efforts, was able to form 10,16,863 SHGs till September, 2020.
• The project also focused on formation of higher-level federations of SHGs and could form 61,606 Village Organizations (VO) and 1105 Cluster Level Federations by the end of September, 2020.
• Progress of different interventions of JEEViKA.
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• The relationship of the Self-Help Group with the bank starts with the opening of SHG saving account. Saving accounts of 8,68,070 SHGs have already been opened till September, 2020.
  • JEEViKA provides initial support to SHGs by providing them with Initial Capitalization Fund and Revolving Fund to meet their initial financial needs and create a corpus fund of the SHGs.
  • Further, the project focuses on capitalization of these SHGs from different banks. By September, 2020, a total of 10,97,627 credit linkages (Ist+2nd +3rd linkages) of SHGs were achieved with banks, with a total credit linkage amount worth Rs. 13.141.25 crore.
• With an objective to increase financial transactions in rural areas of Bihar, JEEViKA has collaborated with business correspondents of major banks and facilitated opening of Customer Service Points (CSP) run by Bank Sakhis, basically a SHG member.
  • These CSPs are opened in rural areas to improve access to banks and banking services. A total of 1270 CSPs have been opened till date across Bihar which provide financial services through opening of saving/fixed/recurring deposits accounts.
  • Cumulatively, till September 2020, financial transaction worth Rs. 2745.22 crore was done through these CSPs. The Bank Sakhis earned commission worth Rs. 7.71 crore.
• JEEViKA also has been providing insurance coverage to SHG members under Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Suraksha Bima Yojana to mitigate the condition of the families which may arise due to sudden death or accident of the SHG member.
  • As compared to 2018-19, there was an increase of 62 percent in the insurance coverage of SHG members in 2019-20.
  • A total of 21.37 lakh SHG members were covered under the insurance schemes till the end of 2019-20.
• Further, Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana was started by JEEViKA in August, 2018 with an objective to provide sustainable livelihoods to 1 lakh ultra-poor households, and it has made significant progress till date.
  • Against the target of 1 lakh, a total of 1,01,511 ultra-poor households have been identified and endorsed.
  • A Livelihood Investment Fund has already been provided to 57,864 ultra-poor households, who have started income generating activities.
  • A financial assistance in the form of Livelihood Gap Assistant Fund (Rs 1000/month En 7 months), a one-time Emergency fund (Rs. 2000 for consumption need) and Special Investment Fund (Rs. 10,000 for meeting basic needs, starting small livelihood activity, improving housing condition etc.) was also provided to these ultra-poor households.
  • This intervention has been successful in bringing a large part of the deprived section of society into the SHG fold. Due to extreme poverty and daily labor work, these households could not participate in regular meetings and saving activities of SHGs.
• As a part of JEEViKA programme, farm activities under livelihoods intervention aim at improving the productivity of crop through various packages of practices, technical assistance, training, capacity building and imparting marketing skill to the SHG members.
  • During 2020-21, a total of 8,49,474 SHG farmers undertook paddy cultivation through System of Rice Intensification (SRI), direct seeding technique and seed replacement.
  • A total of 2,93,913 SHG members undertook vegetable cultivation.
  • To improve the nutritional intake of the households, JEEViKA is promoting the concept of kitchen gardening.
  • Livelihood related activities by SHGs includes:
    • Farm interventions: Paddy cultivation, wheat cultivation, vegetable cultivation, kitchen gardening.
    • Livestock and non-farm interventions in poultry, dairy, goat etc.
    • Skill training and placement
    • Vulnerability reduction: distribution of food security and Health security fund.
    • Sanitation.
• To promote mechanization in agriculture sector and reduce drudgery of women farmers, JEEViKA established 106 community-managed Custom Hiring Centers in association with the Agriculture Department. These centers are well equipped with agricultural equipment, which are rented to SHG members at an affordable rent.
• Under livestock intervention, JEEViKA, in association with the Animal and Fish Resource Department, cumulatively distributed 48,456 Black Bengal goat to 16,152 SHG members in 2019-20.
  • Besides this, JEEViKA has implemented ‘Pashu Sakhi’ model and provided services to goat rearers on feed management, shelter, veterinary services; it has also facilitated SHG members to procure good quality goat from market.
  • A total of 20.580 chicks were distributed to 1010 SHG members under poultry intervention.
• Under non-farm interventions, Rural Retail Marts and Didi ki Rasoi (community kitchen) interventions were started as a pilot intervention in 2018.
  • During 2019-20, they were scaled up and they have recorded impressive growth in terms of turnover. Till September 2020, a total of 24 Rural Retail Man and 4 units of Didi ki Rasoi have been opened.
  • JEEViKA successfully organized two Saras Melas in this year. There was a footfall of over 11 lakh and the total sale was over Rs 10.00 crore, the highest in recent years.
• The skill training and placement of youth is another important theme of JEEViKA, which provides livelihood opportunities through skill training and placement facilities for the rural youths.
  • By September 2020, a total of 172.496 rural youths have been trained and 3.15.454 candidates were placed/settled under DDUGKY, RSETISs and Job fair.
  • In association with different government departments, JEEViKA implemented the Mukhyamantri Kosi Mulberry Pariyojana, Cluster Facilitation Team (CFT), Social Audit of government schemes. etc.
  • It achieved its target of providing 18 lakh solar study lamps to school-going children in 63 blocks across 18 districts, under Solar Urja through Localisation for Sustainability (SoULS) project.
  • In all, 413 nurseries were also promoted.
• The SHG members avail the Food Security Fund (FSF) to meet the requirement of food grain and other edible items through a community procurement process. The Health Security Fund (HSF) has been created to meet the emergency health needs of the SHG members.
  • By September 2020, a total of 41,400 VOs received benefit from FSF and 48,077 received benefit from HRF.
• Under Health, Nutrition and Sanitation (HNS) interventions, to bring about a change in the behaviour of community members on HNS aspects, trainings were provided to members of over 4.58 lakh SHGs.
  • Poshan Maah and Dietary Diversity Campaigns were also organised across the state to create awareness on HNS amongst the people.