Sunteți pe pagina 1din 11

National Livelihood resource Institute

Change is good
Swift and smart thinking
Author- S. Chandra, PGDRDM

2010
Main centre at Bhadrawasa, Ratlam

Introduction
In the present context when whole world is becoming a village, people are busy in improving their
standard of living by utilizing best of opportunities all around. Many countries say that the
urbanization is progressing in their country which is sign of progress of their country. However when
they are questioned on what cost of natural and human resources they get this, they will be silent. But
don’t lose hope in this world some organizations and agencies are still present who are surviving on
the courage of few pure minds who has left the cozy com forts of modern life for smile on others face.
The story starts from late nineties when Indian fertilizer cooperative firm KRIBHCO (Krishak Bharti
Cooperative Limited) was thinking to serve large farm based poor population. At the same time
Department for International Development (DFID) came to India with intension to invest a good
amount of money for its mission to help poor to come out of vicious cycle of poverty. DFID selected
KRYBHCO as its partner to implement the project. For this reason KRYBHCO shifted some of its staff to
take up this noble cause. Now after the partnership of more than one decade KRYBHCO has
established a training institute for all its partners and employees. So let’s try to know how events
turned up in these years.

2
Grameen Vikas Trust- The mother orgnisation
Gramin Vikas Trust (GVT) was established as an independent legal entity by KRIBHCO, a premier
fertiliser company of India, in the cooperative sector under the Government of India. For the past one
and a half decades, it had implemented programmes for Sustainable Livelihood Development and
poverty reduction. It is empowering communities to manage resources in both rural and tribal areas,
initially under direct control of KRIBHCO and since 2000 independently.

Mission

Center for Excellence Empowering Rural Poor to Improve Livelihood Sustainability.

Goal

To develop, implement, disseminate, effective and equitable and sustainable participatory policies and
programmes for reducing rural poverty in the rainfed areas of India.

Objectives

GVT believes that community participation in development programmes is crucial towards ensuring
peoples' contributions, financial as also their physical energies and innovative insights. This belief
underlies GVT’s objectives:

 To improve socio economic conditions of the poor and the marginalized


 To develop gender responsive participatory approaches
 To establish village based institutions for sustaining change
 To maintain partnerships with diverse stakeholders
 To promote, coordinate and conduct applied research
 To create a centre for knowledge assimilation and sharing

Changed scenario-

DFID and GVT completed 3 phases together working on many projects on various levels.
Working together for so many years had benefited both organizations to fulfill each other’s motives.
After completing so many projects DFID showed its desire to shift focus to other states also. In this
way they minimized their operations in Madhya Pradesh continuously. In 2003 top administration of
GVT decided to develop its own income sources so that it can work on its own without depending on
external help.

3
Following its new approach GVT incorporated criteria of self-sustainability of projects in its
interventions. It means that the Trust will promote those activities which can cover its own
expenditures. So now it was clear that community had to contribute either in terms of money or
labour to support project.

New choices-

What will be the new choices it was a great question? Now GVT was mostly working with
Government acting as an implementing agency. But the top management thought if they really want
to play a long innings in development activities so they should develop human resource which can
operationalize such functions on the ground. To achieve this target they started thinking to build an
institute where the top management and grass-root level staff can be trained simultaneously so that
same motivation can be transfuse to whole staff. In this line, idea of establishing National Livelihood
Research Institute got momentum. As the Government of Madhya Pradesh supported such idea, all
the problems were resolved.

Emergence of NLRI (National livelihood resource institute)

With the aim of capacity Development of cross section of stakeholders engaged in Rural Livelihood
initiatives and strategic Institutional Support to all interested in the rural livelihood especially in
western part of the country NLRI was established at Ratlam.

Vision

“Learn, develop and disseminate strategies to deepen and strengthen sustainable rural livelihoods in
the farm and non-farm sector"

Mission

"Creating a center for excellence for building capacities and empowering people to improve
livelihoods by the development and application of low cost, appropriate, cutting edge technologies"

Goal

Teaching from only practical experience; Delivering high quality teaching; Learning from others;
Benefiting the poor; Removing gender discriminations; Cherishing human value

4
Grameen Vikas Trust

NLRI-Head

Skill HRD Senior


Development Programme Different
Manager departments

Climate ABM Horticulture Programme


Change & Forestry Coordinator

Main areas of activities

Who will be the leader?

Leadership of such institute was very important as they had to develop it from from mere a idea to
reality. So they recalled their one manager who once had left the organization due to some reasons.
Whole top management had faith in him. This person in future contributed a lot from developing
infrastructure to employee’s selection. This person had experience of working in that area in his early

5
career for marketing of fertilizer. As the physical infrastructure for institution was completed the
search of subordinates started.

Motivation: As a criterion

As the staff was supposed to work in rural development sector, so willingness to work hard at low
remuneration was a condition. This criteria was how much significant it is a question, as one side it act
as barrier for ambitious staff while other side it also helped selecting right candidate from lot of
choices. Though it was assured that remuneration would not be below capabilities of candidate. Each
staff person had to work as full time professional faculty and also to promote people participation
through local resource persons (jaankars) selected at village level. Jaankars should be educated and
good in communication it was other important criteria.

Activities decided to take up –

Due to experience while working in GVT some faculty have lot of experience about such work so they
never felt difficulty in what to do and how to do but they had to adjust in new approach when more
community participation was necessary. In farm sector activities focus was on initiating Farm Field
Schools (FFS) which promotes role of progressive farmers to popularize new methods and
technologies. Farmers were organized in groups and then provided cheaper inputs.

In non-farm activities trainings were conducted for capacity building of PRI representatives. Regular
trainings for own staff all over the country arranged here. Collaboration with reputed training and
management institutes was done. They facilitated trainings on various skills to increase the income of
trainees. NLRI was also working as knowledge resource base for organization interested in rural
development.

What to adopt and what to leave?

As working through last 15 years in those areas they have well information about what people need.
In these years they had specialsed in certain activities but to initiate with new activities can be like
walking on a tight rope. So they focused their intervention on limited activities and tried to learn few
things from others through partnership.

In Madhya Pradesh the problem of migration is very serious in tribal areas. As it was not possible to
check migration in short run, so they tried to reduce the problems of migrating population through
providing them basic facilities in new places through Migration Labour Support Programme.

Gender issues needs to be effective in such field activities. It is very unfortunate that women of
locality are facing serious troubles like marriage at early age, liquor addiction among males etc. But till

6
now neither NLRI nor GVT had taken sufficient initiatives to support them. Probably due to restriction
on women in tribal community they don’t want to challenge their belief in.

Staff-

The person at the top as Head-NLRI was a person who called by mother organization to take a great
responsibility due to his vast experience about the whole scenario. Other staff person represents
different areas of experience like skill development, event management, agri-business etc (the
organogram of staff is given above).

Para –professionals (jaankars) are local people who are trained mainly in community mobilization and
facilitation of project. They cover large area with busy schedule of meetings. Here their role becomes
very important as they are closest to target population. The main staff is of twenty in number,
operating from main office while at village level many jaankars are delivering their duty.

Linkages-

Top management of KRIBHCO GVT Head NLRI Subject Matter


Specialists Para-Professionals farmers/trainers

Though NLRI is planning to emerge as autonomous institution in future but its main activities is still to
support KRIBHCO as a knowledge and training center. In last 15 years GVT has influenced many state
level and national level projects. At present also it has collaboration with some international
organization. Central Government has also given GVT active role to play in developing drought prone
areas of around thirteen districts within MP. Within state it is working in partnership with government
to increase food production through organizing farmers in seed grower’s society association. NLRI staff
is actively participating activities within the state but to facilitate outside activities they are
contributing through arranging training in NLRI or at other state level.

As any project or action research comes to NLRI, respective SMS start to mobilize all stakeholders and
jaankars through meetings and trainings. Financial support can also be provided to individuals and
groups as per requirement through bank linkages. Success of watershed projects, income generation
activities and community participation approach has created faith in people’s heart towards GVT and
NLRI.

Organization environment-

Since last 15 years KRIBHCO and DFID were supporting the GVT activities. Now as DFID is slowly
dragging its feet backwards due to its own policies, a great vacuum of support and funds is visible.
This condition has forced whole internal system to think about self-reliance in economic and expertise

7
level. As the exit was confirmed whole organization sunk into economic problems. NLRI was in its
inception stage and whole set up yet to be completed. The main problem came to arrange money to
pay a competent staff. The idea to recruit professionals with strong educational background and rich
experience was found to be difficult. Low economic perspectives from the job failed to attract bright
professionals. So now again motivation to work for rural India became criteria for selection. As the
whole staff was recruited Head was happy with the progress.

Now as three years has passed NLRI had reached to a solid position. Its new staff has got experience
on many projects and action research. It has conducted several training programmes for employees of
KRYBHCO, GVT related to management. In last three years thousands of farmers were trained on
different technologies. Whole faculty is busy in their work from morning 11:00am to 5:30pm evening.
They work together in most of the activities as staff is still not sufficient. Interaction with many
employees revealed that they would have been motivated to give his best if they were getting salary
according to their efforts. Staff from top to bottom feels this menace needs to be resolved. Jaankars
running from village to village complains their salary should be increased as they are spending lot of
money in travelling.

Changes observed in mother organization-

As the top management realized that it would be very difficult to run GVT a not for profit organization
through its marketing wing they handed over its management to devoted leaders for rural
development. An IAS rank officer is its CEO who monitors its progress. GVT in last 15 years done a
wonderful job to develop rural areas through empowering PRI, community mobilization with para-
professionals, investing on facilities of public use and making groups of farmers for economic help (like
SHG). To address the basic community need of water they worked to develop many watersheds in
that region. The staff got support from other agencies working with same objectives within India and
outside India. This guidance helped them to develop who worked dedicatedly on field level without
thinking about any setback and recognition. Success of project made the practitioner valuable and
many times they were invited even outside India to share their experiences.

The strength of the GVT is that their top management was well aware about what was happening at
ground level. Regular visits to sites and interaction with people gave them true insight about their
problems. The people started to believe on GVT more than Government for addressing their problem.
But success in one state lead to adoption of new states by international agency and they started to
move. GVT faced situation when many projects came into danger. Experienced staff couldn’t replicate
same motivation into new staff. One important reason may be reduced financial support which made
staff more careful about their own benefit.

8
Now as the GVT is working mostly on government projects they are forced to work on dictated
guidelines. At present it is observed that top management is busy in bringing new projects while sub-
ordinates are busy to show that they have implemented the projects in field. Insufficient campaigning
before implementing the projects is giving opportunity to client farmers only to get maximum benefit
of project.

Strategy of top management of NLRI-

As NLRI was going to be harbinger of revival of GVT so a different but reasonable approach was
followed by them. A task- goal attribute approach was adopted which can be described as follows-

Goal challenge-

Any individual has his own comfort zone in the task which he is doing and most of us want to live
within that. But if any manager wants to see progress in his staff, he has to stretch their comfort
zone. The simple way to do that is to set their goals above their capacity and help them to achieve
that. In the same way Head as an influential person brings many innovative projects from
Government and forces his staff to decide future strategy for it. Then they collectively decide action
plan.

Goal clarity-

Studies has proved that while approaching new task the productivity of worker improves if he is clear
about its goal. As the new projects on which staff was working were mostly related to unexplored
topics, they felt it good for their career to work on them. e.g. Gobar gas industry, bio-industrial
watershed etc.

Goal setting involvement-

The employees were supported to decide what they expect to achieve in their stint with NLRI. So in
the starting of year whole staff sits together and decides individual goals. They reveal their goal before
whole staff and then they decide how collectively they can help each other to achieve them. Goal
setting for every year gives each opportunity to assess his progress and compare himself with others.

9
Goal commitment-

Once the goal is decided each team member should be committed to his goals. In this way he will not
only improve his performance but can help its peers also. Commitment involves right attitude towards
work, address own weaknesses, preparing schedule of activities, review of own progress etc.

Goal feedback-

Without knowing his own capacity if anyone starts work to achieve that, it seems that he deceives
himself. To skip this situation appraisal of goal is done by head, senior staff and colleagues. In such
condition role of seniors becomes very important. At the end of year it is checked that how far the
goals have been achieved and in which field scope of improvement is present.

Impact of strategy

Despite being dealing with less remuneration for services NLRI is able to bind its staff together. Since
last two years no staff person has left the organization it showed staff is happy with present
strategies. The institute reputation has also increased. The staff has been invited for training and
teaching in different institution and colleges. In many forums staff has shared their experience in
development sector. Now NLRI is working on the idea to come up with Post Graduate diploma course
in Rural Development within next two years.

Areas which needs more attention

NLRI is working with a great ambition to support rural masses through trainings, action research and
institution building. But when we observe representation of women in its activities it is far less than
expectations. Even its present staff strength is not enough to support its all activities. The crunch of
funds is hindering infrastructure development at its offices. Selection of para-professionals is a work
which needs more attention. Their motivation should match with upper management otherwise the
progress can’t push for long distance.

10
11

S-ar putea să vă placă și