17,000 poor families raise income by Rural Livelihood project

Bhopal, June 26(UNI) About 17,000 poor families spread over 827 select villages in 8 tribal dominated districts across Madhya Pradesh have raised raised income through Rural Livelihood Project, funded by United Kingdom's Department for International Development(DFID).

The beneficiaries include 15,000 tribal families and 1,000 belonging to the Scheduled Castes, official sources said.

The state government has been provided a grant of Rs 115 crore for the first phase of the project covering 827 villages in Jhabua, Dhar, Barwani, Mandla, Shahdol, Dindori, Anuppur and Sheopur districts.

Adopting a bottoms-up approach, the project has energised the Gram Sabhas in identifying beneficiaries and deciding quantum and type of assistance, besides monitoring of the livelihood options exercised by poor households.

Agriculture and related activities have benefitted 8100 farmers, while 4400 families have livelihood improved their through livestock development activities. Another 4500 families have successfully established or upscaled their micro enterprises with the project's support. These activities have been taken up individually or in groups.

The project also revived 1790 dormant self-help groups and created 4370 livelihood promotion groups for diverse activities aimed at securing livelihood.

The project has been able to benefit almost all poor households in most of the project villages through various activities, generating greater trust of community for its methodology and enlisting participation of the entire village, the sources added.

About 7400 families have been benefitted through drudgery reduction programme, while 15,000 families have taken advantage of 342 veterinary camps organised at the village level for immunisation and treatment of animals. About 8800 people had access to health and medical services through 33 health camps organised in remote villages.

The project has established 8 district project support units and 87 multi-disciplinary project facilitation teams at village cluster level for expeditious implementation of various project interventions. Micro-plans of 761 villages have been prepared by the project facilitation teams in consultation with local communities and these have been approved by the concerned Gram Sabhas.

About 4400 meetings of Gram Sabhas have been organised so far to discuss issues of socio-economic development under the project.

UNI SP LS SND1249