DHAN Foundation · 2020. 1. 13. · 5 Abbreviations & Acronyms 7 Introduction to DHAN Foundation 9...

DHAN FoundationMadurai

Annual Report 2010

5 Abbreviations & Acronyms

7 Introduction to DHAN Foundation

9 MDG Matters

39 Annual Report 2009-10

42 Kalanjiam Community Banking Programme

54 Vayalagam Tankfed Agriculture Development Programme

60 Coastal Conservation and Livelihoods Programme

65 Tata-Dhan Academy

69 ICT for Poverty Reduction

72 Rainfed Farming Development

76 Tourism for Development

79 Working with Panchayats

82 Centres for Integration

93 ImpactKalanjiam Community Banking Programme

Vayalagam Tankfed Agriculture Development Programme

113 Financial Statements

127 Acknowledgement

131 Board of Trustees

133 DHAN Foundation - Addresses

Contents

ACEDRR Advanced Centre for Enabling Disaster Risk Reduction

ADB Asian Development Bank

ASKMI Advanced centre for Skill and Knowledge on Mutual Insurance

CAPART Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology

CARC Coastal Agriculture Resource Centre

CDA Cluster Development Association

DHAN Development of Humane Action

ELRP Enabling Livelihood Restoration Programme

ICT Information and Communication Technology

INAFI International Network of Alternative Financial Institutions

INFOS Indian Network of Federations of Microfinance Self Help Groups

JnNURM Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission

JSYS Jala Samvardhane Yojana Sangha

KDFS Kalanjiam Development Financial Services

KISC Kalanjiam Integrated Service Centre

KMS Kalanjiam Meenavar Sangam

KRCH Kalanjiam Reproductive and Child Health

KTL Kalanjiam Thozhilagam Limited

MAVIM Mahila Arthik Vikas Mahamandal

MDG Millennium Development Goal

MFG Microfinance Group

NABARD National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development

Annual Report 2010 5

Abbreviations & Acronyms

Annual Report 20106

MGNREGA Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

NRM Natural Resource Management

NSP National Seed Project

NWDPRA National Watershed Development Project for Rainfed Areas

PMG Primary Marketing Group

PPG Primary Producer Group

SHG Self Help Group

SIDBI Small Industries Development Bank of India

SUHAM Sustainable Healthcare Advancement

TDA Thagavalagam Development Association

TFA Tank Farmers’ Association

TNAU Tamil Nadu Agricultural University

VADC Vayalagam Agriculture Development Centre

VIC Village Information Centre

VTADP Vayalagam Tankfed Agriculture Development Programme


Development of Humane Action (DHAN)Foundation, a professional developmentorganisation, was initiated on October 2, 1997. Itbrings highly motivated, educated young womenand men to the development sector. They wouldmake new innovations in development to root outpoverty from the country. The Foundation works tomake significant changes in the livelihoods of thepoor through innovative themes and institutions.

The broad purposes for which DHAN stands are:1. Mothering of Development Innovations: The

institution intends to promote and nurture newideas on development themes, such asmicrofinance, small scale irrigation, dry landagriculture, and working with Panchayatswhich can impact on poverty in a significantmanner.

2. Promoting Institutions to reach scale: Exclusivethematic organisations will be promoted to takeup development work with a sub-sectoral focus.The primary role will be to promote and ensurethat quality benefits reach a large number ofpoor.

3. Human Resource Development: The institutionwould bring young professionals into thedevelopment sector and give them anopportunity to practice and develop relevantknowledge, attitudes and skills needed for longterm work.

The principles guiding DHAN are1. Engaging high quality human resources to work

at the grassroots. The focus would be to enablethe poor, not deliver services.

2. Valuing collaboration with mainstreaminstitutions and Government to demonstratenew and effective intervention to link them withthe people.

3. Promoting people’s organisations to ensureentitlements and to build an effective demandsystem to promote people’s interest.

4. Promoting livelihoods to address the issues ofpoverty directly

5. Enriching the themes and retaining sub-sectoralfocus as a strategy for growth

MISSION

“Building people and institutions fordevelopment innovations and scaling-up to

enable the poor communities for povertyreduction and self-reliance”

VISION

DHAN Foundation is always a pioneeringdevelopment institution to build poverty free, genderbalanced, equitable, ecological sensitive, democratic,just and value based inclusive society. It createsfreedom of choice to the families, groups andcommunity to determine and develop the meaning oftheir lives, their identities and their life styles for thewell-being of their life.

DHAN Foundation opens new frontiers for betterhumanity and would build scalable, cost effectiveand sustainable innovations for self-reliance.

DHAN Foundation will always be acknowledged asa leader in institution building for povertyalleviation. It would be trendsetter in grassrootsdevelopment with people governance andmanagement.

It will be occupying its legitimate space in policymaking forums to shape the macro environment tothe realities of grassroots and serving developmentcommunity by disseminating good practices. It willshape thousands of development professionals tomake millions of poor lives different with dignityand right livelihoods. The DHAN Foundation willfoster alternative paradigms with socialentrepreneurship and collective leadership.

It will be respected for its role in unleashing thepotential of the poor and guiding them through theirmovements by building new institutions forachieving significance. It will promote networks,alliances on development ‘Cause’ with relevantstakeholders – Academia, civil society, Government,Business houses, Professional networks, Media,Financial institution and other resource institution –at national, regional and global environment.

Introduction to DHAN Foundation

VALUES

DHAN has rooted in values, such as Grassrootsaction, Collaboration, Enabling, Innovation,Excellence, and Self-Regulation. DHAN believes thatthese values are its core strength needed to realizeits Vision and Mission.

DEVELOPMENT APPROACH

DHAN Foundation’s development approach entails asystem of inter-linked components. There is a three-way link between thematic focus, social capital andmainstream collaboration to promote sustainabledevelopment for the poor.

DHAN lays high emphasis on thematic focus. Itbuilds social capital by organising the unorganisedpoor communities around the themes of water,microfinance, rainfed farming information andcommunication technologies, and local governance.Localised Peoples’ Organisations are built in urban,rural, tribal and coastal contexts. It is the mostcritical step in building the capabilities of thecommunities to handle the development processesand its outcomes for ensuring their entitlements byacquiring bargaining power.

These Peoples’ Organisations provide platform fornurturing innovations at the grassroots, scale–downtechnologies and contextualizing those technologiesfor addressing the issues of poverty, which arehighly complex and contextual.

The third factor, the mainstream collaboration iscritical for creating enabling environment for theother two factors to perform. The thematicinstitutions continuously build the capacities of thePeople’s Organisations built around the particulartheme to bring relevant mainstream developmentinstitutions, both private and public institutionscloser to the communities. They evolve and nurturethe principle of sustainable partnership between thePeople’s Organisations and the mainstreaminstitutions. The collaboration process educates both

People’s Organisations and mainstream institutionsabout their roles and responsibilities in sustainingtheir collaborations.

Conceptually, the interaction among these threefactors put the primary institutions at the centre,which are ideal platforms for practicingparticipatory democracy and ensuring collectiveempowerment.

DHAN plays a promotional role in initiating atheme, building Peoples’ Organisations aroundthem, establishing linkages with mainstreaminstitutions and sustaining them. The promotionalrole keeps evolving over a period. As the localcapacity is built, the roles get transferred to people.Simultaneously DHAN as a mothering institutionpromotes thematic organisations as subsidiaries toupscale the matured themes to continue thepromotional role to sustain the Peoples’Organisations in the specific theme. The thematicinstitutions would take up the work of upscaling anddeepening of the themes.

DHAN Collective

DHAN Foundation and its institutions form theDHAN Collective. It is to nurture and preserve theculture of collegiality, mutuality and solidarity.Shared purpose, core values and resources (human,financial and physical resources) bind theinstitutions of DHAN Collective. DHAN Foundationas the mothering institution would guide, supportand regulate its family institutions on their mission,policies, strategies and values. Each institutionwould define its ‘own unique’ space.

The Kalanjiam Community Banking Programme, oneof DHAN Foundation’s pioneering initiatives and itsfirst institution, has evolved into an institution, the‘Kalanjiam Foundation’, to take up the promotionalrole. It would promote the theme of KalanjiamDevelopment Finance and guide the peopleinstitutions. Vayalagam Tankfed AgricultureDevelopment Programme has evolved into theVayalagam Foundation to work on the theme ofconservation and development of small scale waterbodies and stabilize the livelihoods of the farmersdependent on them. The Tata-Dhan Academy wouldbe promoted within the next three to five years asthe next thematic institution. Many suchinstitutions would emerge in course of time –efficient, excellent and with unquestioned integrity– in the DHAN Collective of institutions.

Building SocialCapital

(Organising theUnorganised)

Thematic Focus(Downscalingdevelopmenttechnology)

MainstreamCollaboration

(Enablingenvironment)

Annual Report 20108

MDG Matters

Perspectives, Principles and Practices of DHAN

in localising Millennium Development Goals

The Food and Agriculture Organisation estimatesthat a total of 925 million people are undernourishedin 2010 all over the world. In India 237.7 millionpeople out of total population of 1147.7 million areundernourished. Their poverty is not only acondition of low income and lack of assets. It is acondition of lack of opportunities, vulnerability,exclusion and powerlessness. It is the erosion of thecapability to be free from fear and hunger and havetheir voices heard. Poverty reduction is aboutenabling poor women and men to transform theirlives and livelihoods and supporting governmentsand civil society in creating and maintaining theconditions that allow them to do so.

After the 1995 World Summit for SocialDevelopment, the international communitydeveloped a broad consensus that all developmentactors should focus on reducing poverty. Five yearslater, at the Millennium Summit, governmentscommitted themselves to reducing by half theproportion of people living in extreme poverty by2015. This global commitment carries the promise ofsignificantly greater resources and policy support foroverall poverty reduction.

The Millennium Declaration and the Millennium

Development Goals

At the United Nations Millennium Summit inSeptember 2000, 192 heads of state adopted theMillennium Declaration, which outlines theMillennium Development Goals (MDGs) as thecommitment pledged by governments of sovereignstates to achieve 21 development targets and 60indicators by 2015.

The MDGs consist of eight specific goals toeradicate extreme poverty and hunger, ensure all

children, boys and girls alike, primary education,promote gender equality, improve the health ofmothers and children, reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, protect the environment, and create a globalpartnership for development. The MDGs arebenchmarks for progress towards the overall goal ofthe Millennium Declaration to eradicate humanpoverty and fight inequality.

The international commitment to achieve the MDGswas reaffirmed by all Member States of the UnitedNations at Monterrey, Mexico in 2005. Achieving theMDGs requires strong political will from nationalleaders. Simultaneously, citizen participation is alsoa prerequisite for developing and developedcountries by holding their governments to accountto fulfill their pledges. In line with this internationalmandate, the United Nations Millennium CampaignAsia-Pacific works throughout the region with civilsociety organizations, parliamentarians, localauthorities, youth, media and the private sector tosupport citizens in their efforts to hold governmentsaccountable for the achievement of the MDGs.

Localising MDGs: DHAN’s Perspectives

Though the MDGs are broader and aimed atinfluencing national governments and donorcountries, localizing these goals to suit to thevarying socio, economic and cultural climates iscritical to integrate them into action at thegrassroots levels. The most effective strategy formaking sustainable progress is to perceive and actupon all the goals in an integrated way. However,each goal will need well-designed and replicabledevelopment themes with the scope for vertical andhorizontal expansion for success at the field level.Pursuing each goal independently withoutacknowledging its inter–linkages with others will


MDG Matters

Perspectives, Principles and Practices of DHAN

in localising Millennium Development Goals

Annual Report 201012

make them unsustainable interventions. This note isan attempt to reinforce the priorities of the themesand programmes of DHAN Foundation towardsachieving these goals.

For DHAN Foundation, the overarching goal ofpoverty reduction implies ultimately the eliminationof hunger, poverty, and maternal and childmalnutrition. For instance the KalanjiamReproductive and Child Health programme worksfor averting maternal and fetal malnutrition, whichwill otherwise lead to low birth weight thatdamages health and reduces cognitive ability.Similarly, given the fact that majority of poor peopleliving in villages are dependent on farming,agricultural and rural development should getpriority among the broad array of economic andsocial indicators that the MDGs emphasize.

DHAN’s interpretation of the MDGs thereforeaccommodates contextual variations whilepromoting development. The ‘graduation approach’in poverty reduction, demonstrated by theKalanjiam Community Banking Programme canwork well to address such disparities. The PeoplePlanning process and goal setting exercise by thePeoples’ Organisations can integrate these MDGsdownscaled to their local situation. The MDGs canbe used to set a powerful agenda for the Peoples’Organisations at various levels to achieve faster,sustainable human and economic development.

Principles of contextualization

Building local capacities for local solutions

More than a decade of DHAN’s experience inbuilding peoples’ organisations for poverty reductionshows that the experiences, expertise, ideas,feedback and collective learning would help the localcommunities to innovate solutions for theirproblems. Through enabling approach, the localisedpeoples’ organisations can play a crucial rolebuilding capacities of the members and leaders inidentifying, testing and adapting innovations. Sincethe MDGs call for national goals and targets,localising them in the varying socio-cultural anddevelopment contexts at the local level is a biggerchallenge. DHAN believes that only through localcapacities we can contextualize the developmentissues and evolve localised solutions.

Promoting local partnerships for sustainingdevelopment

Given the enormous challenges for development,institutions cannot achieve the MDGs in isolation.Similarly, the peoples’ organisations built by DHANcan function as the centres of convergence for all thedevelopment interventions implemented in line withthe MDGs by the organisations at the block anddistrict level such as banks, governmentdepartments, Panchayats, industries, and privateinstitutions to achieve the goals collectively. Thepeoples’ organisations continue to build localpartnerships that would encourage communityownership and self–management. Partnerships withshared goals will provide a greater chance ofsustainability for the interventions aimed atachieving the MDGs.

Encouraging innovations in the processes andmethods

There are no universal solutions but only universalprocesses in development. Innovations in theprocesses and methods will lead to locally relevantsolutions. Since the problems to be addressed by theMDGs such as poverty, gender disparity, andenvironmental degradation are complex, they needmultiple solutions and context specific approaches.Innovation is one of the core values of DHAN and itcontinues to nurture innovations in the programmesthat have the potential to transform lives of the pooron a large scale. At the same time, the peoples’organisations work on innovations in the processesand methods to achieve the goal of povertyreduction.

Deepening programme interventions to achieveMDGs

Though the programmes promoted by DHAN startwith an exclusive thematic focus such as water,microfinance and rainfed farming, they would gobeyond the primary theme and develop methods andprocesses which would significantly address theother issues of poverty. DHAN views itsprogrammes as a means to organise the communityand it lays high emphasis on linking the communityorganisations with other development institutions toaddress other development needs of the poorfamilies. The deepening of a particular theme wouldinclude experimentation and development of


suitable products to address development issues ofthe poor such as drinking water, de-addiction,women and child health needs, sanitation,electricity, girl child education and skill building forlivelihoods.

DHAN’s approach in localising MDGs

Setting thematic goals and priorities

DHAN’s core philosophy is mothering developmentinnovations. DHAN is always on the lookout foremerging new opportunities for the poor; design atheme around the issue, experiment for few years toevolve a replicable and adaptable communityorganisation model in different contexts, and thenconsolidate the experience to launch it as aprogramme for scaling up. The criteria for evolving anew programme are its potential to impact largenumber of poor for their better living and itsreplicability in different contexts.

The programme would be piloted intensively inselect locations in rural, urban, tribal and coastalcontexts for 5-6 years. By the time, programmedesign and components would be evolved andstandardized according to the context. Theprogramme components would undergo constantimprovements and refinements according to thechanging context and time. Eachprogramme component would lead toconcrete outputs and impact, whichwould be measured in periodicalintervals through structured developmentinformation systems (DIS).

DHAN would promote separate thematicinstitutions for scaling up such maturedthemes. Both water and community bankinghave emerged as largest themes and DHAN haspromoted exclusive Foundations for taking upexpansion of these themes. Five more themes are indifferent stages of scaling up, such as rainfedfarming development, ICT for poverty reduction,democratising local governance, developmentmanagement education, and coastal conservationand livelihoods.

Contextualising development goals

DHAN’s development programmes are activelyengaged in organising the poor into Kalanjiams orVayalagams. Efforts are taken to reach all the

poorest of the poor families in the villages whereDHAN has initiated Kalanjiams and Vayalagams.Several villages have been declared fully saturated.Similarly, efforts are on to attain 100 per centsaturation at Panchayat and Block level.

Thematic focus in DHAN Foundation provideslivelihood focus to reduce the poverty.Understanding the extent of poverty within theorganised groups is a pre-requisite to graduate themto next levels. Categorisation of all the families intosurvival, subsistence and self-employed categoriesand develop strategies to graduate them out ofpoverty in five to 10 years has been initiated.


Migration

Malnutrition

School dropout

Conservation

Common properties like tanks, pondsand village

Declining agriculture

Village industries

Lack of access and control for water

Creation of more employment

Nutrition garden, fish rearing, consumption loans

Developing products to eliminate school dropouts,scholarships

Conservation-based livelihoods like tree planting,strengthening sacred grooves and water bodies etc.

Developing individual and institutional responsibility formanagement and funds development

Regenerating vibrant agricultural economy in villages

Strengthening village industries for self-consumption and tomeet urban demand

Developing products to ensure high access and control ofwater and lands in the hands of poor

Developing poverty reduction ‘goals’ for eachpeople organisation

Kalanjiams and Vayalagams are working with bye-laws and the same is getting refined each year.There is a practice of ‘relooking’ at the bye-lawseach year to bring new insights and to remove theoutdated norms. There are lending norms, books ofaccounts, and auditing, as a part of systems at eachpeople organisation. Likewise, they have initiatedevolving poverty reduction ‘goals’ in all peopleorganisations. These goals are specific to contextand time. Many of the Kalanjiams and Vayalagamsare addressing poverty in their own way. Identifyingdevelopment issues related to the area and peopleare imperative to evolve appropriate developmentpolicies. The people’s organisations at differentlevels plan to declare poverty free families each year.This will help keep the focus on poverty reductionand ensure that all initiatives are geared towards it.This paves the way for declaring poverty freefamilies, groups and villages over a period andfinally the entire area under the particular peoples’organisation.

Measuring changes: Development InformationSystem

DHAN has a well established managementinformation system for measuring its outputs. Also itfacilitates studies, internal and external evaluations

for assessing the impact of the programme. Acomprehensive development information system hasbeen devised to collect the baseline information forthe members, and documenting the changes in thelives of the members at defined periodicity.

An Action-Reflection-Action mode of intervention isdone by the professionals in DHAN through asystem called ‘Development Intervention Group(DIG)’, wherein each professionals directly handlesfive groups in a location and this provides anopportunity to understand the developmental needsof the members on first hand and in turn evolvingsuitable interventions. As an advancement of thisDIG, the Kalanjiam Programme has evolved‘Development Information System (DIS)’ toexclusively monitor the development issues,interventions and their outcomes.

DIS includes a range of tools, techniques andprocesses with defined roles and responsibilities atdifferent levels, which generate and disseminateinformation for decision making on developmentinterventions. The DIS goes beyond ad-hoc and timebound studies and it envisages a permanentmechanism as an integral part of the Programme.The system would enable the Programme andpeople’s institutions in evaluating the existinginterventions, products and experimentations,evolving new products and strategies, formulating

Development Issue Poverty Reduction Goals


and updating policies, and creating a knowledgebase. Primary emphasis in DIS is on peopleorientation, which implies that the informationgenerated out of the system would be owned by thepeople for decision making and other applications.

A structured tool has been developed to collect dataon the quantitative variables. Data collection is donethrough household interviews by the professionals.A baseline of information in the line of selectedvariables is created first and the database is updatedthrough the same tools and techniques on periodicintervals. The results and interpretations of thesurvey help design location and context specificstrategies and products. Since the basic assumptionof DIS is ‘people orientation’, major emphasis isgiven to make the community to own theinformation. In order to achieve this, processes suchas sharing the observations derived out of the surveywith the people and goal setting by the groups forfurther action is facilitated.

Goal setting at the family level

Goal-setting is an integral part of DevelopmentInformation System, wherein the group membersmeet once in a year with an exclusive focus ofreviewing and setting development goals ofindividual families as a group. This exercise is donewith the audited financial statements of theprevious year, outputs of goal setting exercise donein the last year, confirmation of savings, loan

outstanding and loan graduation details, a detailedrecord of the benefits received by members includinghealth, education, insurance, and other civicprogrammes from the cluster or federation. All themembers deliberate changes in their families,immediate and long term needs, plan for the comingyear, support required and so on. Individual plansare collated at the group level and it becomes thegroup’s goal.

The goal setting exercise allows members to decidewhat they want to accomplish and sets theguidelines for reaching them. Effective goal-settingstarts with a member’s personal desire to improve,and it ends with a group’s effort and willingness towork for the outcome of choice. Goal-settingsimplifies and makes possible the attainment of aseemingly impossible dream. Setting personal goalswithin a group also makes the possibility for successreal because by setting a personal goal publicly,group members may increase their willingness towork through tough times.

The goal-setting also aids in improving member’sfocus on the important details necessary forachieving a goal. It is so easy to lose focus or becomedistracted by other responsibilities, and in theprocess, abandon goals; by setting a goal andoutlining the steps required for achievement,meeting the goal becomes a priority for not only themember, but also for the group.

Towards achieving the localised MDGs: DHAN’s way

GOAL 1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY AND HUNGER

Poverty and hunger are two complex and fundamental challenges. Enabling poor to access sustainable livelihood opportunities help prevent hunger and poverty. Keeping Poverty

Reduction as an overarching goal, DHAN believes firmly on the enabling approach, where thepoor families are facilitated to organise their social capital in the form of self–governed nestedinstitutions around microfinance, water, rainfed farming and ICT. They in turn conserve and

develop the natural capital such as land and water bodies traditionally enjoyed and protected by them; gainaccess and control over financial capital through contextualized microfinance services and products;enhance human capital by building leadership and enterprising skills; create and strengthen physical capitalin the form of income generating assets.


Microfinance for poverty reduction

DHAN believes that creation of aseparate line of credit for consumptionin the groups would help the members tosecure food and healthcare to come outof hunger and malnourishment. Thepeoples’ organisations built on thetheme of microfinance facilitatesmoothing of cash flows of the poorfamilies to enable them fulfill theirconsumption needs. The peoples’organisations further work on providinglivelihood skills for raising employabilityof youths in addition to extendingenterprise support services through non-exploitative input and output marketlinkages for the poor producers including farmers,fishers and artisans. As one of the core componentsof microfinance theme, the Kalanjiams ensure socialsecurity measures through appropriate insuranceproducts to prevent the poor from falling again intodebt trap due to loss of earning members, suddenhealth risks, ageing, crop loss and asset loss. Thefederations work with the mainstream institutionsto ensure entitlements for the poor members fromthe state such as public distribution systems,pensions and subsidies meant for poor andvulnerable.

The microfinance programmes in Vayalagam andrainfed farming development themes help theirmembers through enhancing production andproductivity of resource scarce and marginal landsthrough loan products for land improvement and

quality input supply. Similarly the CALL programmeintegrates climate change mitigation mechanisms inthe networks of SHGs, such as disaster risk funds,vulnerability mapping, and setting up humanitariancells in Federations for relief and restoration at timesof disasters.

Microfinance products and services that wereintegrated as part of Vayalagams have helped thefarmers and landless labourers for creatingproductive assets such as livestock, landdevelopment, and meeting working capital needs.Similarly, collective marketing of produces forbargaining better price and collective purchase offarm inputs such as seeds, fertilizer, and pesticidesat reduced price have helped the farmers to enhancetheir incomes enabling them to secure their food andmitigate hunger.

Financial Inclusion for realising MDGs

The National Sample Survey Organisation’s data as per 59th roundsurvey reveal that 45.9 million farmer households in the country (51.4percent), out of a total of 89.3 million households do not have accesscredit, either from institutional or non–institutional sources. Further,despite the vast network of bank branches, only 27 percent of totalfarm households have access to formal sources of credit, of whichone-third also borrows from informal sources. Among non-cultivatorhouseholds nearly 80 percent do not access credit from any source.Financial inclusion, which is promoted by the Indian government andbanks today, is not a ‘start’ from the scratch. Already the Self Help Group movement in India has shownthe way by connecting the millions of poor families to the banking system.


DHAN Foundation has been working on demystifying financial inclusion through building localizedfinancial institutions of poor men and women for the past two decades. The credit delivery models of stateand some NGOs view poor as only users of services. Whereas DHAN values poor as partners in thedevelopment process and promotes SHG federations as people’s organisations, where the poor themselvesare owners, managers and clients of the organisations.

A federation is an autonomous legal entity of 200-300 primary groups with around 3000-4000 poor womenas members promoted at Panchayat union level. The emphasis is on member ownership, control anddecision making encouraging local self-governance. DHAN provides the techno-managerial support. TheFederations evolve need-based, context-specific products for savings, credit and insurance as per thedemand.

Savings in Self Help Groups bring equity and build ownership with rights to the poor that ensuresentitlements for financial services. The Self Help Groups promoted by DHAN have exploded the myth“Poor cannot save”, and they have shown the success of savings–led microfinance model. Continued accessto credit has enhanced livelihood opportunities and asset creation. All the eligible groups promoted byDHAN have been linked with commercial banks and mobilized credit. The groups provide a separate line ofcredit for consumption, which can protect the investment credit given to the members for livelihoodscreation. The members avail loans for healthcare, education, and to pay out their debts that they availedearlier from moneylenders at exploitative interest rates. Micro Insurance is another critical input that canaddress the multiple risks and vulnerabilities faced by the poor through insurance products for life, health,crop and assets.

Contributions

Nearly two decades of intensive work by DHANFoundation in some of the backward districts ofIndia has resulted in an enabling model ofmicrofinance for poverty reduction.

Over 30000 Self Help Groups of poor women,small and marginal farmers, fishers, and landlesslabourers covering 810,000 poor families havebeen organised in 12 Indian states

All these poor have an accumulated savings of`1,292 million in their institutions.

All the Self Help Groups promoted by DHANhave been linked with 210 branches of 30commercial banks and mobilized over `3,830million as credit.

With their own savings and credit mobilizedfrom banks, they have generated credit worth of`7,928 million for poverty reduction. About 30percent of these loans were given for food andhealthcare

Micro Insurance initiatives have helped reach600,000 poor families with an annual premiumof `40 million to provide a risk cover to the tuneof `26,546 million.

All these SHGs networked into 133 autonomousFederations, are truly democratic self-sufficientcivic institutions. These Federations are theideal platforms for realizing the MDGs throughtheir collective action and in collaboration withmainstream institutions.

Water security for food security

Water is elixir of life, says the Saint PoetThiruvalluvar. Water and poverty are deeplyconnected. Right to food is a basic right for all and isan integral part of the right to life enshrined in theIndian Constitution as well as the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights. DHAN’s Kalanjiamenabling model of microfinance lays primacy onproviding a separate line of credit for consumptionand emergencies; otherwise the poor families willliquidate even the meager productive assets theypossess. The Vayalagam Tankfed and Rainfedfarming development programmes work foraugmenting food security of the small and marginalfarmers by securing water availability, improvingcrop water use efficiency, zero budget naturalfarming, facilitating collective trading of farm inputsand outputs, ensuring credit and insurance servicesand other agro based interventions.


Poverty reduction strategy of Rainfed Farming Development Programme – Combining land, water,

microfinance and livelihoods

Asset development through

Accessing land e.g. share–cropping, leasing–in land and purchase

Upgrading performance of assets e.g. land leveling to enhance productivity of land

Creating assets e.g. converting uncultivable land into cultivable land

Protecting assets e.g. insuring milch animals

Restoring assets e.g. reclaiming salt affected and weed infested land.

Reducing vulnerabilities in existing livelihood through

Ensuring capital for farming through microfinance products and services such as savings and credit

Mitigating risks through mutual insurance products for life, health, livestock and crop

Increasing drought tolerance of crops through seed treatment and seed hardening

Improvement of existing livelihoods through

Creating farm ponds to ensure water and critical stages of crops

Supplying good seed stock

Promoting Zero Budget Natural Farming

Agronomical practices like nutrient spray and earthing–up in groundnut

Collective purchase of inputs and marketing of produces

Diversifying rainfed farming based livelihoods from

Agriculture to livestock rearing,

Annual crops to tree crops

More water requiring crops to less water requiring crops

More climate–vulnerable crops to less climate–vulnerable crops

Minor irrigation structures such as tanks and pondsare part of village eco-systems and they help thelocal communities meet the various demands viz.irrigation, human consumption for drinking anddomestic purpose, industrial use, for animal herdsand so on. Regeneration of the tank complexenvironment leads to economic well - being offarmers as well as landless, as a result of greaterresource availability, improved agriculture andanimal care, and consequently, increased incomesand secured consumption. More than a decade ofDHAN’s experience on minor irrigation structureslike tanks and ponds in the south Indian peninsularhas demonstrated that community centricconservation and development works on these timetested native wisdom of our forefathers haveresulted in enhanced access to water for farmingthrough increased storage of water in tanks. Thesubsequent shift of DHAN’s focus from individual

tanks to chain of tanks, then tank–based watershedsexpanded the scope of the programme to take upother components such as farm ponds andcommunity wells for providing life saving irrigationto crops, land treatment and agriculturaldevelopment.


Achieving Productive Employment

There are many causes of poverty but ultimately thepoor are poor because they earn too little from whatthey do. Within the primary groups of women orfarmers organised by DHAN, the poor families aregoing through survival, subsistence, and selfemployed stages of poverty according to possessionof productive assets, employable skills, number ofdependents and family life cycle. They graduatefrom one level to the other through facilitation bythe primary groups and their networks, by acquiringnew assets, improving performance of existingassets, gaining employable skills and access tomarket linkages. However, the pace of graduationdepends on the contextual and structural issuesamong the rural, urban, coastal and tribalenvironments.

Livelihood Initiative with Functional Education

(LIFE)

Appropriate knowledge and skill are essential forpeople to successfully respond to the opportunitiesand challenges of social, economic and technologicalchanges. The number of youths unemployed andunder employed is increasing. When the potential ofthese youths are not tapped, they dissipate theirenergy through unwanted social activities. On theother hand the industries are in need of trained manpower to meet their growing demand. They couldnot find out skilled laborers. Imparting requiredskills to enhance the employability of the youths andbuild their capacities to meet the needs of thecurrent job market are very much needed. Withsound collaboration between grassrootsorganizations involved in skill building andindustries that are in need of manpower we canchannelise the human resource for better future.

Most of the members, especially women in thepeople organisations promoted by DHAN have theentrepreneurship potential. But they need trainingfor acquiring new skills as well as upgrading theskills that they already possess. The Peopleorganisations promoted by DHAN already have theexperience of providing skill training on establishedactivities such as dairy and tailoring to theirmembers. Twenty five federations have been runningCommunity Colleges, providing computer based job

oriented courses to the rural and urban youths.There was a need expressed by the members onother trades that could fetch employment in nearbytowns and cities. The DHAN People Academy, afterhaving a series of consultations with these people’sorganisations has evolved a model for decentralizedskill building centres, called LIFE (LivelihoodInitiatives with Functional Education) Centres. Itaims at imparting livelihood oriented skills to thepoor women and men, particularly youths throughvocational education. The expected outcome is tomake them employable and capable of becoming anentrepreneur, and thereby enabling them to comeout of poverty. The livelihood initiatives areimplemented in collaboration with government,industries, polytechnics and industrial traininginstitutes. The Centre reaches the people throughKalanjiam federations.

The first LIFE Centrewas initiated inMadurai to serve themember families livingin urban slums andrural areas adjoiningMadurai city. TheLIFE Centre started itsactivities withcomputer educationcourse and laterdiversified to skillbuilding in varioustrades. Based on the experiences gained over twoyears, eight more centres have been initiated during2009-2010 in rural locations such as Viraganur,Kazhugumalai, Maraimalainagar, Nillakottai,Pallathur, Tanjore and Singampuneri federations inTamil Nadu and Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh. Thesecentres were initiated with an initial needassessment exercise, in which the peoples’ existingskill sets, their needs and expectations in the Marketwere assessed. Training courses were short listedbased on the assessment. These Centres provideservices to the poor families in Kalanjiam groups aswell as the other poor families. So far, over 10,000youths have been trained in the CommunityColleges run by the Federations on various tradesand facilitated to get employed in nearby towns andcities as well as to initiate their own units with theassistance from Kalanjiams.

Members have initiated`3,015 million worth of

Income GeneratingActivities with the loan

support from their groups

Kalanjiam Thozhilagam

Limited, a public limitedcompany promoted by

SHGs facilitated `55million worth of business

linkages


Case: LIFE impacts Varalakshmi’s life:

Varalakhsmi, 27 years is a native ofBengalooru, got married to Rajendran, who

hails from Madurai, Tamil Nadu. Their daughteris studying 5th standard. Varalakhsmi lost her husbandthree years ago when they were living in Bengalooru.After that she and her daughter have come back toMadurai. They were supported by her in-laws for sometime. She had passed 12th standard and started lookingfor some employment in Madurai. She came to knowabout the LIFE Centre in Madurai through her neighbor,who had earlier undergone a training course in it. With courage and determination she learnedcomputer course as well as Videography course from this center. Before learning this skill, herfamily was surviving only using the pension money of `2000. After successfully completion ofthese courses, she has joined a local studio as a video editor. Now she earns `4500 as monthlyincome and she runs her family without depending on others.

GOAL 2: ENSURING PRIMARY EDUCATION

Poverty prevents children from usingopportunities to live healthy and get good

quality education. DHAN believes thateducation can play a key role in breaking thevicious cycle of poverty and social exclusion.

It is crucial to invest in quality childcare and education.Recognizing the vital role of primary education,particularly for the girl children, the Kalanjiam federationspromoted by DHAN take up education as a key civicdevelopment agenda. The special school and tuitioncentres being run by the federations show the ability ofwomen in managing quality education services to theirchildren.

Activity based learning is promotedby the remedial schools run by theKalanjiam federations in Tirupati,Adilabad, Madurai, Theni andDindigul districts

Twenty percent of loans availed bythe Kalanjiam women for theirchildren's education.

The SHG federations havefacilitated 28,766 families to avail`31 million as educationscholarships for their children fromthe Life Insurance Corporation ofIndia.

GOAL 3: PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER WOMEN

DHAN recognises gender inequality as a major development issue and is committed to addressing this issue in all its development interventions. DHAN imbibes

'empowerment' within its mission, core values and development philosophy, which getsexpressed in its approach of enabling individuals to expanded their choices andcapabilities. Gender equality is a cross-cutting goal in all the development interventions of

DHAN. The focus is on facilitating women to gain control over social and economic conditions and overdemocratic participation in their communities. It believes that social change will evolve over a period oftime and leading to economic empowerment. DHAN, hence, has adopted the gender-sensitive economiccentric approach.


Gender Matters

In spite of constituting half of the humanpopulation, and significantly contributing todevelopment by playing crucial role in economicactivities, women continue to be a deprived sectionin the society. Their needs and issues have beenneglected since generations and they are deprived oftheir basic rights and access to wealth, education,health care, inherited assets and social status. Theyare the worst sufferers due to drudgery, ill-health,illiteracy and deprivation. Based on its commitmentto work with the disadvantaged sections of society,DHAN ensures that approaches towardsempowerment of women cut across all itsdevelopment programmes and thereby strives tocreate a favourable atmosphere for women’sdevelopment and well-being. The deprivation anddisparities of women are quite telltale: wagedisparity, income disparity, consequential assetdisparity, and generally widespread acceptanceamong the women that decision making is men’sdomain. Despite several development programmesinitiated by government and civil societies in pastdecades gender imbalance has not received adequateattention. What’s more, the problem got moreaccentuated for lack of gender focus and sensitivity.

DHAN’s focus on gender started from the beginningof 1990 when it initiated its first thematic programmicrofinance. In fact, gender focus for DHAN stemsfrom its mission of building people and institutionsfor addressing poverty from a holistic perspective.This has as much social as economic andconsequential political empowerment processevolving on its natural phase and pace. Further ourmission finds its moorings in our core values:grassroots action, innovation, enabling,collaboration, excellence and self-regulation.

These core values and objectives are reflected ineach of DHAN’s initiatives and actions. Theoutcome of its processes is seen more in access andcontrol and decision-making through democraticprocesses. The recognition of women’spowerlessness and addressing it with the base of loweconomic status of women is internalised at all levelsin the organisation. Basic issues to be addressed are

internalised in the system that women are restrictedto low-paid work; lack of access to education,training and credit; a lot of invisible and unpaidwork; restricted mobility; lack of any opportunitiesto express their abilities; and gender discriminationintermixed with cultural issues. With thisunderstanding, Kalanjiam community bankingprogramme for women has moved with clearreflection of fundamental core values and purpose ofDHAN, followed with the similar philosophical andpractice under tones of other development themessuch as Tank, ICT, Rainfed and Panchayat.

One of the DHAN’s core beliefs is to allow women tolearn in their own way and not short-circuit theprocesses. The ultimate goal is self-reliance andempowerment through interdependence withcommunity. For this purpose, DHAN has adopted agender-centred four generation strategy achievingone after the other in its Kalanjiam enabling modelof microfinance. The first generation process issocial intermediation, followed by financialintermediation process in the second generation,livelihood and business promotion during thirdgeneration, and finally civic programmeinterventions in the fourth generation.

Addressing gender issues: Vayalagam Approach

Both farmer and his spouse are members andthe household is treated as a unit. Women ingovernance position, gives a space for makingeffective decisions.

Exclusive space for women in fish rearing,tree growing, tank-fed cultivation, andcultivation of medicinal plants on the tankbund and channel

Management of drinking water supplyprogrammes by women self help groups

Reducing drudgery of women by providingaccess to drinking water within their villageand preventing them from walking for longdistance to fetch water

Building skills of women on advancedtechnologies of agricultural developmentincreases water use efficiency, productivityand participation in agriculture development.


Similarly the tank-fed agriculture developmentprogramme promotes tank associations for womenand men farmers to access common propertyresources such as irrigation tanks, Ooranis (drinkingwater bodies), and common agriculture land forutilising and enjoying equal benefits. Water andmicrofinance is seen as a fulcrum of development. InDHAN’s perception, for effective poverty reduction,microfinance services have to be managed bywomen at a larger scale with the collaboration ofmainstream institutions. It believes that the realdevelopment will take place when the choices ofdevelopment are clarified and promoted amongthem by creating access and control over resources,increasing their sphere of decision making indemocratic spaces in the community and gaining thecontrol over their lives. It is also believed thateconomic empowerment is the entry point forunleashing the potential of women in theirdevelopment spheres.

DHAN promotes three kinds of institutions to realiseits mission: institutions for fostering developmentinnovations, institutions for reaching the scale anddeepening the development themes for povertyreduction and institutions for building stronggrassroots democracy as a demand system forachieving quality of life and self-reliance throughsustainable development.

Therefore in this sense, empowerment may beinterpreted for DHAN as the process by which thewomen and community gain control over social andeconomic conditions and over democraticparticipation in their communities. DHAN thusbelieves that social change will evolve over a periodof time with economic strengthening and thus viewseconomic empowerment as the beginning of thesocial change. DHAN, hence, has adopted thegender-sensitive economic entry approach.

The Kalanjiam federations provide exclusive identityfor women from poor families, create an enablingenvironment for promoting collective workingculture (enabling) and facilitate expression of theirneeds and interests through legitimate democraticprocess (entitlement and empowerment). The socialcapital promotes greater awareness through a wellset communication systems in their organisations

about the issues to be addressed. It also helps DHANto identify the leadership and nurture it forsustaining the federations and its developmentactivities. The institution building process set in thefederations creates ample space for everyone toexperience leadership by unleashing their hiddentalents. It also builds their managerial abilities.

Contributions

Ninety percent of the 810,185 membersorganised into SHGs by DHAN around thethemes of microfinance, water, ICT, Panchayatand rainfed farming are women.

Empowering Women: The Kalanjiam strategies

Creating assets in the name of women orcreate equal stake for women in theproperties and livelihood assets generatedwith groups' support

Ensuring compulsory enrollment of girlchildren in primary schools and continuity forsecondary and graduate education

Creating leadership space for women in thegroups and their networks

Creating an enabling environment for thegroup and network leaders to represent inlarger social / political forums within andoutside the villages.

Raising the level of awareness of women ontheir personal healthcare and provide socialsecurity (insurance) cover for their life, healthand assets

Evolving exclusive savings and loan productsfor securing health and education for thewomen members and their daughters

Including the agenda of addressing domesticviolence faced by the women members in thegroups

Including legal education as an importantcomponent in the trainings organised bygroups and their networks.

Creating a legal support cells in thefederations to counsel, advise and extendlegal support to the women facing domesticviolence


Around 75 percent of women have been coveredunder life insurance and 40 percent of thewomen have been covered under healthinsurance.

The SHGs are primarily meant for empoweringthe poor women economically, which would inturn elevate their position within and outsidethe family. All the women were able to initiate`3,015 million worth of Income GeneratingActivities with the loan support from theirgroups. They have secured savings of `1,292million in their groups.

The leadership capacities of poor women havebeen unleashed. Around one lakh womenmembers are serving as leaders in their primary

groups and networks and another 40,000members had already served as leaders.

In addition to a number of trainings andexposure programmes organised for themembers and leaders at their group level, theDHAN People Academy has offered structuredlong duration training programmes oncommunity organisation, leadership, andPancahayat systems to 6,000 women members.

These women empowerment programmes arespearheaded by the committed field workers atthe grassroots level. Eighty percent of the 2,200field workers serving the peoples’ organisationsare women.

GOAL 4: REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY & GOAL 5: IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH

Women and children are more vulnerable due to poor nutrition, lack of sanitation,

poor hygiene awareness, and lack of access toquality healthcare. The Kalanjiam Federationspromoted by DHAN design and implementcomprehensive reproductive and child healthprogramme to bring positive changes in thehealth seeking behaviour of the members’families to prevent or reduce anemia and

malnutrition among mothers and adolescent girls. TheKalanjiam women are enabled to devise ‘Self Health Governance’ and encouraged to work withGovernment healthcare system to ensure quality healthcare for all the poor.

Combating anaemia: Ensuring maternal and child

health

In India, maternal mortality rate remains high;under-five mortality rate is also high, among whichinfant mortality is significantly high. Fightinganaemia can help reduce child mortality (MDG 4)and improve maternal health (MDG 5). WorldHealth Organization (WHO) estimates that over onethird of the world’s population suffer from anaemia.India continues to be one of the countries with thehighest prevalence of anaemia. National FamilyHealth Survey (NFHS) estimates reveal theprevalence of anaemia to be 70-80 percent inchildren, and 70 percent in pregnant women.

This is more pronounced in rural areas. While thesurvey says 56 percent of adolescent girls areanemic, and independent survey in rural India bySurvival for Women and Children (SWACH)Foundation (1997) found an anaemia prevalence rateof 82.9 percent among girls in school and 92.7percent among girls not in school. These girls are ourpotential mothers. Anaemia causes adverse effectson physical and cognitive performance ofindividuals. But the true toll of anaemia lies in theill-effects on maternal and fetal health.

In India, 20 percent of all the maternal deaths areattributed to anaemia during pregnancy and inanother 40 percent, anaemia is a contributory factor.


Focus on Child and Maternal Health: The Kalanjiam approach

Focusing on pregnant women and adolescent girls for their reproductive health includingcontraceptive use, anemia control, personal hygiene, and family planning.

Promoting community health workers and trained native delivery attendants through the SHGsand networks to provide Antenatal and Postnatal care to the poor women members.

Evolving and offering suitable savings, credit and insurance products to women members for theirpregnancy and healthcare

Raising the level of awareness on the ill–effects of early marriages and early pregnancies.

Ensuring 100 percent follow–up of immunization programme to the pregnant mothers and children

Supporting the immunization campaigns and prevention of communicable diseases campaigns

Encouraging breastfeeding for minimum up to 6 months to 2 years with complementary feeding

Integrating reproductive and child health as a critical component of SHGs and its networksthrough appropriate microfinance products, health education through BCC strategies, linking themwith mainstream programmes

Promoting safe drinking water, sanitation and personal hygiene in the members’ families throughaffordable products and services, BCC strategies to avoid infectious diseases.

Ensuring access and quality of delivery of nutrition support programmes of states to children andpregnant mothers

Ensuring institutional deliveries and follow up

The rate of low birth weight and premature childrenborn to anaemic mothers is also high. So, addressinganaemia can help us achieve the twin goal ofreducing child mortality (MDG 4) as well asensuring maternal health (MDG 5).

DHAN Foundation’s Anemia Control Project wasdone with 1,204 Kalanjiam SHGs; benefitting 1315pregnant women and 6,690 adolescent girls.‘Enabling Self Health Governance’ was the core

18,000 Kalanjiam women, 9,000adolescent girls and 4000 childrenbenefited under Reproductive and ChildHealth Programme

Set to upscale this initiative in other 80locations with 1,60,000 families

Anemia Control project is implemented infive blocks in Tamil Nadu in partnershipwith the Department of Health andFamily Welfare benefiting 10000 maternalmothers and 25,000 adolescent girls

component of the experiment where the people wereenabled to become aware of their rights from thegovernment health care system. A well knitted‘Behavioural Change Communication (BCC)’package was used to bring positive changes in thehealth seeking behaviour of the members’ families.The focus on ‘Linkage Building’ enabled thefederations to build a sound demand system to claimfor legitimate rights from the mainstream and toensure the reach of quality programmes to alleligible poor. Ultimately the ‘Case Management andReferral Services’ with a strong backup of themicrofinance was the foundation of the intervention.

Impact*

Highly significant (P<0.000) decrease in theprevalence of anaemia among pregnant women,by 25.7 percent from 89.3 percent (beforeintervention in 2006) to 63.6 percent (afterintervention in 2009). The mean haemoglobin(Hb) and maximum Hb level had an increasefrom 9.49 to 10.41 g/dl and 12.1 to 14.2 g/dlrespectively.

* According to the evaluation report by Dr. Abel Rajaratnam and Dr. Jolly Abel based on comparison of baseline and end linesurvey taken up among the pregnant women and children covered by the KRCH programme.


Significant (P<0.001) decrease in the prevalenceof anaemia by 34.4 percent among adolescentgirls. The mean Hb and maximum Hb level hadan increase from 9.6 to 11.3 g/dl and 13.0 to 14.4g/dl respectively.

Pregnant women who had minimum of threeantenatal checkups increased from 65.4 percentto 80 percent.

Iron-Folic Acid tablet procurement andconsumption, among adolescent girlssignificantly increased from 22.1 percent to 86.5percent.

Practice of wearing slippers to avoid hookworminfestation increased significantly from 55.6percent to 93.9 percent among pregnant womenand from 55.4 percent to 97.2 percent amongadolescent girls.

Combating malnutrition: Ensuring Healthy Babies

Malnutrition is defined as condition among childrendue to deficiency of one or more nutrient. The majorcause of malnutrition is lack of balanced diet withthe mix of major nutrients like proteins,carbohydrates and fats with minor nutrients likevitamins and minerals. It also happens when themother during her pregnancy doesn’t take a properbalanced diet resulting in the low-birth weight(LBW) and stunted growth of the child.

Case: KVK Implements KRCH - Malnutrition Control Programme

Kamuthi Vattara Kalanjiam(KVK) is one of the federations located in drought proneRamanathapuram district in Tamil Nadu, where the KRCH programme was implemented among

the Kalanjiam members’ families. Since the initiation of programme in 2007, the status of childrenenrolled in the malnutrition control programme of KRCH is given below:

The percentage of children with normal growth parameters has increased from just 33.8percent in 2007-08 to 54.6 percent in 2008-09. Now in 2009-10, it has gone up to 61.8 percent.

Grade 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10(weight against age) No. % No. % No. %

Normal 88 33.8 149 54.6 141 61.8

Grade - I 65 25.0 77 28.2 48 21.1

Grade - II 47 18.1 38 13.9 26 11.4

Grade - III 22 8.5 9 3.3 12 5.3Grade - IV - - - - 1 0.4

Not taken 38 14.6 - - - -

Total 260 100.0 273 100.0 228 100.0

The KalanjiamReproductive andChild Healthprogramme(KRCH)intervenes onpreventing andcorrectingmalnutrition byreinforcing gap between two pregnancies andavoiding early marriages, controlling anemia duringand after pregnancy through iron and folic acidsupplements, ensuring mother feeding and givingde–worming tablets and Vitamin A syrups,vaccination as per schedule, ensuring nutrition withsupplementary food, maintaining sanitation andpersonal hygiene to prevent chronic infections thatlead to underweight.

Health education and health services to preventMalnutrition are given both for the mother and childfrom the moment the child is born till attains threeyears of age. Further, education on timelyvaccination to the child, awareness of nursing thebaby with mother’s milk at least till eighth month ofthe child, and starting supplementary feeding by 4thto 6th month are given. Regularly the child isweighed and monitored by the Kalanjiam healthworkers.


Case: Kamala saves her child

Kamala is a member of Ganapathy Kalanjiam inVelichanatham cluster of Chinnapatti village in

Madurai district, Tamil Nadu. She got married in2000, and she maintains a petty shop in the village andekes out her living. In 2006, at her first delivery shedelivered twins – one child weighing 2.5 kgs and theother one weighing 2.75 kgs. Due to difficulty in rearingthem, she left one child at her mother’s house. In June,2009, she was expecting another child, but due tobleeding and complications, she had to be admitted at hereight month of pregnancy in Government Rajaji Hospital,Madurai. The doctors have conducted caesarian section todeliver the baby weighing just one kilogram. The baby was kept in incubator for five days and 45 dayslater, got vaccinated. It was that time, Kalanjiam Health associate enrolled her in the Kalanjiammalnutrition control programme and monitored Kamala and her baby regularly to ensure that shetakes nutrient rich food and educated on child care. With the advice and follow up of the healthworker, she feeds the child with mother milk, and gives supplement food supplied by the localanganwadi centre. With continuous follow up of the health worker and the care fromKamala, at the 14th month, the baby has moved to II grade, weighing 6.800 kilograms.

Impact of malnutrition control programme*

The child card to monitor the growth of thechildren was found to be maintained by 86.3percent mothers.

Giving sugar water soon after birth of a childwas significantly reduced from 26.2 percent to3.1 percent. The practice of giving colostrumswas adopted by almost all mothers for theirbabies.

Mothers who have started complementary feedat the 4th month increased from 9.2 percent to49 percent while mothers who started from the7th month have decreased from 18.2 percent to3.7 percent.

* According to the evaluation report by Dr. Abel Rajaratnam and Dr. Jolly Abel based on comparison of baseline and end linesurvey taken up among the pregnant women and children covered by the KRCH programme.

Sustainable Access to Healthcare

Health is not only an individual issue, it is acommunity issue. When people identify healthproblem, their health seeking process isinfluenced by availability, accessibility,affordability, adequacy, and acceptability ofhealth infrastructure. In the remote andvulnerable tribal locations prone for epidemics

like Malaria, healthcare is integrated withmicrofinance from very beginning. TheKalanjiam federations evolve and implementcommunity based healthcare solutions for majorhealth issues of women and children such asanemia and malnutrition. They work in concertwith the government and private healthcaresystems for reducing healthcare expenditure andincreasing health seeking behaviour.

The practice of giving vitamin A solution wasadopted for 58.7 percent of the children at leastonce after the intervention as the practice wasuncommon among mothers for their children 0-5years.

The practice of de–worming children 0-5 yearswas not adopted as this was not promoted bythe government health system however onethird of the children (33.2 percent) were de–wormed at least once after the intervention.

The practice of using iodized salt by mothers‘always’ for cooking was significantly (P<0.001)increased after the intervention, however onlylittle more than half the mothers (57 percent)were regularly using it.


SUHAM stands for Sustainable HealthcareAdvancement, a collective health intervention modelevolved by the Kalanjiam Federations promoted byDHAN. This model combines a community ownedmulti-specialty hospital with a mutual healthinsurance package poor families, who are membersin the Kalanjiam SHGs contribute mutually to coverthe healthcare costs from primary care to advancedtreatments. The first hospital was started in Thenito cater to the needs of 25,000 SHG member families.Following the success of the Theni SUHAMHospital, the Madurai hospital was started in 2008to serve over 40,000 poor families.

The primary objective of the venture is to reduceleakages in family cash flows of the poor in the formof medical expenses. The hospital is fully communityowned, with the SHGs having provided `1.2 millioninitially and the remaining was mobilised fromnational and international philanthropic institutions.Kalanjiam leaders review the functioning ofhospitals twice a month. There is a sense of prideand ownership in them.

Both the hospitals have an operation theatre, anoutpatient section, a laboratory and a pharmacy. ForX-ray and scan, the SUHAM Trust has signed amemorandum of understanding with a nearby scancentre that provides its services at highly affordablerates. For intensive and trauma care a tie-up hasbeen arranged with hospitals in the city.

Under the Mutual Health Insurance programme, aspecial product, members are required to pay `300as annual premium for a family of five members andavail themselves of medical treatment for `10,000 ina year. Seventy five per cent of the expenses will bereimbursed for secondary care services at designatedhospitals. For hospitalisation of SHG members of theKalanjiam federations in government medicalinstitutions, wage loss compensation is provided for15 days at the rate of `75 a day in a year. Thehospital provides treatment to the public at thesame cost as for SHG members.

There are ten primary care centres operating inFederation offices in both Theni and Maduraidistricts, to compliment with the SUHAM Hospitals.These centres, which supplement the role of primaryhealth centres, function in the afternoon andevening. Medical camps are organised by theHospital in villages in association with the localPHCs. The hospital follows a code by whichpreference in treatment is given on the basis ofmedical emergency. Medicines are bought only fromwholesale agencies and hence sold at lower rates. Amobile medical unit provides service in interiorvillages and it is also used to bring patients to thehospital in an emergency.

To eradicate malaria, 8000 families from fourtribal locations in Madhya Pradesh andOrissa have been organised under'microfinance plus health' integratedapproach

In Salem and Madurai districts 12000 poorfamilies have been organised to integrateHIV-AIDS control as part of microfinanceactivity

Agreements with 25 referral hospitals havebeen made to avail healthcare at 30 - 35percent lesser than the actual rates.

GOAL 7: ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Access by the poor to natural resources, includingland, forests, water, fisheries and wildlife, isessential for sustainable poverty reduction. DHANbelieves that building collective conscience andaction among the communities is the key to

conserve and manage natural and man–made resources. Withthis philosophy, DHAN is working on the centuries–old waterharvesting system called ‘tanks’ by organizing the farmers toconserve and develop such time tested indigenous innovations.Similarly, the Coastal Conservation and Livelihoods Development Programme promote conservationfocused traditional livelihoods around marine resources in addition to community–led disasterpreparedness strategies.


Reviving Community-led conservation

India has historical evidences of its humaninterventions in the management of water foragriculture from village water bodies. One suchintervention is an irrigation tank. A tank is a simplerainwater harvesting structure designed by earlysettlers using indigenous wisdom and constructedwith the generous support of native rulers andchieftains. There exist 500,000 irrigation tanks in thecountry, of which 150,000 tanks are located in thesemi arid region of Deccan plateau. They are locatedin sequential chains or cascades, effectivelycapturing the rainfall and serving multiple uses withirrigation having the major share.

The customary water rights enjoyed by communitywere indeed gained by them due to their hard workin construction as well as in maintenance. The stoneinscriptions found on some of the age old tanksthrow light on public participation in maintenanceand renovation. The communities followed a uniquesystem of Kudimaramath where each family wouldcontribute their labour for the repair andmaintenance works. But after the introduction ofRyotwari settlements by the middle of 19th century,the effectiveness of the traditional system

deteriorated progressively, resulted in decay of localmanagement. After independence their managementfunctions also come under the different linedepartments with neither integral approach norcommon purpose. This has resulted in the steadydecline of the performance efficiency anddegradation of these precious small scale waterbodies.

The performance of these tanks has been decliningover the years. The entire country had lost 1.7million ha of area irrigated by tanks, nearly 25percent of the total tank irrigated area. Around `51billion worth of capital loss is estimated due to thisdecline (Indian Planning Commission, 1999); theindirect loss in ground water recharge, as drinkingwater source are not quantified. Since the tankirrigated areas benefit the marginal farmers, thelivelihoods of these farmers are affected.

DHAN Foundation has therefore chosen to interveneto restore these multipurpose tanks to their designedstandard and performance efficiency, by mobilizingthe users, organizing them into associations andundertaking the restoration work through them,thereby reviving the traditional local management.

Programme

Kalanjiam CommunityBanking

Vayalagam TankfedAgriculture DevelopmentProgramme

Priorities

Low cost Household Water Treatment Methods through the SHGs toprovide safe drinking water

Evolve microfinance products to provide electricity, safe drinking water,water harvesting, farm pond construction, horticulture plantations, treeplantation, and inland fishery and so on.

Focus on house construction and up gradation for providing decentliving environment to the urban poor.

Enhance production and productivity of resource scarce and marginallands through loan products for land improvement and quality inputsupply, creating productive assets such as livestock, fulfilling workingcapital needs of farmers

Holistic development of water resources through tank based watersheddevelopment

Conjunctive use of Tank water and ground water

Recharging groundwater aquifers

Fisheries in tanks and foreshore plantation for providing additionalincome for upkeep of tanks·


Creation of endowments for continuous repair and maintenance of tanksand tank structures

Enhancing accessibility to drinking water through Ponds/Ooranis

Low cost Household Water Treatment Methods to provide safe drinkingwater

Promoting Zero Budget Natural farming with no/low external input

Soil and moisture conservation in individual farm holdings through landdevelopment, farm pond individual approach

Collective efforts for water conservation through tank based watersheddevelopment

Renovation of coastal water bodies including tanks, village ponds, farmponds and restoration of community management to sustain coastalfarming livelihoods.

Tree plantation along the water bodies, wastelands and horticulturalplantation in the farm lands

Watershed development

Conservation Movement at the district level to create awareness andeducate the farmers on climate change

Involving local communities on eco-friendly methods of fishing andorienting them on legal and environmental implications of using bannedmethods of fishing.

Creating disaster mitigation funds at the Peoples’ Organisations to meetfuture disasters

Ensuring social security for the lives, health, and livelihood assets of thecoastal communities,

Rainfed FarmingDevelopmentProgramme

Coastal Conservationand LivelihoodsProgramme

Contributions

DHAN Foundation’s Vayalagam Programmewas initiated to conserve small-scale waterbodies and bring back the local management ofthe tank system in the long run; the programmepromotes people institutions, at various levelsfrom tanks to cascades, watersheds and at basinlevel. Water, now, has become a unique tool foralleviating poverty.

Around 161,307 poor farmers are organized as2164 Vayalagams (or Tank Farmers’Associations) and 161 Cascade associations inconserving traditional water structures liketanks, ponds and cascades.

Mobilized and implemented `755 million worthof conservation and development programmes

in partnership with development agencies ofstate and central governments, national andinternational donors.

In 2009 alone, the Vayalagam programme hastaken up and completed conservation worksworth of `42.26 million, in addition to `20million worth of physical works in differentstages of completion.

Resulted in stabilizing cultivation in 57,541hectares of tank command area.

Farmers Groups have generated `202 million forvarious agricultural production needs throughtheir microfinance activities


Ensuring access to Drinking Water

Ramanathapuram district is a water-starved regionin Tamil Nadu. Water is scarce and often a pricedcommodity in this area. Located at the tail end ofthe Vaigai River, there are no other perennial rivers.Because of saline nature of ground water there is noscope of having wells for drinking water or irrigationpurposes. People have to walk 3-5 kms. to fetchwater, and the burden falls mostly on women.Harvesting and storing the rain water is the onlyway. There exists for centuries in these regions,ancient small-scale water sources called Ooranisbuilt with the traditional wisdom of the nativepeople and managed locally. These Ooranis are dug-out ponds 2-5 metres deep, built in the most hydro-geologically strategic location to harvest themaximum of the monsoonal rain for future use.Additionally, Ooranis are also known to helprecharge groundwater.

Ramanathapuram district is home to around 3000such Ooranis with each village having two or threeponds, one for drinking, other for domestic purposesand for animals. The people have been followingsome traditional methods for lifting and purifyingthe water. Somehow in the last 200 years,centralised state-owned water supply projects (likehand pumps and wells dependent on groundwater)overlooked this simple system. And today we are indesperate need of reinventing what was once asustainable way of life. Years of neglect havereduced the efficiency of Ooranis due to thedependency on state-owned water supply systems,official emphasis on groundwater based watersupply systems, lack of understanding the Ooranisystem.

DHAN’s focus was on the tanks to renovate themand to bring back the farmer’s management andthereby stabilize the livelihoods of the farmersdependent on it. When DHAN foundation started itswork in Ramanathapuram the people made ademand for work on their Ooranis, which they saidwas as important if not more important than workon the tank. The first Oorani was done in 1993 in asmall village called Thattanendal. A study on theOoranis as source of drinking water was taken up

with International Water Management Institute in1999 which revealed that the Ooranis were anenduring and sustainable solution to the frequentwater scarcity faced by the district.

Contributions

Nearly 81 percent of the people in theRamanathapuram district get their drinkingwater mainly from Ooranis (47 percent) andtanks (34 percent). The rest use groundwater ordesalinated water along with Ooranis.

Source: The Socio-Ecology of Groundwater inIndia, ANNUAL REPORT 2002-2003,International Water Management InstituteSurvey 2002

120 Ooranis (traditional drinking water ponds)were rehabilitated in two drought pronedistricts in India.

Over 120,000 people gained access to drinkingwater by renovation of Ooranis.

Ooranis provide water for drinking and forlivestock and also recharge groundwater.

Before women have to walk 1-2 km to fetchwater and revival of Ooranis saved aptly 365hours or 45 working days.

After Ooranis were restored, incidences ofdiseases especially gastrointestinal disordersrelated to water shortages and water-bornediseases reduced.

Locally available and managed water sourcemeans reduced dependency on centralisedwater supply systems


Case: Renovating oorani in Orivayal village

Orivayal village is situated in KadaladiBlock of Ramanathapuram district in Tamil

Nadu. The village has 249 households wherefarming is the major livelihood with tank as themajor source of irrigation. Safe drinking water hasbeen a worry to the village. Though the government

has put up four bore wells and an over head tank inthe village high salinity, makes it unfit even forbathing. A decade ago, a well was excavated on the

bund of the village irrigation tank, but the wellwater was not sufficient to meet the drinking waterneeds of the village throughout the year.

Oorani in Orivayal village

The village has a drinking water Oorani situated near the local primary school. In the past 10 years,people’s dependency on the Oorani was increasing owing to the failure of conventional water supply

source. At the same time, the water available in the Oorani is inadequate to fulfill the mounting demandfor drinking water, due to its reduced capacity. And villagers sometimes have no option, but to go tonearby villages to fetch drinking water. A village elder says, “In summer we go to Punaivasal, six

kilometers away to bring drinking water. Both men and women fetch water with the help of bicycle or busfrom the hand pump there.” “Widening this Oorani would provide water throughout the year……...” hefurther added. Thus situation necessitates the need to rehabilitate the Oorani and enhance its storagecapacity.

Oorani rehabilitation

DHAN Foundation has been working in the area since 2002, and promoted Vayalagam in the village. In

2008, the villagers with the support from DHAN took up the Oorani rehabilitation work with total cost of`1,68,500. Out of this the villagers alone contributed `52,500 (31 percent), while `1,16,000 came from Pan-IIT alumni. DHAN Foundation contributed `20,000 by providing professional and techno-managerialsupport. After the construction, the water problem in the village is solved.

“Now as the Oorani has been rehabilitated, there won’t be any water scarcity in future,” saysKaruppaiah. The villagers have realised the importance of preserving the Oorani. They haveplanned to put a fence around the Oorani to avoid entry of animals.

Ensuring Safe Drinking water

Though India has 16 percent of world’s population,it has only 4 percent of the total availablefreshwater; providing drinking water, particularly inrural areas is still a challenge. If availability is onepart of the equation, quality is another. Around194,000 hamlets are affected by poor water quality

with 200 million Indians having no access to safedrinking water (Bharat Nirman Action Plan, 2006).About 30 percent of urban and 85 percent of ruralhouseholds still depend on completely untreatedsurface or ground water.

No wonder, more than 86 percent of the diseases inthe country are attributed directly or indirectly to


GOAL 8: DEVELOP A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT

Given the enormous global challenges, the Millennium Development Goals call for partnership with shared commitment involving all the actors include governments,

donors, NGOs, civil societies and corporate to share knowledge, resources, expertise, explorejoint ventures and develop solutions. The peoples’ organisations built by DHAN aroundmicrofinance, local governance, water and agriculture are becoming the centres of

convergence for all the development interventions designed and implemented by these partners. DHANfacilitates convergence, where the community can define the problems, propose solutions, and make thechanges happen, using methods with which they are familiar.

water, for which at least 25-30 percent of family’sincome is drained towards health care expenses.India has the highest number of annual child deathsdue to diarrhea at 386,600 (Reuters, 2009). At thesame time, water has become a priced commodity,and a number of sophisticated water purificationtechnologies have sprung up promising safe drinkingwater, apparently not so affordable for the poor. Butthere seems to be hope in the form of a moresustainable and localised solution.

In order to ensure the quality of the drinking water,DHAN supplies Biosand filter, a simple andaffordable method of household water treatmentand storage. The Biosand filter is a modified versionof a slow sand filter made to accommodate for ahousehold utility. The device has been developed bya Canadian Engineer and Scientist named Dr. DavidManz and has been actively promoted by aCanadian development organization named CAWST(Centre for Affordable Water and SanitationTechnology) located at Calgary in Canada.

DHAN Foundation in association with CAWST hasbeen promoting the Biosand Filters for the last tenyears among the poor families. There is nowgrowing evidence that the filter eliminates viruses,bacteria and parasites from household stored water,and reduces the risks of diarrheal disease for peopleof all ages. It can filter 240 litres of water a day.

Contributions

2000 Biosand filters have been installedensuring the quality of drinking water and

benefitting over 15000 people in Tamil Nadu andAndhra Pradesh

Microbiological tests have shown that use ofBiosand filter reduced Coli form bacterialcounts to less than six, safe for humanconsumption

The users have reported that incidences of coldand fever, diarrheal diseases, gastrointestinaland arthritis diseases have come downdrastically

Considerable reduction in hospital expenses inthe family

Health expenses due to water infections havesignificantly reduced

An institutional model has been evolved tomobilise, train, produce, distribute and monitorthe use of Biosand Filters. Women are the mainstakeholders in the whole project.


Connecting Banks and the Poor

There has been increasing realisation about theproblem of inadequate access to formal bankingsystem, particularly for poor sections of the society.According to the 59th round of survey by theNational Sample Survey Organisation, only 27percent of the rural farm households have access toformal sources of credit and one third of this groupalso borrow from non-formal sources. Thisaccentuates the problem of exclusion from gainfullyparticipating in the process of and sharing the fruitsof economic development.

Self-help group (SHG)-Bank linkage programmeshave proven to fill that gap. SHG-bank linkage canhelp poor, especially the women to access the muchneeded capital to enhance their livelihood, increaseincome and thereby improve their standard of living.Studies carried out have clearly established thatmicrofinance programmes contribute to theachievement of several aspects of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs) (GTZ-NABARD Study,2008).

SHGs in India have shown that banking with poor isa viable business proposition thereby creatingbusiness interest to sustain the financial linkageswith SHGs. Federations of SHGs have brought theadvantage of the scale to the banks with a largeclientele base in rural areas and made many ruralbranches vibrant and profitable. In the process, thereis a gradual build up of mutually trustworthyrelationship between the SHGs and banks enablingand nurturing the financial inclusion process forlong.

DHAN Foundation has been one of the pioneers inpromoting and up scaling SHG-Bank partnershipmodel for poverty reduction. Its Kalanjiamprogramme was instrumental in building up anddemonstrating the viability and sustainability of thelinkage model.

DHAN Foundation is one of the resource institutionssupporting the state and banks, training their staffsin scaling-up the SHG–Bank linkage model. Now,people institutions promoted by DHAN have beenrecognized as ‘Business Facilitators/

Correspondents’ by the banks to reach out to theunreached people in the remotest of the places.

Contributions

The first SHG-Bank linkage in Tamil Nadu wasdone in Mangulam village of Madurai districtpromoted by DHAN Foundation under itsKalanjiam Programme in 1992. Today, all the30,000 Self Help Groups promoted by DHANhave been linked with 210 branches of 30commercial banks and mobilized over ‘ 3,830million as credit.

Trained over 2500 branch managers ofCommercial Banks by giving hands onexperience and exposure for them to initiateSHG Bank linkage with the support ofNABARD.

Fostering networks such as InternationalNetwork of Alternative Financial Institutions(INAFI), Indian Network of Microfinance SelfHelp Groups (INFOS) for sharing knowledgeand advocacy

Promoting Partnership for water

Over the last one decade the Vayalagam programmehas demonstrated that tank farmers’ organisationsare capable of implementing tanks conservation anddevelopment works in collaboration withmainstream agencies. The collaborative works haveresulted in influencing the policies and developmentof new schemes by government for development oftanks in the state of Tamil Nadu and AndhraPradesh. The funds required for the tank programhave been raised from the district rural developmentagencies, government departments and othermainstream institutions. In many places the farmerswere able to negotiate with them and get allocationsfor tank work from the development funds availablewith them. In the recent years the Vayalagamprogramme has initiated partnership with thecorporate bodies through their Corporate SocialResponsibility.

In partnership with the ITC Rural DevelopmentTrust, the Vayalagam programme launched aMission Sunerakhal in Sivagangai district of TamilNadu in 2004. The focus was on the tank basedwatershed development and enhancing the farmproductivity of small land holdings belonging to


small and marginal farmers. Similarly theVayalagam programme has launched a partnershipproject with Hindustan Unilever Limited to revivetanks in the drought prone Gundar Basin in TamilNadu benefitting directly over 20,000 small andmarginal farm families. Continuing the success ofpromoting partnership for water conservation, theVayalagam programme also started raising resourcesfor the drinking water pond renovation programmefrom the individual as well as group philanthropieswithin and outside the country.

Partnership for advocating pro–poor policies

With intensive works at the grassroots level on thethemes of water and community banking, DHANhas partnered with many NGOs, governmentdepartments, national and international to share itsexperiences as well as to learn their experiences.

DHAN is a member in many policy forumsconstituted by state and central governments.DHAN played a vital role in Central PlanningCommission as a working committee member onmicro irrigation during tenth five year plan. DHANhas been identified as a driver agency for VillageTank Management in South India by Global Waterpartnership, Stockholm.

DHAN advises the Tamil Nadu Government’smicrofinance programme supported by World Bank.As a resource NGO, DHAN provides capacitybuilding services to the IFAD sponsored PostTsunami Sustainable Livelihoods Programme beingimplemented by the Government of Tamil Nadu. TheCEOs of State-run women development programmeshave visited DHAN to understand and replicate thecommunity banking model.

DHAN’s Executive Director is a member in NationalTechnical Advisory Group of Jawaharlal NehruNational Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), thelargest urban development initiative of theGovernment of India. DHAN is the Secretariat forthe Conservation Council for Small Scale WaterResources promoted by the eminent developmentworkers, academicians and researchers. This groupfunctions as a vibrant force to interact periodicallywith the policy makers, planners, and bureaucrats toshape the government policies related to this sector.

Ensuring ICT for Poor

There exists a great digital divide between rich andpoor. The Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT) for poor theme of DHAN workstowards making the poor communities to own andmanage ICT programmes that would serve theirinformation and communication needs in asustainable manner. The theme opens up newopportunities to address the issues of poverty andgender by promoting ICT groups with men andwomen for providing access to new and empoweringinformation that can address large inequalities thatthe poor communities face in areas like education,employment, and social security.

Contributions

Twenty five Community Colleges offer a rangeof certificate and diploma courses in computerapplications, easy mathematics, spoken Englishrecognized, and they also offer computerliteracy programme of Indira Gandhi NationalOpen University.

Thirty two types of online and offline e-servicesare offered to the people in 162 villagesbenefiting around 1,50,000 users

Seventeen Village Resource Centres have beenpromoted with the support of Indian SpaceResearch Organisation focusing on ICT literacyand livelihoods, GIS package for watershedplanning, and telemedicine.

The Community Radios promoted inNagapattinam (Kalanjiam 90.8 FM) andKottampatty (Vayalagam community radio) areserving the information needs of thecommunity.


Interactive multimedia content on health,education, legal awareness, microfinance,insurance, Panchayats, agriculture and livestockhave been generated based on the needs of thelocal communities.

Promoting Good Governance and Democracy

Good governance is a cornerstone of developmentprocess with equity. The structure of Peoples’Institutions promoted by DHAN provide enablingenvironment for nurturing good governancepractices include participatory democracy,accountability, transparency self regulation andadvancing the value of mutuality. The poorcommunities use their democratic rights not only topress for individual and collective rights but alsodemonstrate it. The Peoples’ Institutions provideample scope for the poor men and women to unleashtheir leadership potential. These leaders formfoundation for the good governance.

The nested institution structure of all theprogrammes facilitates institutional relationshipsamong groups, cluster development associations/cascade and block/district level federations. Thenature and requirements of the structure necessitatethe nurturing of leadership at various levels of thenested institutions. These institutions provide spaceand opportunities for women to occupy leadershipposition at all the three levels. Decentraliseddecision making process ensures autonomy andidentity of these institutions. The institutionbuilding processes such as regular meetings, annualgeneral body meetings and mahasabha functions,transparent systems for regular transactions, clearmanagement functions such as review and planning,monitoring the impact of services provided to theirmembers and capability of handling sophisticatedbanking and financial systems, strong links withmainstream institutions and practices of HRfunctions prepare the women particularly theleaders for the roles that they have to play.

DHAN has promoted two peoples movements – theKalanjiam Movement and Vayalagam Movement.These peoples’ movements are nurtured andsupported by DHAN Foundation to address thelarger development issues related to women andwater. These movements would slowly transform

into a force to reckon within the society they live.

Presently there are 90,000 women members and over15,000 farmers occupy leadership positions atvarious levels of the nested institutions in all thethemes in DHAN. In addition to this, nearly 40,000members who had occupied leadership positions atvarious levels are now providing guidance to theserving leaders. This indicates that one out of everyfive women members have had the leadershipexperience. The policies of leadership graduationand rotation facilitate everyone to occupy suchspace and unleash their leadership potential.

At each level of the nested institution, there arespecific norms that ensure leadership rotation andleadership capacity building. The leadership in thenested institutions is nothing but collectiveleadership (executive committee) for building theshared vision and providing direction by strategicguidance in achieving the set goals. Role ofgovernance in integrating and managing specialservices such as insurance, health and education,and basic amenities such as electricity, drinkingwater, sanitation and drainage into theirdevelopment planning is being enhanced throughspecialised trainings. The leadership graduation andpromotion of succession leaders as a tradition isbeing followed at all the three levels throughdemocratic process of consensus (not by election orvoting). The gender empowerment happens not onlybecause of individual leadership abilities but by thecollective action by institutional leadership.

Promoting MDGs through Madurai Symposium

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moonstated that:

Looking ahead to 2015 and beyond, there is noquestion that we can achieve the overarchinggoal: we can put an end to poverty. In almost allinstances, experience has demonstrated thevalidity of earlier agreements on the wayforward; in other words, we know what to do.But it requires an unswerving, collective, long-term effort.

Poor countries have pledged to govern better, andinvest in their people through healthcare andeducation. Rich countries have pledged to support


development through aid, debt relief, and fairertrade. Yet, there remains a challenge incontextualizing these MDGs and mobilizingcollective commitment by all stakeholders.

The 2009 Madurai Symposium, titled AdvancingDevelopment Towards Millennium DevelopmentGoals, was designed as an opportunity for all thestakeholders of development to consolidate theirexperiences and field practices, share what theyhave learned, and establish an agenda for realizingthe MDGs. The Symposium provided an opportunityto collectively assess the contributions made by allthe stakeholders towards reaching these goals, todisseminate best practices, and to share and buildknowledge.

Themes

The events at the 2009 Madurai Symposium weredesigned around four major themes: poverty;environmental sustainability; women and children;and global partnerships. Under each of these broadthemes, events were organised in consideration ofthe Millennium Development Goals. MDG 3,promote gender equality and empower women, wasa common theme throughout all four of thesethemes.

Poverty

The first theme of the 2009 Symposium, with itsfocus on poverty, provided a platform for eventsrelated to MDG 1, eradicate extreme poverty andhunger. Some of the resolutions which emerged from

the various events held under the first theme are asfollows:

In planning poverty-reduction and hunger-eradication programmes, plans to ensure thedignity and social security of the elderly mustalso be considered. All development workshould focus on holistic family development.

NGOs can increase community awareness andcapacity with respect to the MDGs. NGOs canalso monitor the design and implementation ofdifferent programmes to ensure they addressthe problems highlighted in the MDGs.

NGOs and the government can help smallfarmers and producers get better marketinformation and facilitate product valueaddition. Crop insurance products need to bedeveloped and indigenous risk-copingmechanisms need to be revisited to ensure thatshocks do not put families into poverty.

Research on MDGs needs to be strengthenedand demonstrations, pilots, and models have tobe experimented with, and the experiences to beshared, to promote the scaling up ofdevelopment efforts.

Environmental Sustainability

The second theme of the Symposium relatedprimarily to MDG 7, ensure environmentalsustainability. Through the events that occurredalong that theme, the resolutions made included:

It is unanimously accepted that renovation oftanks and ponds in India has high relevance asthey are instrumental to cope with and adapt toclimatic change implications. The community,NGOs, academics and Indian meteorologicalorganisations shall ensure that the communitymust is organised, empowered, and informedabout the consequences of climate change.Context-specific integrated watersheddevelopment is required for environmentalsustainability.

NGOs have to be actively involved in creatingawareness among the public on planting ofnative species of trees and reducing noisepollution to make cities noise- and pollution-free.

Organic farming using Indian knowledge andpractices should be revived within the next 20

Madurai Symposium: A knowledge platform

Madurai Symposium is a development platformwhere development stakeholders—communityinstitutions, civil societies, the Government, non-government organisations (NGOs), financialinstitutions and academia—converge at Maduraifor conventions, conferences and a developmentcarnival. Bringing all development stakeholderstogether in a common venue facilitates sharingand learning from each others’ experiences andpractices. For each Symposium, along withpeople conventions, conferences, seminars, andworkshops, there are also events open to thepublic including an exhibition hall, culturalprogrammes, and a development film festival.


years and should involve the youngergeneration.

The cultivation and promotion of medicinalplants has to be encouraged not only as apotential activity of income generation, but alsobecause of its potential to treat diseases.

Public awareness and understanding of theimportance of a “clean and green environment”can be improved through practicaldemonstrations, models and success stories;laws regarding the environment should bestrictly enforced. Waste must be properlytreated to prevent environmental pollution andto reduce the spread of certain diseases.

Women and Children

Under the theme of women and children, eventswere organised relating to MDG 2, achieve universalprimary education; MDG 4, reduce child mortality ;MDG 5, improve maternal health and MDG 6,combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. Thefollowing are some of the resolutions that weremade:

Mutuals for education should be created to helpachieve universal primary education. Beyondachieving universal primary education, theyshould also promote higher educationopportunities for the poor. This can be done byinitiating an educational trust which willprovide financial assistance in the form ofscholarships.

The prevalence of anaemia is startling high; thisposes problems particularly for pregnantwomen, children, and adolescent girls.Community health programmes can help toreduce anaemia, but individuals are ultimatelyresponsible for reducing the problem by makingchanges in their behaviour. Reproductive childhealth programmes should be able to helpindividuals understand anaemia better andenable them to make wiser decisions about theirhealth and nutrition.

Global Partnership

The fourth theme of the 2009 Madurai Symposiumrelated directly with MDG 8, develop a globalpartnership for development. Some of the resolutionsmade during the events organised for this theme arenoted below:

In all government projects and schemes socialaudit should be integrated as a mandatorycomponent. Social audit committees shouldinclude member representatives from peopleinstitutions and should be promoted in allvillage Panchayat institutions.

Panchayats should be involved in planning aswell as implementing programmes and schemes;schemes should be implemented by Panchayatsbased on their capacity to implement them, andsubsidies should be increased to meet the needsof the poor.

Banks, regional rural banks, the Government,NABARD, and NGOs should all be more activein financial inclusion. If financial inclusion is tobe achieved, products must be developed whichsuit the local needs.

Rural tourism must be promoted as a means ofproviding employment to youth and the elderly.Tourism related subjects need to be included inthe school curriculum, and the public awarenesson tourism must improve.

Contribution of Madurai Symposium 2009

The 2009 Symposium is a natural progression fromthe preceding three symposia which grewprogressively from looking at developmentinnovations in South India (2003), to theadvancement of development throughout India(2005), to the systematic designing of developmentprogrammes by building effective alliances betweendevelopment stakeholders (2007). The Symposiumwas also a timely reminder to all developmentstakeholders of the scope of work that remains if weare to achieve the eight Millennium DevelopmentGoals.

Over the course of a short five days, nearly 50 formalevents were organised to build the world ofknowledge of over 15,000 visiting practitioners andcommunity members. This does not include thenumerous informal opportunities for learning thatwere available at the public exhibitions, whichincluded stalls not only for vendors to sell productsmade by self-help groups or primary producergroups, but also to provide a space for furtherdissemination of knowledge throughdemonstrations, posters, literature, and other media.

ParticularsMarch

2008 2009 2010

Cumulative Figures

Reach

No. of Families 649,389 735,501 810,185

No. of Primary Groups 28,027 29,326 33,039

No. of Clusters 1,638 1,367 1,648

No. of Federations 116 164 206

No. of Villages 9,148 9,531 9,757

No. of Districts 41 41 51

No. of States 11 11 12

Staff

No. of Professionals 330 314 331

No. of Programme Staff 316 347 346No. of People Functionaries 2,340 1,904 2,197

Finances (` ` ` ` ` in million)

a) Programme Funds

People 1,444 1,637 2,051

Banks 3,011 3,368 5,020

Government and Donors(for the year) 93 486 104

Sub Total 4,548 5,491 7,175

b) Programme Management (for the year)

People 65 52 63

Government 13 8 17

Donors 253 240 236

Sub Total 331 300 316

Grand Total 4,879 5,791 7,491

DHAN Foundation at a Glance


Annual Report 2009-10


Overview

The year 2009-10 was a year of advancingpartnerships for development action for DHANCollective. All the thematic programmes andinstitutions in DHAN Collective have startedexploring partnership for strengthening the Peoples’Organisations built by them through innovativedevelopment products to create sustainable impactin the lives and livelihoods of the poor communities.Apart from scaling–up the programme horizontally,the programmes have given greater emphasis ondeepening the interventions already made throughthe Peoples’ Organisations.

The Kalanjiam Community Banking programmeinitiated partnership with state governments ofMaharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu toscale–up the Kalanjiam enabling model ofmicrofinance either through direct expansion or byproviding resource support. The programme hastaken up demonstration of Kalanjiam model bypromoting Community Managed Resource Centreand guiding other NGOs for the Tejaswini Ruralwomen Empowerment programme with the MahilaArthick Vikas Mahamandal (MAVIM) inMaharashtra, and implementation of povertyalleviation project – Vaazhnthu Kaatuvom in triballocations with the Government of Tamil Nadu. Thiskind of partnership with the state governments forscaling–up would bring new learnings and positionthe uniqueness of the Kalanjiam model.

With nearly two decades of experience in buildinglinkages between banks and Self Help Groups,DHAN has proved banking with poor is a viablebusiness proposition. Mutually trustworthyrelationship between Groups and Banks reinforcelong term sustainable financial inclusion. As agraduation of SHG bank linkage, the SHGFederations promoted by DHAN have becomeBusiness Facilitators (BF) and BusinessCorrespondents (BC) for the banks.

With almost a decade of intensive work in the tribalareas of Andhra Pradesh, DHAN has evolved apackage with a combination of microfinance, forestbased livelihoods, water resource development,health and educational services. The Kalanjiamprogramme has been expanded to the interior tribalareas of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa,Jharkhand, Assam, Bihar and Tamil Nadu.

The success realized from the partnership with theHindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) from the projectfor impacting livelihoods of 75,000 poor women lastyear has made the partnership stronger and a newwater conservation project was launched torenovate over 250 irrigation tanks with farmers’participation in the drought prone Gundar Basin.The project will directly benefit over 20,000 smalland marginal farm families and thus contributingtowards both environments as well as enhancinglivelihoods.

The partnership between DHAN and the NABARDin Andhra Pradesh has been unique and mutuallyreinforcing for community based natural resourcemanagement. DHAN taken up tank based watersheddevelopment project under various schemes of thebank.

The partnership project implemented by DHAN withEuropean Commission and Oxfam Novib, theNetherlands, in drought prone coastal areas ofsouthern India, through conservation of traditionalwater bodies like tank and farm level ponds hasbrought new dimension in coastal agriculturaldevelopment; apart from benefiting over 12500families and a population of 75000, the projectwould create changes in the policies related tocoastal agriculture.

The Tata-Dhan Academy has completed its firstdecade and is consolidating its experiences inoffering development management education. Witha renewed vision of building development

Annual Report 2009-10


missionaries, the Academy is becoming the thirdthematic institution in DHAN Collective in thecoming year.

As a knowledge building centre, the Tata-DhanAcademy has anchored the Madurai Symposium2009, with a focus of Advancing DevelopmentTowards Millennium Development Goals, as anopportunity for all the stakeholders of developmentto consolidate their experiences and field practices,share what they have learned, and establish anagenda for realising the MDGs. The Symposiumprovided an opportunity to collectively assess thecontributions made by all the stakeholders towardsreaching these goals, to disseminate best practices,and to share and build knowledge. Over the courseof a short five days, nearly 50 formal events wereorganised to build the world of knowledge of over15,000 visiting practitioners and communitymembers.

The new themes such as Rainfed FarmingDevelopment, Working with Panchayat and ICT forPoor have started synthesizing their experiencesgained from the experimentation phase. These

programmes are preparing to scale–up in integrationwith the existing programmes.

The Madurai Marathon on the theme of Anemia wasorganised in January 2010 with over 30,000 peopleincluding school children, college students andwomen from SHGs participating in it. This eventwas organized in partnership with the Tamil NaduState Health Society and the Madurai Corporation.This is the fourth year in row that the marathon isbeing organised. The Madurai Marathon 2011 willfocus on climate change adaptation as the Causebeing highlighted by the Marathon.

The specialized Centres in DHAN Collective workingon human resource development, developmentcommunication, finance, facilitating philanthropy,research, policy and planning have played a greaterintegration role across the programmes throughvarious products and services for enhancing the fieldaction. In addition they have started contributing intheir respective fields through research, consultancyand advocacy at the sectoral level in their respectivefields.


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DHAN Foundation initiated the Kalanjiam CommunityBanking Program in 1990. Over the last two decades these

efforts resulted in developing an ‘enabling model’ ofmicrofinance, emphasizing member ownership, self-help, andmutuality. The primary aim of this model is to empower womenand address poverty. The programme focuses on women andbelieves that localised financial institutions owned and controlledby women are an effective way to alleviate poverty and addressgender issues.

The DHAN Kalanjiam Foundation has been promoted forscaling–up the Kalanjiam nested institutions model. Theapproaches of the programme are:

The primary unit is Kalanjiam, Self-Help Group of 15 to 20poor women. It acts as a single window and works at thedoorsteps of the beneficiaries for savings and credittransactions. The cluster and federation at Panchayat andblock levels are the nested institutions at next higher levels.They help the Kalanjiams address other social anddevelopment needs of the members such as drinking water,health, education, sanitation, access to basic infrastructure,alcoholism gender issues etc. The aim is to sustain theseinstitutions.

Promotion of creative financial products such as savings,credit and insurance are an integral part of the microfinanceservices of the programme. Experience has shown that the‘poor can save’ and savings by the poor lays a strongfoundation for a successful microfinance programme. Theproducts developed have integrated the existing practices ofthe poor and development needs of members. All the threeservices - savings, credit and insurance provided by theprogramme have made the poor manage their financeseffectively.

These nested institutions help create linkages with banksand apex financial institutions to meet the multiple creditneeds of members, collaborate with other developmentagencies such as the Government to get their entitlements,implement civic programmes in health and education, andprovide insurance services.

The Federations create conducive environment for promotinglivelihoods of the member families through businessdevelopment services, skill building, market linkages.

Identifying and nurturing the latent leadership potentialamong poor women. The programme provides a greatopportunity for poor women to emerge as dynamicgrassroots leaders to manage and sustain their organisations.

The programme has become a movement called the ‘KalanjiaIyyakam’ – to bring more women into Kalanjiams.

Kalanjiam

Community

Banking

Programme


Scaling–up of Kalanjiam model of microfinance

The Kalanjiam Programme has reached out toanother 58,181 poor families during the year bypromoting 3,713 Kalanjiams. As on March 2010, theProgramme has an outreach of 485,867 poor womenspread over 173 locations in 45 districts in India.There are 108 registered federations in theProgramme.

Scaling–up through providing resource support tothe affiliated NGOs and programmes of theGovernment is one of the strategies of the Kalanjiamprogramme to benefit the poor communities. DHANis a Resource NGO (R-NGO) for the Tejaswini Ruralwomen Empowerment programme implemented bythe Mahila Arthick Vikas Mahamandal (MAVIM), amission promoted by the state government ofMaharashtra. As an R-NGO, DHAN has agreed toprovide support for training, material development,system development, monitoring and review. Moreimportantly it would promote a model CommunityManaged Resource Centres for demonstration.DHAN would reach 110 federations (CMRCs)through this project and benefit over 200,000 womenmembers.

In collaboration with Tamil Nadu VoluntaryResource Centre (TNVRC), DHAN has providedresource support to the Tami Nadu Mahalir ThittamScheme and the Vaazhnthu Kaatuvom Project beingimplemented by the Government of Tamil Nadu.Trainings were organised for the staff and SHGleaders from the TNVRC. Training on Panchayatlevel Federations (PLF) for office bearers ongovernance and leadership was conducted for 307participants. Another 235 office bearers of PLFs weretrained on financial management. DHAN has alsoorganised a training programme on ‘Promotion ofSHGs and their networks - an exposure to Kalanjiammodel’ for 26 representatives from NABARD,different Banks and NGOs from Jharkhand.

DHAN has partnered with the Government ofMadhya Pradesh to support its Madhya PradeshRural Livelihoods Project (MPRLP), on socialmobilisation, microfinance and networking of SHGs.During this year, two batches of 27 middle levelstaff, 119 field staff and SHG members from MPRLP

were trained on the concepts of SHGs, systems andmanagement. An inception report assessing thetraining needs among the Non Government andGovernment Organisations involved in SHG modelof microfinance in Orissa, Rajasthan and MadhyaPradesh was prepared during the year. Exposureprogrammes for the managerial staff of Srijan, alocal NGO in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan onnetworking of SHGs, governance building in SHGsand systems for managing SHG federations. AnOrissa based network of organisations involved inmicrofinance – VIKALPA has approached DHANFoundation seeking resource support for its memberorganisations.

Visioning for sustainability in Peoples’

Organisations

All the 108 registered federations have completedtheir legal compliances with Income Taxdepartments. As many as 24 federations were able tomeet all the operational cost from their ownresources and other federations are in differentstages of graduation towards financial self–sufficiency. The poor women have contributed over`56.8 million to meet the operational costs of theirgroups and federations.

The federations in the programme undertook avisioning exercise and plan for attainingsustainability. They have planned for covering theleft–out poor families, systems and strategies forenhancing savings rate, ensuring timely linkages andadequate resource mobilisation from banks, and costreduction to sustain the growth and development.The advanced federations have planned to startdiversified services like health, education andhousing.

Financial services

Savings and credit

As a result of the efforts taken by the Programme,the members in new groups have enhanced theiraverage monthly savings to `100 - 150. All themembers have a total savings of `1659 million intheir groups. The members in the older groups havewithdrawn `11 million from their accumulated


savings in their groups for various purposes. Themembers were educated on the use of accumulatingmore savings in their groups to leverage credit aswell as build asset for their future use. This yearmember loan outstanding stands at `3300 million.The improvements made in the financial softwarepackage and the loan card system introduced in thegroups helped track the portfolio at risk every monthand maintain the repayment performance.

Insurance

As many as 544,705 lives including the womenmembers and their spouses have been covered underlife insurance as on March 2010. With appropriateinformation, education and communication (IEC)materials such as flipcharts, flashcards, posters,pamphlets, street theatres and film shows, the staffand leaders have campaigned to educate themembers on health insurance. As a result, 51,769persons have been enrolled in the Universal healthinsurance scheme of National Insurance CompanyLimited with the facilitation of People Mutuals1, thesocial security initiative of Peoples’ Organisationspromoted by DHAN. The programme has evolved anew integrated product which consists of health andlife insurance at affordable costs after studyingdifferent micro insurance products available in themarket. The programme has initiated exclusivetraining programmes for the block integrators, fieldworkers and members on micro insurance. Insuranceguidelines and content for the training have beendeveloped.

SHG-Bank linkage

Efforts were taken to increase the portfolio of SHGBank linkages in the overall finance portfolio of thegroups. Focus during the year was more on businesspromotion to improve the credit absorption by thegroups and members. Over 12,080 loans weremobilized from the banks to the tune of `1294million. The Programme is also in the process of

converting term loan to Cash Credit Limit (CCL) toensure timely credit, for which the programme hasinitiated dialogue with the banks. The KalanjiamDevelopment Financial Services (KDFS)2 hasdesigned a loan product Regulated online credit(RoC) similar to CCL. The KDFs has initiatedidentification of SHGs across locations to provideROC limit and the success from this woulddemonstrate to the banks that providing CC limit toSHGs is viable.

The Corporation bank has come forward to providepromotional grant to promote 1000 SHGs andlinking them with Corporation banks. It coulddemonstrate that promoting and linking SHGs withbanks is a viable business proposition. The groupspromoted with this support could mobilize `15.4million as credit from the Corporation Bank.

Graduation in SHG–Bank linkage

With nearly two decades of experience in buildinglinkages between banks and Self Help Groups,DHAN has proved that banking with poor is a viablebusiness proposition. Mutually trustworthyrelationship between Groups and Banks reinforcelong term sustainable financial inclusion. As agraduation of SHG bank linkage, the SHGFederations promoted by DHAN have becomeBusiness Facilitators (BF) and BusinessCorrespondents (BC) for the banks. KalanjiamDevelopment Financial Services (KDFS) has becomethe National level Business Correspondent for StateBank of India (SBI). State Bank of India hasconducted training on BC-BF after the formallaunch in July 2009. Under BF model over 295 groupshave been linked with SBI to the tune of ̀ 26 million.The Gangai Vattara Kalanjiam and PalameduVattara Kalanjiam would take up BC model on apilot basis. Three Kalanjiam Federations in Salemregion have taken up BF model with Indian Bankand earned remuneration of `0.92 million as abusiness facilitator.

1 The Peoples’ Organisations promoted by DHAN have collectively promoted ‘People Mutuals ’ to facilitate social security to all themember families either through their mutual programmes or through links with various social security schemes and developmentprogrammes of the Government or mainstream insurance companies. It has been incorporated under the Indian Trusts Act 1882.2 KDFS is a Section 25 company promoted by the Peoples’ Organisations of DHAN Foundation. KDFS extends bridging loan support tothe SHGs wherever there is a delay in the sanction of loans from the mainstream financial institutions and commercial banks. It alsoprovides credit to the SHGs wherever there is no commercial bank in the place of operation of the locations.


Contextualising microfinance

Microfinance in urban context

A large section of urban slum population consists oflow skilled migrants from rural areas and they are apart of informal sector as they neither have theappropriate skills nor opportunities for livelihoodssecurity. Poverty reduction in urban areas is aboutenabling them to transform their lives andlivelihoods to have a secured well being. Whilesocial capital among the urban poor is critical fordaily survival and making their voices listened to thedecision makers in power, it is only by accessingincreased resources that urban poor will be able tocome out of poverty.

The Kalanjiam programme has taken up a pilot ofpromoting and facilitating urban governance inselected slums. The components of the pilot projectare promotion of slum development associations,micro planning, and promotion of user groups onwater supply, waste water and solid wastemanagement, ensuring basic amenities andcommunity infrastructure, promoting sluminformation resource centres and communityhealthcare initiatives. This pilot project would betaken up in nine urban locations.

Since DHAN Foundation and the Kalanjiamfederations in Madurai have already initiatedcollaboration with urban governing bodies under theJawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission(JNNURM), the pilot of contextualising microfinancefor urban environments has been phased out in sucha way that it will be implemented in Madurai urbanslums initially to develop a model and the learningsfrom this experience would be taken to other urbanlocations.

A Community Participation Fund (CPF) as a part ofJNNURM has been established by the Ministry ofUrban Development and Ministry of Housing andUrban Poverty Alleviation with the primaryobjective of creating capacities in the communitiesto effectively engage and contribute in improvingtheir living environment. The Fund is meant tocatalyze the process of community participation byallowing communities to experience the process ofcollective decision-making for themselves, and

taking full accountability for these decisions onthemselves. Following the call for proposals from theMinistry, three Kalanjiam federations in Maduraicity namely Sellur Vattara Kalanjiam, ThenmaduraiVattara Kalanjiam and Jaihindpuram VattaraKalanjiam submitted proposals. All the three projectproposals got sanctioned with the approval of grantfunds of `1 million and the list of projects are asfollows

‘Protecting a canal from garbage dumping andensuring safe drinking water to slum dwellers’by Sellur Vattara Kalanjiam

‘Creating clean and hygiene environment withina slum by changing the activity of thecommunity’ by Thenmadurai Vattara Kalanjiam

‘Providing technology to down to earth-promotion of slum information centre’ byJaihindpuram Vattara Kalanjiam

Promoting slum development associations andmicro planning: Under CPF, the Sellur andThenmadurai federations have promotedneighbourhood committees and slum developmentassociations in two slums. With the outcomes ofparticipatory issue and resource mapping conductedin the slums involving residents, electedrepresentatives and officials of local bodies, thefederations have promoted ward/street level usergroups on solid waste management and drinkingwater. Campaigns were organised to educate theresidents on solid waste management and safedrinking water. Bio-sand filters and garbage binswith grading facility were provided to thehouseholds.

Outcomes of this project were encouraging ascollection, segregation and disposal of solid wastehas been regularized, monitoring of the activity bythe association members has been made routine andthe use of bio-sand filter and other safe drinkingwater measures are practiced by the households.The slum development associations and therespective federations could actively interface withthe Madurai Municipal Corporation in all theprocesses. Building on from the positive experienceactivities on promotion of slum developmentassociation and user groups around solid wastemanagement has been initiated in six more slums.


Establishing slum information centre: A pilot onpromoting slum information centre was undertakenin one slum by the Jaihindpuram federation. Theinformation centre aims to ensure effective e-governance through link the slum communities tothe mainstream institutions for getting betterservices to enhance their quality of life. The centrefacilitates services such as online resourceconsultation with health, education and animalhusbandry departments in the city, computerliteracy programme in partnership with IGNOU, andcomputer aided school education were provided.

Creating access to basic services for the urbanpoor: The scheme on Basic Services for the UrbanPoor (BSUP) is a component of JNNURM and itfocuses on providing shelter and other basic civicamenities to the urban poor. The Kalanjiamfederations in Madurai city with the support ofMadurai Municipal Corporation provided awarenessto the slum dwellers about the scheme. Thefederations also supported the Corporation inidentification of potential beneficiaries, processingapplications from the slum dwellers and providingadvisory support to the selected beneficiaries ontechnical aspects and budget preparation. Throughthese activities, the federations have facilitatedhousing support to 512 families in the slum area ofMadurai city.

Microfinance in the tribal areas of North India

DHAN has started working with the tribalcommunities of Indervelly Mandal of Adilabaddistrict in Andhra Pradesh since 1997 in partnershipwith Integrated Tribal Development Authority(ITDA). Tribal youths were identified and groomedto work on the issues of their own communities byorganising Kalanjiams of tribal women, creatingnetworks of Kalanjiams to make the women interactwith the women in other villages, introducingsavings, credit and insurance services. Strengtheningtraditional livelihoods was given high emphasis inall the groups. Later the Kalanjiams have joinedtogether and promoted “Sri Indrayi Mahila KalanjiaSamakhya”, a federation of women Self Help Groupsin 2002, with 3140 members, organised into 240groups. Based on the experience from Indervelly,DHAN has expanded its tribal development

programme in the tribal locations in the district –Triyani and Azifabad. The Federations apart fromsavings and credit activities implement agriculturedevelopment, watershed activities throughrenovation of water bodies and providing inputsupply and marketing linkages. Farmers havepurchased input collectively and arranged toestablish market linkages through promotingexclusive producer groups for soya bean and minorforest produce.

With almost a decade of intensive work in the tribalareas of Andhra Pradesh, DHAN Foundation hascome out with a package of microfinance plusstrategies such as freeing the tribal communitiesfrom financial bondedness of exploitative traders,creating and strengthening forest based livelihoods,water resource development and building health andeducational services from the inception. TheKalanjiam Programme has been expanded to otherstates such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa,Jharkhand, Assam, Bihar and Tamil Nadu.Currently, the Programme is working with 23,157tribal families from 10 locations organised into 1,483groups.

Savings: The experience gained from the tribalcommunities has given an insight that tribalhouseholds are capable of saving from their income,if they get access to appropriate and context specificproducts and continuous education to inculcatesavings habit. It requires a deeper understanding ofthe existing scenario of the area with respect tohousehold cash flows and savings. So far, themembers have accumulated own funds of `29.5million in all the locations which is inclusive ofsavings by the members of `24.3 million and reservesand surplus accumulated at group of `5.2 million.

Credit: Agriculture and allied activities were thelargest contributors to the livelihoods of tribalcommunities. Lack of investment capacity andaccess to institutional credit from banks due to lackof collateral make the tribal farmers to depend onthe local money lenders and obtain credit atexorbitant interest rates of 60-120 percent perannum. Thus, the farmers become permanentlyindebted to the moneylenders. Next to agriculture,


credit need among the tribal people is higher forpurposes like consumption, social obligation, andfestival. The Kalanjiam SHGs have become aneffective substitute for credit for the tribal people.During the year, `39.26 million was disbursedthrough 17,542 loans as credit to the members. Ofthe total loans disbursed to the members, 52 per centis meant for agriculture and allied activities,followed by 17 percent for debt redemption, 15percent for consumption.

SHG-Bank linkages: The Self Help Group conceptin north Indian states is at a nascent stage andhence conducive environment like south Indianstates is yet to be evolved. This scenario has hadimplications on SHG-Bank linkage processes for theKalanjiam groups. The bankers in states namelyMadhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Jharkhand andAssam are hesitant to take part in the SHG-Banklinkages. There were operational issues even inopening a bank account for the groups in theselocations since the bankers do not have theconfidence to lend to the poor people. During theyear, over 65 per cent of the SHGs promoted in thelocations could open account in the local commercialbank branches. Though delayed, the banks cameforward to open account for our SHGs aftercontinued persuasion and dialogue at differentlevels.

Also in the locations such as Betnoti, Sailana andKoraput could make significant breakthrough and aconsiderable number of groups got linkageassistance from the banks. Banks namely State Bankof India, UCO Bank, Bank of India and RatlamRegional Rural Bank involved in the Kalanjiam-Banklinkages in the project area. However, in otherlocations SHG-Bank linkage continues to be a majorissue in spite of larger demand for credit from themembers. The support from KDFS was quite criticalin addressing gaps in bank linkages throughproviding bridge loans to the groups. So far, `12.4million has been lent to the groups in north Indianstates through KDFS as bridge loan.

Piloting on malaria control interventions: In fourlocations namely Sailana and Piplotha of MadhyaPradesh and Koraput and Borigumma of Orissa,

Malaria has been prevailing as an endemic diseasein these areas significantly affecting the livelihoodsof the tribal communities. The intervention wasprimarily envisaged as a pilot to evolve andstandardised methods and processes to scale–up toother malaria prone areas. Promoting Self HealthGovernance, behavioural change communication(BCC), linkage building with mainstream healthinstitutions and diagnosis and care for malaria werethe project components.

The field teams could extend support to the HealthDepartment to organise 34 health camps, in additionorganising 41 malaria control camps on their owninvolving the medical officers of the healthdepartment. The support extended by the fieldteams to the health department to conduct campson malaria has brought department officials closerto the Kalanjiam programme. A system of SelfHealth Governance in which members and villagelevel project staffs referring the patients affected byfever is getting evolved in Koraput and Borigummalocations. The Health staffs from Kalanjiamlocations join with the Village Health Nurses andMalaria Health Workers during village visits. In thevillages of Borigumma-1 and Koraput, thechloroquine tablets issued by the public healthdepartment are channelized through health staffs ofthe Kalanjiam programme. During the year 26screening camps were conducted in the four triballocations to diagnose malaria involving public healthdepartment. Out of 4,480 persons diagnosed, 456were found to have symptoms of fever and 68 werereferred to PHC for further diagnosis and treatmenton malaria.

In order to address the issues of accessibility, asystem of ‘health post’ have been created in tribalvillages that are difficult to reach by the VHNs. Ineach health post a health guide has been placed ands/he will act as a first aid provider and referralpoints for VHNs. So far 46 health posts have beeninitiated in the project locations. These health postsare managed by Kalanjiam members who weretrained in first aid system. In Piplotha and Sailanalocations, 10,056 mosquito nets were issued to themember households.


Quality of primary education: In Borigumma,Betnoti and Latehar locations, remedial educationcentres have been established to bridge the gap inthe quality of education being provided by theGovernment. Activity Based Learning (ABL)methodology has been introduced in these centres.There are 90 such remedial centres functioning tocare 3,498 primary school students.

Piloting on enhancing the productivity ofagricultural and allied activities: A team ofprofessionals has been placed in Koraput district toundertake pilot on integrating the natural resourcebased interventions with microfinance support. Withthe support of the local teams, so far 36 rainfedfarmers groups have been initiated with amembership of 502 farmers in 26 villages. Thelocation team undertook a study on disasterpreparedness of rainfed farmers in Koraput districtto understand risks and vulnerability of the rainfedfarmers and also the coping mechanisms adopted bythe farmers. Major focus was given on pilotingactivities such as installation of treadle pump in lowlands, zero budget farming and System of RiceIntensification, regeneration of old wells, andcreation of farm ponds in plains.

In Betnoti location, an activity grant was given to 40members of 15 groups to support Sal leaf cup/platemaking activity. The raw material is collected fromthe forest and it is processed manually to producecups and plates. Since the manual production wastime consuming and yielded low returns for theprimary producers, they have used the grant topurchase a machine for making the products. Due tothe intervention, income of the members couldincrease from ̀ 20 to 60 per day. Similarly, in Lateharlocation, credit support at low interest rates wasmade available to the 140 members of 10 groups forthe lac processing activity. They were trained on lacproduction with the support of Indian Institute ofNatural Resins and Gums (IINRG), Ranchi.

Vaazhnthu Kaatuvom Project: The KalanjiamProgramme has taken up implementation of the

Tamil Nadu state government sponsored VaazhnthuKaatuvom project in five tribal blocks viz., Kalrayanhills in Villupuram district, Kolli hills in Namakkaldistrict, Jawadhu hills in Thiruvannamalai districtand Yercaud hills in Salem District. Inception reportsfor each location is prepared and project teams havebeen placed for implementation. Baseline has beencompleted in all the four locations and orientation topanchayat presidents and line departments aboutthe project have been organised. There was goodencouragement and support from panchayatrepresentatives, government officials, local youth,SHG members and NGOs. Village poverty ReductionCentres (VPRC) with the representatives of thetarget population and Social Audit Committee (SAC)with the Gramasabha were formed. ParticipatoryIdentification of Poverty (PIP) has been completed inall the locations. The programme is in the process ofidentification of context specific issues in these blockand intervention strategies for betterimplementation of the project in Tamil Nadu.

Impacting livelihoods through business support

The livelihood intervention strategy of the Kalanjiamprogramme is through organising business basedPeoples’ Organisations to access the skills and reachthe global market. The members, who are mostlyunorganised labourers, small and marginal farmers,artisans and small vendors, would be organised intoPrimary Producer Groups (PPGs) or PrimaryMarketing Groups (PMGs). These PPGs and PMGspromote Producer Companies (PC) around selectactivity. Building relevant business skills startingfrom procurement, production, administration andfinancial management and marketing is the majorfocus. While the promotional support is offered bythe business development unit in the Kalanjiamprogramme, marketing support is provided by theKalanjiam Thozhilagam Limited (KTL)3. Theprogramme’s business development unit helps thefederations in identifying potential activities andlocation, analyzing value chain, developingpromotional strategies, training the field team,

3 The Kalanjiam Thozhilagam Limited (KTL) is a people institution with business-based people organisations like PPGs, PMGs andProducer Companies promoted by DHAN Foundation as share holders. It is a registered public limited company under Company’sAct, 1956. The KTL links the people, skills and business to alleviate poverty. It works with the Peoples’ Organisations in designingsuitable micro enterprises based on the existing skills of the poor or the resources available at their locations.


reviewing the progress in the field and evolving amodel for business intermediation.

Business promotional interventions

Dairy activity: Dairying is a major activity in manyof the members’ families either as a primary orsubsidiary activity. The Kalanjiam programmeundertook an assessment of existing dairy groups inDindigul and Theni regions for initiating dairyinterventions in a larger scale. A consultativeworkshop on promoting dairy interventions wasconducted involving the representatives of theKalanjiam federations in Theni and Dindigul regionsand people from successful dairy cooperatives. Itwas observed that there exists a greater potential forpromoting dairy activities in these federations. Dairyinception documents were prepared in order toassess the potential of each dairy location.Vadamadurai Federation has taken a Bulk Coolingplant at Kamatchipuram village for lease and theyhave reached a turnover of 100,000 liters per month.They are procuring 1500 liters every day from theKalanjiam members in and around Dindigul andaround 2000 liters from others. Bulk cooling plant ishaving a storage capacity of 5000 liters. Entire milkis going to Kalanjiams Anandam Milk Plant atKullanchavadi and marketed as Anandam Milk.Leased cooling plant is also equipped withLactometer and Fat monitor. Assessments were alsoon to install a bulk Cooler plant in Theni region.These dairy activities were spread acrossVadamadurai, Kadamalaikundu, Vathalagundu,Narayanpur, Saanarpatti, Bodi, and Chinnamanurblocks. So far 21 Dairy PPGs covering 463 membershave been promoted.

As part of developing model for dairy intervention,experimentation on milking and procurementsystems was taken up in Saanarpatti. A system ofmilking the animals at a common centre instead ofhouse by house milking was piloted in one PPG andit has given good results in terms of monitoring ofquality, hygiene and reduction in cost. Earlier, thesemembers had to depend on milkmen to procure milk.About 40-50 percent of the total cost went as labourand the milk–men had followed severalmalpractices. The members in Saanarpatti federation

have purchased a semi automated milking machineat a cost of `45, 000/-. Now milking is donehygienically with minimal efforts the middlemenwere eliminated.

Cattle feed: There are 16 PMGs involved inmarketing Cattle feed across Theni and Dindigulregions. Sales turnover was about 1,151 tons duringthe year with a sales turn-over of `0.72 million. ThePMGs have a tie–up with Godrej Cattle FeedLimited for marketing the feeds.

Terracotta: There are two Production units run byPPGs in Shanarpatti federation. Turnover of thesetwo PPGs during the year was `1.16 million. Thesetwo PPGs have jointly got a loan of `1.20 millionfrom Canara Bank and established their ownproduction unit in one acre of land. Severaladvanced technologies like mud conditioningmachine, auto igniting choola were procured forthese units.

SPCL-Chain of provisional stores: Sri PadmavathyProvisions Company Limited (SPCL) at Tirupathipromoted by Sri Padmavathy Mahila AbyudayaSangam has achieved sales of `1.13 million. It hasstarted a project for producing wealth from waste.All the scrap materials from the local households areprocured and marketed at SPCL.

Chamki designed sarees: This activity isundertaken in Chittoor urban and Tanjore urbanfederations. During the year a total of 1120 chamkidesigned sarees were produced amounting to aturnover of `0.78 million. Produced sarees weremarketed through local textiles shops. The Chittoorand Tanjore urban federations have also got grantsupport of `0.48 million from NABARD for skillbuilding of members on the Chamki activity andtrained 750 women from the Kalanjiam groups.

Indigenous tourism based livelihoods: Tourismbased livelihood interventions in Sakkottai blockthrough promoting Chettinad indigenous tourism.The tourism based Kalanjiam self help groups havebeen supported through skill development, marketlinkages, and tourism promotion activities.Promoting cultural stay inns, marketing of sarees ofnative origin namely Kandangi sarees, indigenous


restaurants, wood carvings and sculptures were thecomponents of this initiative. CNBC AWAAZ hasacknowledged the contributions made by Karaikudi,Tamilnadu to the Indian Travel and tourism industryby acknowledging the award for the Best Examplefor Community Based tourism.

Collaboration of DHAN–Hindustan Unilever Ltd.

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), as part ofcelebrating its 75 years in India, collaborated withthe DHAN Foundation to enhance the Livelihoods of75,000 poor women from 75 federations promoted byDHAN Foundation on specific themes such asmicrofinance, water and rain fed farming. As part ofthis project, 58,400 households from KalanjiamProgramme were covered. The project focused onpooling own savings of women or accessingresources from banks and also helping the womenidentify activities based on skills and the localmarket. The project enabled the women to mobilizea total ̀ 525 million and generate an incrementalincome of ̀ 187.5 million in just one year. The projectthus helped to increase incremental incomes by aminimum of `2,000 in one year. The women in ruraland tribal areas have taken up various agricultureand allied activities such as land development,construction of farm ponds, in addition to dairy andlivestock related activities.

Livelihoods Initiative with Functional Education(LIFE)

The People organizations promoted by DHANFoundation already have the experience of providingskill training on established activities such as dairyand tailoring to their members. There was a needexpressed by the members on other trades that couldfetch employment in nearby towns and cities. TheLIFE (Livelihood Initiatives with FunctionalEducation) Centres promoted by DHAN aims atimparting livelihood oriented skills to the poorwomen and men, particularly youths throughvocational education.

The first LIFE Centre was initiated in Madurai toserve the member families living in urban slums andrural areas adjoining Madurai city. In the beginningit has offered the courses related to computer

education and later diversified towards providingskill development courses in various trades. Basedon the experiences gained from Madurai, eight morecentres have been initiated during the year inViraganur, Kazhugumalai, Maraimalainagar,Nillakottai, Pallathur, Tanjore and Singampunerifederations in Tamil Nadu and Chittoor in AndhraPradesh. These centres were initiated with an initialneed assessment exercise, in which the peoples’existing skill sets, their needs and expectations in theMarket were assessed. Training courses were shortlisted based on the assessment.

LIFE center has constituted an advisory committeewhich consists of the people who are experts indifferent fields related to livelihood promotion suchas NGO, Industries, and Academic institutions andGovernment in Madurai. This advisory committeeguides LIFE to take up the Centre to next level withtheir expertise. Totally 16 courses were offeredduring the year including computer, cell phonemechanism, beauty culture, videography, MaduraiMalli garland making, simple chemicals preparation,artificial jewels making, saree Chamki Designing,tailoring, embroidery, toys making, jam and jelly,woolen work, painting in pots, fabric and glassmaterials, snacks preparation, kantangi bag makingand so on. A total of 2,092 people were trainedduring the year and 1,359 of them have beenemployed.

Deepening and advancing civic intermediation

As part of deepening microfinance activities, theKalanjiam Programme has undertaken civicinterventions on reproductive and child health,curative care, malaria control, programme on HIV/AIDS, sanitation, safe drinking water, electricity andhousing.

Kalanjiam Reproductive and Child Health(KRCH) Programme

The Kalanjiam Programme undertook a pilot projecton Reproductive and Child Health in eight advancedKalanjiam federations to promote health seekingbehaviour among member families throughbehaviour change communication (BCC)approaches. The project was supported by ICICIbank.


The baseline on KAP and Haemoglobin clinical testrevealed that the prevalence of anaemia was 89.5percent among pregnant women and 95.5 percentamong adolescent girls. BCC was first piloted inanaemia control component that gave good resultsin changing behaviour and practice towardsanaemia control. In the end line survey, the changein knowledge from 65 per cent to 93 per cent wasnoticed. About 85-90 percent of the target membershave changed their behaviour and practiceespecially in consumption of iron rich food, IronFolic Acid and de-worming tablets. About 35.4percent of adolescent girls and 25.7 percent ofpregnant women have come out from anaemia.There was not a single case of severely anemic. Aspart of interventions on childhood malnutrition aninterim assessment was undertaken during thereporting period. The results showed that around 20percent children have become normal and thepercentage of grade IV and V children havesignificantly reduced. The focus during ante natal aswell as post natal periods has brought good impacton the birth weight of children.

The fund mobilized for the cause of anaemiareduction through Madurai Marathon 2009 wasallocated to initiate anaemia control project amongadolescent girls and pregnant women inSingampunari block of Madurai district andMalkapuram block of Vizag region. Building on fromthe positive experience of the first phase ofinterventions, the programme has expanded theKRCH programme in 10 locations. The preliminaryanalysis of the baseline survey showed that 91 percent of the adolescent girls and pregnant womenwere anaemic.

Anaemia Control Project - Collaboration with thestate government of Tamil Nadu: DHANFoundation has partnered with the State HealthSociety, Tamil Nadu to implement anaemia controlinterventions in five selected blocks. The projectcovers entire population in the block and aimed atenabling Village Health and Sanitation Committee(VHSC) for implementing this project. Preparation ofinception reports, placement of project team inlocations, creation of baseline, formation ofadolescent groups, initiation of cultural campaignsand other educational activities were undertaken

during the year. Now haemoglobin test for all theadolescent girls and pregnant women is being taken.A convention on VHSC was conducted to clarifyabout role of VHSC members and prepare actionplan for anaemia control.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH): TheWater, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) project wastaken up in 50 locations. Creation of awarenessamong the Kalanjiam member families was theprimary focus of the project. Followed by anorientation, a technical training on the subject wasgiven to block integrators, community accountantsand cluster associates of the project locations. Abaseline survey on KAP on the subject wascompleted in the project locations during the year.Communication materials to ensure practices onsafe drinking water, hand washing and usage oftoilet have been developed in consultation withresource persons.

Interventions on HIV/AIDS: Campaign for creatingawareness on HIV/AIDS among member householdswas taken up in 50 Kalanjiam locations. A workplace policy on HIV/AIDS was developed and workplace training on HIV/AIDS to all the blockintegrators, community accountants and clusterassociates in 12 regions has been organised. FocusedHIV/AIDS intervention was taken up in Sellurlocation from Madurai Urban and Ponnamapet andKondalampatti locations in Salem. In addition tocreating awareness, the project focuses onidentifying the HIV positive individuals, linkingthem with the positive network and governmentsystem for counseling, treatment and care,promoting livelihood opportunities for the affectedand breaking the stigma and discrimination amongthe community. So far four men and three womenwith the infection were identified and referred toIntegrated Counseling and Treatment Center run bythe Government. Three medical camps wereconducted at Sellur in which 115 persons benefittedout of it. The Kalanjiam members in Madurai urbanlocations participated in the exhibition cumscreening camp organised in Red Ribbon Express byTamil Nadu AIDS Control Society to createawareness about HIV/AIDs. Cultural campaignswith three trained teams using folklores programmeswere conducted in 192 places.


Sustainable Healthcare Advancement (SUHAM):In order to create access to quality and timelyhealthcare service at affordable cost, communitymanaged SUHAM Hospitals have been initiated inTheni and Madurai. In Theni SUHAM Hospital 8,705outpatients and 189 inpatients including 51 surgerycases were treated. The hospital could cover 80percent of its operational costs. Similarly theMadurai SUHAM Hospital has served 20,186outpatients and 864 inpatients including 147surgeries. As many as 21 camps have beenconducted on different ailments. Likewise, fourhealth centres housed in Federation offices haveserved 7,243 patients and they could meet all theircosts themselves.

Ensuring access to electricity

Based on the need assessment taken up in all thelocations, an exclusive product for ‘Electricity’ wasdesigned and offered to the members. Exclusiveassociates were placed for this managing thisproduct. They help the clusters/federations toidentify the needy families and based on the feltneed from the applicant the application is generatedand given to the group. Group conducts preliminaryassessment and they in turn recommend the loanapplication to cluster Executive Committee. Duringthis year 1450 loans have been distributed across 96locations to the tune of `8.08 million with the loanmobilised from various banks including KDFS.

Strengthening Kalanjiam Movement

State Level Kalanjiam Movement cells have beenconstituted in Tamilnadu based at Madurai andAndhra Pradesh based at Tirupati. These cells wouldtake up regional level initiatives of the KalanjiamMovement. The Movement has conducted selfregulation workshops in four regions. These selfregulation programmes helped to set standards andequip leaders to regularly review their growth anddevelopment. The Kalanjiam Movement campaignedagainst usury all over Tamil Nadu. Meetings wereheld in all the Cluster Development Associations,hand-bills were distributed to all the public tosensitise them on the usury. Signature campaignagainst the usury was taken up and more than60,000 Kalanjiam members have signed againstusury. We expect it to be doubled in the coming

year. The Kalanjiams also took part in the Stand Upand Take Action against Poverty (SUTA) campaignorganised by United Nations on the World povertyday – October 17 through campaigning against theusury. About 116,000 Kalanjiam members pledgedagainst usury and resolution was adopted by each ofthe Kalanjiam members for eliminating poverty andto eliminate usury.

Policy Advocacy

In Madurai Symposium 2009, the KalanjiamProgramme has organised a number of seminars andconventions as part of its policy advocacy efforts. Inpartnership with the State Bank of India aConference on Business Facilitator/BusinessCorrespondent Model for Financial Inclusion wasorganised. Senior officials of SBI, BusinessCorrespondents of SBI, and NGOs have attendedthe conference. Conference concluded that BC/BF isthe alternative channels to address FinancialInclusion. Microfinance was accepted in theconference as an effective tool to achieve FinancialInclusion.

The Kalanjiam Programme in association with theIndian Network of Federations of SHGs (INFOS)organised a national level summit, in which 450community leaders from SHGs and Federations fromabout 110 federation and 50 senior level Executiveand Professionals from promoting NGOs involved inMicrofinance and SHGs from across Indiaparticipated. The summit focused on sensitizing theSHG networks about Millennium DevelopmentGoals, sharing the best practices related tomicrofinance and MDGs and charting out wayforward to achieve MDGs through the SHGmovement.

A workshop on ‘SHGs and Financial Inclusion’ wasorganised in the Madurai Symposium, andparticipants from various banks and representativesfrom various NGOs, Federations and SHGs attendedthe event. The business facilitator and businesscorrespondent models were discussed in detail. TheKalanjiam programme in partnership with theInternational Network of Alternative FinancialInstitutions(INAFI) organised a national conferenceon “Microfinance and MDGs”. Several seniorofficials from the public sector banks, NABARD and


SIDBI attended the conference. It was deliberatedthat conventional credit systems of banks were notadequate enough to address the problems ofFinancial Inclusion. The need for viewingMicrofinance in the context of achieving MDGs wasstressed in the conference.

A seminar on policies on accounts for peopleFederations was organised with the ChartedAccountants, representatives and staff from SHGfederations, network members of INAFI and INFOSto bring uniform accounting policies for SHGfederations. A Development dialogue on the role ofmedical professionals in poverty reduction wasorganised in Madurai on November 1, 2009 and

several medical professionals attended theprogramme.

The Kalanjiam Programme organised a NationalConference on Sustainable Self Help Groups (SHGs)on March 4–5, 2010 at Chennai in association withINAFI-India and INFOS. As many as 60 senior levelofficials from Government, NGOs involved inpromoting SHGs, Commercial Banks, CooperativeBanks, RBI, NABARD, and insurance companiesdonor agencies, academic institutions, and SHGFederation leaders across India participated anddeliberated on the different dimensions and issuespertaining to the sustainability of SHGs.

ParticularsMarch

2008 2009 2010

Spread of the Programme

a) No. of States 11 11 12b) No. of Districts 36 36 45c) No. of Blocks 157 164 173d) No. of Kalanjiams 24,469 26,049 28,488e) No. of Cluster Development Associations 1,451 1,143 1,120f) No. of Federations 73 99 108g) No. of Members 401,688 434,419 485,867h) No. of Villages 7,311 7,615 7,489

Finance (`̀̀̀̀ in millions)

a) Total own funds 1,405 1,670 1,928b) Savings 1,131 1,368 1,659c) Reserves & Surplus 274 302 268

SHG Bank Linkage

a) No. of branches involved 192 194 320b) No. of banks involved 29 29 31c) No. of loans 56,092 66,626 78,706d) Amount mobilized 2,666 3,521 4,815

Loan outstanding with members 2,190 2,595 3,300

Total credit generated 6,629 8,377 10,783

Status of Kalanjiam Community Banking Programme


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There are numerous small irrigation tank structures spreadover the entire Deccan Plateau, which serve millions of small

and marginal families in South India. The tanks deterioratedbecause of neglect and need urgent renovation and goodmanagement. The Vayalagam Tankfed Agriculture DevelopmentProgramme was initiated in the year 1992 to work on these smallwater bodies with the participation of the farmers. Theprogramme believes that local management of the tank systemcan be the only solution to the problem in the long run. TheDHAN-Vayalagam (Tank) Foundation has been promoted for thefollowing core purposes Poverty Reduction of small and marginal farmers, the

landless and women through Conservation and Developmentof Small Scale Water Resources

Building nested institutions and their sustenance to ensurelocal management

Sustainable the livelihoods of farmers through stabilisingtankfed agriculture

The programme has moved from working on isolated tanks, tocascade-watershed, small scale water bodies, basin and now'Water' has become a unique tool for alleviating poverty. The keycomponents of the programme are: Organising the farmers around the tanks and later on at the

level of cascades, blocks, district etc. Rehabilitating water harvesting structures with farmers'

contribution and participation to improve the acquisition ofwater, and restore the system efficiency and increase wateruse efficiency.

Tank-based watershed development is a distinct valueaddition of the programme. Tank rehabilitation as acomponent of watershed development paves way forharvesting all the rain water within each watershedboundary.

Promotion of Microfinance Groups(MFGs) to provide accessto savings, credit and insurance services to the farmers.These groups serve as a platform to bring farmers togetherregularly to discuss the conservation of tanks and sustainingtankfed agriculture.

The Vayalagam Agriculture Development Centres areworking to raise land productivity to improve the livelihoodof command area farmers by creating awareness about newfarming and irrigation management techniques through farmschools, promoting seed farms to produce quality seeds andfor bulk purchase of farm inputs to get the benefits ofeconomy of scale.

Collaboration with relevant academic and researchinstitutions at national and international levels to doresearch on tank systems and tankfed agriculture.

The programme constantly interacts with the local, State andCentral Governments to fund tank development work and toframe better policies for tank system administration.

Vayalagam

Tankfed

Agriculture

Development

Programme


Scaling–up Vayalagam model of conservation and

development

The Vayalagam programme expanded theconservation and development of small scale waterresources by reaching out to 22,146 more small,marginal and landless families with a total outreachof 182,801 farm families. The programme has beentaken to 195 new villages and promoted 278 moreVayalagams during the year. The VayalagamProgramme made an entry into Eastern India and ithas started working on Ahar-Pyne IrrigationSystems in South Bihar in Gangetic plains akin totank irrigation systems in South India.

Now the Vayalagam model of conservation anddevelopment of small scale water resources has beenexpanded to six new locations. Communityorganising and conservation works have beeninitiated with the support of government ofKarnataka in Kittur and Nandagada blocks inBelgaum district and Bethamangala block in Kolardistrict. With the support of NABARD andGovernment of Andhra Pradesh, the Vayalagamprogramme has been initiated in East Godavari,Warangal and Nalgonda districts, Andhra Pradesh.In Tamil Nadu, works have been initiated inNarikudi block of Virudhunagar district with thesupport of Rabobank Foundation, the Netherlands.Baseline and secondary data collection, seedingVayalagam concept, and promotion of Vayalagamswere carried out in these new locations. Similarly,the Vayalagam Programme also integrated its worksalong with the Kalanjiam programme in Betnotiblock of Orissa to renovate village ponds for fishrearing to be managed by Self Help Group membersfor meeting their nutritional security.

Community owned Conservation and

Development of Water resources

Water has been the key driver for cooperation aswell as conflict. One of the important programmecomponents of Vayalagam programme is organisingthe community for conservation and development oftraditional small scale water resources in rural,urban, tribal and coastal contexts. The programmeteams at locations and regions have played a keyrole in mobilising programme funds from

government, bilateral, philanthropic and corporateagencies either to create new water assets such asfarm ponds, check dams or to renovate existingtraditional water commons such as tanks, ponds,and community wells.

The programme could get most of the waterresources conservation and development worksunder individual philanthropic support andCorporate Social responsibility in Tamil Nadu andwith the World Bank funded community tankmanagement projects under the national levelBharat Nirman initiatives to increase the irrigationpotential under tank commands in Karnataka andAndhra Pradesh.

The programme has completed the implementationof `30.58 million worth of conservation works. Theteams in South Tamil Nadu have made attempts tofacilitate renovation of rural water bodies such assupply channel clearance, tank bed de–silting anddeepening ponds under the National RuralEmployment Guarantee Scheme in 36 villages andensured the physical infrastructure development tothe tune of `17.41 million. The programme couldimplement `48 million worth of physical works forensuring water security.

Partnership with NABARD in Andhra Pradesh

The partnership between DHAN and the NABARDin Andhra Pradesh has been unique and mutuallyreinforcing for community based natural resourcemanagement. DHAN has been accorded projectsunder various schemes of NABARD. UnderWatershed Development Fund (WDF), DHAN hasgot a sanction for three watershed projects inGudihathnoor Mandal and two more watersheds inKoutala Mandal in Adilabad district; threewatersheds in Warangal district. Under IndoGerman Watershed Development Programme –Andhra Pradesh (IGWDP – AP), the programme hasgot a sanction for three watersheds in IndervellyMandal of Adilabad district. Through all the 11watersheds over 13,207 hectares of land would betreated, benefitting 4,961 farming families.

NABARD has also recognized 122 Vayalgams inChittoor, Nalgonda and Gulbarga districts of


Andhra Pradesh assuring support for 3-5 years. TheVayalagam programme has entered into anagreement with NABARD for facilitatingimplementation of WDF watersheds in Karimnagar,Nizamabad and Nalgonda districts in AndhraPradesh to support, guide and monitorimplementation of watershed projects by 22 NGOs.The programme extends techno managerial supportfor implementation of totally 70 watersheds covering79,760 hectares, and it has facilitatedimplementation of `7.27 million of conservation anddevelopment works.

The Vayalagam programme has also got an approvalfrom NABARD for implementing a unique creditbased natural resources development under itsUmbrella Programme for Natural ResourceManagement (UPNRM) to the tune of `20 million toprovide credit support for 12 natural resourcesmanagement activities benefiting 9,000 families.

Integrating microfinance in Vayalagam

Considering the potential of microfinance activitiesin sustaining the livelihoods of small and marginalfarm families, the microfinance model integrated inthe Vayalagam conservation and development modelproved to be a resounding success and SHG-BankLinkage model has been well recognised an effectiveeconomic empowerment approach to addresspoverty. With the knowledge gained from theKalanjiam Community Banking Programme, theVayalagam Programme integrated microfinance,promoting microfinance groups (MFGs) as sub–committees of Vayalagams. The success thus gainedhas made the programme to expand it to all thelocations. The promotion of microfinance groupswith exclusive farmers, both men and womenlandless members, exclusive landless womenmembers within a village as sub–units ofVayalagams has helped ensure sustainability ofVayalagam programme after rehabilitation. About50,132 members have been organised into 3,179microfinance groups for meeting agricultural needsby facilitating the linkage with formal financialinstitutions for affordable credit.

As an March 2010, members in the microfinancegroups have saved `20.25 million and mobilized `41million worth of credit from commercial banks. The

members have loan outstanding to the tune of ̀ 148.2million in their groups.

Social security for the farmers

Life Insurance

The social safety nets of the vulnerable againstaccident and natural death, heath deterioration andcomplexities of diseases become crucial for improvedstandard of living. In the microfinance groups 13,754families have got an insurance cover by paying `1.43million as premium with the mainstream insurancecompanies.

Piloting Crop Insurance

Based on the experience gained from deficit rainfallbased index crop insurance in two locations ofRainfed Farming Development Programme andsubsequent experience from composite mutualinsurance pilots on chillies in Ramanathapuramdistrict during last year, the People Mutual initiatedthe mutual crop insurance pilot project inMudukulathur, Singampuneri and Kottampattifederations to cover about 1500 farmers. During theyear only over 30 percent farmers got enrolled as aresult of insurance literacy programmes organisedby each federations with the support of PeopleMutuals. The People Mutuals has organised anorientation programme to the staff and leaders ofSira location in Karnataka on Mutual livestockinsurance.

Sectoral Contributions

Tankfed agriculture development

Stabilising tankfed agriculture to sustain livelihoodsof the underprivileged and landless farmers is thecore area of intervention of Vayalagam programme.The programme could facilitate certain focusedagricultural interventions through partnership withmainstream agencies. For example, under AndhraPradesh Community Based Tank ManagementProject (APCBTMP), as a part of agriculturelivelihood support services, the programme hastaken up promotion of 101 vermi–compost units topromote organic farming, System of RiceIntensification (SRI) method of paddy cultivation inthe ayacuts of seven tanks, demonstrations on


Integrated Nutrient Management and IntegratedPest Management in vegetables was taken up in 11tank associations, kissan melas were conducted intwo villages by mobilizing all departmental officialsand around 350 farmers.

In Karnataka, under IWMI-RUAF Urban AgricultureProject, about 100 carrot cultivating farmers wereorganised into Primary Producer Group (PPG) andas a new intervention, off–Season Carrot cultivationwas demonstrated in trial plots of five farmers. Theyield and quality of the carrot produced were verygood and the farmers got fairly high price. Thesefarmer groups were directly linked with Reliance’sFarm Fresh as a value chain. In Pavagada,continuing the success of seed village project inearlier years the farmers produced about 3,245quintals of groundnut seed and sold them at `3,245per quintal. The Pavagada Vayalagam federationcollaborated with Horticulture department ofGovernment of Karnataka and implemented `0.21million worth of dryland horticulture developmentworks. It also distributed 1,590 bags of `0.9 millionworth fertilizers to 911 farmers. Moreover 660farmers have got certified seeds of about 436 bagsworth `0.20 million. The Vayalagam marketinggroups have collected 56 bags of Ragi and sold to`45, 900.

In Tamil Nadu, 1500 kilograms of certified paddyseeds were distributed by Singampuneri federationto its members. The Kottampatti Vayalagamfederation facilitated 300 kilograms of Paddy seed tofarmers from Agriculture department. Eighttrainings were conducted on SRI method to farmersfrom Narikudi, Tiruchuli by the Krishi VigyanKendra in Kovilankulam. Ten veterinary camps wereorganised in T.Kallupatti, Theni and Tirumangalamlocations and about 500 farmers got benefited. FourPPGs and PMGs have been promoted inTirumangalam and Theni locations. `0.13 millionworth of cattle feed was marketed by three PMGs inTheni.

Ensuring accessibility & quality of drinking water

Oorani Renovation: Renovating ooranis to meet thedrinking water needs of people remain one of thepriorities of Vayalagam Programme. During theyear, with the support of Centre for Facilitating

Philanthropy, Hindustan Unilever Limited, ITCRural Development trust, 30 Ooranis were renovatedand over 25,000 families got access to drinking waterfor the entire year. The drudgery of women has beenbrought down by this intervention.

Installing Bio-Sand Filter: Creating awarenessabout Safe drinking water and Household Watertreatment by installing biosand filters was given amajor thrust. About 13 trainings were organised and360 members were trained on the functioning ofbiosand filters and safe drinking water. The teamalso ensured production of 504 Biosand filters inthree production centres in Madurai, Chittoor andAdilabad. Over 502 biosand filters were installed in10 locations benefiting 2,750 members with anaccess to safe drinking water.

An action research on redesigned Biosand filterwas conducted with the support of CanadianInternational Development Agency. The newdesign makes the volume of the water reservoirequal to the volume of the fine sand media andthe performance of filter was evaluated undertwo criteria viz. the effects of reduced head anduser acceptance. The study attempted to addressfour key objectives viz. ensuring the filterfunctions correctly, measuring the frequency ofcleaning, measuring the frequency of usage,determining the new operational parametersacceptable to users. With this new design, 12new filters were installed in S.Gopalapuram andSengapadai villages in Madurai district. Thestudy concluded that there were no serioushydraulic problems, operations problems wereprimarily with sand disturbance/diffuser plates,user knowledge on the frequency and periodicityof cleaning was about 50 percent and all the 12users have high acceptance to the new design.

Sanitation and Waste water Recycling

With the support of Arghyam Foundation, 12 ecosantoilets were installed in Chittoor region. The peoplehave contributed about 20 percent of total costtowards material and labour in the construction oftoilets. The Centre for Urban Water Resources(CURE) of Vayalagam programme supported one ofthe urban Kalanjiam federations to design andmonitor the reconstruction of community toilet


funded by Madurai Corporation under JNNURMprogramme. The CURE also facilitated twointernational UN events viz. Global Hand WashingDay on October 17 and End Poverty Campaign byconvening Toilet Queue from 20-22, March 2010. Theawareness programmes were organised in schools,colleges and locations of Kalanjiam programme. Theteam also implemented two DecentralisedWastewater Treatment Systems (DEWATS). OneDEWATS unit was installed in Panaiyur locationwith the support from Namakku Namae Thittam. AKnowledge Building Workshop on DEWATS wasconducted by CURE at Madurai Symposium and atraining programme to DEWATS was conducted tothe project executives of DHAN.

Fishery development

With continued success in the past years, fishrearing activity was promoted actively in 111 biggerwater bodies covering up 560 acres water spreadarea. Apart from this, 65 farm ponds and 660 smallhousehold ponds, check dams and open wells werealso stocked with fish seeds mainly for providingadditional income and nutritional security to thefarmers. During this year, fish rearing activity wasinitiated in Thoothukudi district and also in Betnotilocation in Mayurbhanj district of Orissa.

The Vayalagam programme has got support fromTele Food Special Fund, a part of FAO’s assistance tosupport food security in fifty villages from fivedistricts of Tamil Nadu. This project has supportedto take up fish rearing in 30 Tanks and 42 villageponds. Nearly four lakhs fish seeds were suppliedworth of ̀ 400,000. The community has provided 30percent of the cost of fish seeds as their contributionand the same was kept in the federation for futuresupport to this activity. In Gulbarga district, thehighest drought prone district in North Karnataka,the Vayalagam programme took up renovation of 10tanks and 10 ponds including fishery activity inthose water bodies. The Vayalagam programme hasinitiated fish rearing on an experimental basis in thetribal context involving tribal women groups inBetnoti block of Mayurphanj District in Orissa.Similarly, in Pavagada location of Karnataka, fishrearing activity was taken up in 650 small ponds andopen wells for household consumption. Over 750,000

fingerlings were released and it is expected that thisactivity would yield 90 tons of fish with anestimated net income of ̀ 1.67 million. TheProgramme has initiated an experiment on fishrearing in two drinking water Ooranis inMudukulathur block.

DHAN as Resource centre in Water sector

The Vayalagam programme has concluded theproject done with the Council for Advancement ofPeople’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART) asa Nodal NGO. This report was prepared in threevolumes which contain narrative completion report,financial report, data base of 345 NGOs,development document and project mapping of 20blocks and profile of 100 NGOs. This project hashelped the Vayalagam programme to identifysuitable NGOs as affiliates to replicate theVayalagam model of conservation and development.

The Vayalagam programme has convened a numberof workshops, training programmes and participatedin national, international events during this year toshare the experiences of Vayalagam model of waterconservation and climate change adoption. Theevents organised / attended by the Programme areas followed.

Regional Consultative Workshop on WaterSector: Issues and Challenges by UN SolutionExchange at KILA, Thirissur in June 2009

Poster Session on Ecosystem based WatershedDevelopment for Securing Livelihoods in Indiaat World Water Week held at Stockholm,Sweden during August 2009

Central Level Coordination CommitteeMeetings were organised to discuss financialInclusion and SGSY organised by MoRD,Government of India September 2009 andJanuary 2010

General Body Meeting of India WaterPartnership and helped in search Committee toelect New Board Members and DHAN has gotanother term to be part of Executive Committeeof India Water Partnership, New Delhi. Alsoparticipated online in the General Assembly ofWorld Water Council to elect new 15 membersGoverning Body


Offered Development Management Programmeon Umbrella Programme of Natural ResourcesManagement for Middle Level Officers of 49Officials of NABARD during February 2010

National Level Training Programme onCommodity Procurement and Marketing –Different Models in India organised by IIM,Lucknow during July 2009

Participated in National Level Workshop onNatural Resources Conservation andmanagement by IIM, Lucknow and presented apaper during October 2009

Conducted a Policy Seminar on Farm Ponds toenhance productivity in backward regions ofTamil Nadu along during November 2009

Carried out Impact Evaluation of twowatersheds implemented by BAIF-UP at

Chitrakoot district of Uttar Pradesh forNABARD.

Undertook Impact Evaluation of DPAP, IWDPwatersheds in Chittoor, Cuddapah,Mehabubnagar, Nalgonda and Adilabaddistricts in Andhra Pradesh sponsored byNational Institute for Rural Development.

A Chapter on Customary Rights in TankManagement was written in the book edited byMr.Ramasamy Iyer on the title ‘Water Laws inIndia’ published by SAGE

A Chapter was written on GIS Application forwater Resources Planning and Development-Experience of DHAN Foundation and shared toBharathidasan University, Trichy, The book isyet to be printed.

ParticularsMarch

2008 2009 2010

(Cumulative figures)

Spread of the Programme

a) No. of States 4 4 6

b) No. of Districts 22 22 22

c) No. of Vayalagams 1,982 2,164 2,442

d) No. of Cascade & watershed associations 140 161 161

e) No. of Federations 31 31 31

f) No. of Members 148,770 160,655 182,801

g) Command area benefited(in ha.) 52,081 57,541 63,101

Value of Physical works implemented during the year (Rs. in millions)

a) Through Farmers Contribution 15 9 12

b) Through Govt. and other agencies 45 34 36

c) Agriculture Credit support through MFGs 36 51 41

Status of Vayalagam Agriculture Development Programme


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DHAN Foundation responded immediately after thetsunami in 2004 and took up relief works. To identify and

address the needs, the local community was asked to identifywhat they needed. After the relief phase, DHAN took up roleof enabling the restoration of livelihood activities in theaffected regions. It has become a full-fledged and area basedprogramme. The programme follows an integrated and holisticapproach to address the issues in livelihoods and conservationof coastal ecosystem. Without upsetting the social fabric andcultural identities, the following programme components havebeen designed.

Promoting Peoples' Organisations among the mostvulnerable communities: marginalized fishingcommunities, affected coastal farmers, affected womenand families involved in allied activities. They get accessto savings, credit and insurance services in addition tosupport for their livelihoods activities

Conserving natural resources such as coastal eco-system,marine bio-system, water bodies and coastal farms toreduce poverty and vulnerability and to make fisheriesand coastal agriculture sustainable.

Building business-based people's organisations and theirnetworks to strengthen their existing livelihoods andencourage them to take up alternative livelihoods.

Establishing disaster mitigation strategies throughdisaster management committees, early warning systemsthrough networked VICs, creating corpus funds at thePeople's Organisations for facing future disasters.

Working in partnership with the Panchayat and Districtlevel mainstream agencies to coordinate effectively underany emergency situations.

Coastal

Conservation

and Livelihoods

Programme


Institutions at Grassroots

Peoples’ Organisations are central to the coastalconservation as well as livelihood enhancementinitiatives. The success was evident in the posttsunami in 2005, when DHAN entered intoorganising the victims of disaster, poor and mostvulnerable communities into SHGs to facilitatecommunity based restoration. Farmers, fisher folks,salt pan workers, vendors and labourers wereorganized into SHGs. These Peoples’ Organiationsenable the poor families to improve and initiate thelivelihood activities, lead a healthy life, improve theshelter conditions, educate the children, createassets, interact with mainstream resource andresearch institutions to channelise technology and tomobilise resources.

As on March 2010, the CALL programme hasorganized 80,440 poor and vulnerable families in 875coastal villages in the state of Tamil Nadu andPuducherry union territory. During this year 7,375poor families were organised into primary groups(SHGs). These SHGs have created opportunities forthe communities to work together and helpmutually.

Microfinance for conservation and livelihoods

With more than two decades of implementing theenabling model of microfinance, DHAN hasintegrated microfinance as a strategy to address thevulnerabilities and sustain livelihoods of the poorfamilies through addressing their diversified needssuch as consumption, education, health, andlivelihoods. Financial intermediation reduces thedependency and builds the confidence of theindividuals. The members have enhanced theiraverage monthly savings in SHGs ranging from `100to 150. The savings by the SHG members during theyear was is `71.0 million, taking the cumulativesavings of `250.4 million. By increasing the savingsthe communities have gained the capacity toleverage more funds from the mainstreaminstitutions like banks. Initially the banks wereproviding credit to a maximum of one or two timesto the amount saved by the SHGs and presentlythey lend about five times to the amount saved bythe SHGs.

Mobilising resources

The SHGs are linked with the nationalisedcommercial banks mainly to address large scalefinancial needs of poor communities and this wouldhelp the groups to reach financial sustainability. Sofar, the SHGs have been linked with more than 10nationalised banks in 10 coastal districts of TamilNadu and Puducherry. They have built a strongrelationship with these banks through timelyrepayment. The commercial banks address the creditneeds of poor families for strengthening thelivelihoods and during the year alone the 934 SHGshave mobilized `108 million from the banks, andcumulatively they have mobilized `716 million.

Poverty reduction through livelihood intervention

Restoring affected livelihoods and promoting newlivelihood opportunities have been the central focusof CALL programme. The livelihood interventionswere sector and sub–sector focused and it primarilyfocuses on promotion or strengthening of livelihoodactivities, promotion of income generating assets,value addition and market linkages. The familiessupported include farmers, fisher folks, salt panworkers, labourers and families involved in smalland petty trade activities. As on March 2010, over71,500 families were supported to initiate andstrengthen the livelihood activities. The poorcommunities were encouraged to market theirproduce collectively. The intervention yielded betterresults in the form of enhanced livelihood incomeand community ownership.

Agriculture development

The CALL programme designed its interventionaiming to address short and long term issues in theagriculture sector. The small and marginal farmingfamilies, who were affected by the Tsunami, weresupported to revive their agriculture fields andinitiate crop production. After addressing theimmediate issues, the programme shifted its focustowards addressing the long term issues likeoragising markets to fetch better price for theirproduces. Building the skill of the farmingcommunity towards organic farming, promotion ofalternative crop and facilitating collective marketingwere the focus of the programme during this year.


To enhance the income of the poor farmers CALLprogramme has promoted Primary AgricultureMarketing Groups (PAMG). The intervention ofPAMG begins with supply of quality seeds atcompetitive price and ends with marketing ofagriculture produce at better price than the localmarket. During this year the collective marketingwas done by the PAMGs in Kanchipuram andNagapattinam districts of Tamil Nadu. InKanchipuram district eight tons of cashew worth ofRs 0.13 million was marketed by the farmerscollectively. In Nagapattinam district 600 kilogramsof Gloriosa superba seeds worth of Rs 0.75 millionwere marketed collectively. The farming familieshave gained around `0.23 million as additionalincomes through this marketing intervention. Toaddress the issue of market fluctuation, three villagelevel warehouses were established during this yearwith the support of Care Today Fund. Theagriculture marketing groups promoted in thevillages have started using the infrastructure to storetheir produces and market when the prices are high.Each warehouse supports 400 poor and marginalfarm holdings

Stabilising fisheries

The major focus of the CALL programme was onsensitising the fisher folks for eco–friendly methodsof fishing without losing their income. Theprogramme has also experimented alternativelivelihood activities. The fisher folk involved intraditional method of fishing were organized asKalanjiam Meenavar Sangams (KMS). KMS isfunctioning with an objective sustaining the eco–friendly fishery practices, reducing the role ofintermediaries and conservation of marine resources.During this year `9.8 million worth of fishes havebeen marketed by KMS with a cumulative turnoverof ̀ 52 million. The concept of KMS has achieved itspurpose by enhancing the livelihood income of thefisher communities.

The SHG federation of fisher folk in Erwadi isfacilitating the poor families to market crabcollectively. The fishers have gained prices betterthan the local market. The additional price receivedby the fisher folks per kg was ̀ 20. So far theFederation has marketed 15.2 tons of crab worth of

`0.15 million. The additional income gained by allthe 60 families in a year was ̀ 0.3 million.

The fishing labourers, who have settled near theshore involved in dry fish making, were supported tomarket their produce collectively to enhance theirincome. They have marketed ̀ 29.6 million worth ofdry fishes. A total of 540 families are involved insuch activity.

Infrastructure for Livelihood Development: Tosupport the fisher communities in Cuddaloredistrict, a warehouse is established to store dry fishand market it when the price is high. Theinfrastructure is managed by the fisher communities.The programme has already established a fish mealprocessing unit in Cuddalore district. The dry fishpooled by the fisher folks would be stored in thewarehouse for processing and the pulverized dry fishwill be marketed to the poultry industries in otherparts of Tamil Nadu. This intervention would impactthe livelihoods of 400 fisher families.

Dairy Development

Kalanjiam Milk Producer Company Limited(KMPCL) was established as a Peoples’Organisation with an objective of addressing thepoverty through livelihood intermediation. KMPCLhas been formed as a nested institution, with thePrimary Producer Group (PPG) being the core orprimary institution with defined governancestructures, Dairy Association at the block level as anfacilitator for a group of PPGs and ProducerCompany (KMPCL) as the Apex body, coordinatingthe activities of procuring, processing and marketingof milk and milk products. PPG is an activity basedgroup, comprising of 15-20 members engaged in milkproduction activity in a village. KMPCL is currentlyserving around 800 members directly through milkprocurement covering around 180 villages. Theprocurement that began at 5,744 liters a day on April4, 2009 reached a peak of 17,800 liters a day onSeptember 30, 2009 – within five and a half monthssince inception. There have been fluctuations indaily procurement but the trend has been upward.Anandam Milk, the brand established by KMPCLhas secured the market share and gained theconfidence of the consumers. The KMPCL has also


expanded its support in the form of quality feedsupply and artificial insemination for livestock attheir door step.

Small Scale Activities

Apart from farming and fishing, the labourers in thecoastal districts are involved in livestock, vendingand other small scale livelihood activities. Thefamilies involved in farming were supported toinitiate integrated farming system. During this year400 poor farm families were supported to createfarm pond and initiate fresh water aquaculture.Further, these families were supported to rear 20broiler birds each. The droppings of the birds willenrich the soil nutrients and it will serve as feed tothe fishes. About 500 dryland farmers weresupported to initiate goat rearing activities. All thelivestock owned by the members were insured.About 100 landless agricultural labourers weresupported to promote mushroom and vermin–compost activities. Around 300 poorest of the poorfisher families were identified and they weresupported to initiate sea weed culture during thisyear.

Environment Sustainability

The CALL programme has the mandate ofpromoting community centric conservation. Thetwin focus of the programme includes reducing thehuman activities that are leading to the depletion ofnatural resources and conservation of coastal andmarine resources. The Peoples’ Organisationspromoted are involved in conservation of waterbodies, promoting soil health, regeneratingmangroves and other vegetation. The marineresources like coral reefs, sea grass and otherendangered species are conserved by buildingawareness on eco–friendly livelihood activities.

Renovating tanks – mitigating droughts

Irrigation tanks along the coast have beenconstructed before many centuries to manageclimate variations. Renovation of these water bodiesand restoration of community management wouldprovide opportunities to the poor communities togenerate and sustain their livelihoods. To restore thecommunity management, the poor and marginal

farming families were organised into associations torenovate the water bodies at regular intervals andenhance the farm productivity. During this yearthree irrigation tanks have been renovated tosupport 655 families to irrigate their fields. The totalpopulation reached through this intervention was2,718 and 513 hectares of agriculture fields getassured irrigation.

Reviving Ooranis

Renovation of village ponds ensures drinking waterfor the human as well as to feed the cattle. Duringthis year seven village ponds located inRamanathapuram district was renovated to augmentrainwater for drinking and domestic purposes. Eachpond renovated has the capacity to store 4500 cubicmeters of water and supports around 80 – 250families. Women in these seven villages were able toaccess fresh water for their domestic purposes,without a burden of walking for miles to fetchwater. Around 1330 families would get the benefit.

Farm ponds for saving crops

The small and marginal farming families identifiedat village level were supported to dig farm ponds tocollect rainwater for providing life irrigation to thecrops during the critical phases of crop growth.During this year 67 farm ponds were established inRamanathapuram, Nagapattinam and Pudukottaidistricts assuring life irrigation to the cropscultivated in 27 hectares of land.

Watershed development

As part of National Watershed DevelopmentProgramme in Rainfed Areas, water bodies inKanchipuram districts were renovated. Under thisproject four canals supplying water to irrigationtanks were renovated. Apart from renovation ofcanals connecting to tanks, field channels wererenovated to ensure availability of water forirrigation. To ensure availability of water fordomestic use five ponds were renovated. Throughrenovation of these water bodies over 800 poor andmarginal farm families would be benefitted. Threefamilies were supported with farm ponds andpercolation ponds.


Tree plantation to increase vegetation

The CALL programme has encouraged the Peoples’Organisation to plant trees along the bunds of waterbodies and common lands to mitigate the effects forclimate change. Increased tree cover would removethe carbon dioxide from air. During this year over2500 saplings were planted by the Peoples’Organisations. The local tree species planted includeNeem, Jamun, Tamarind and Pungamia. The localcommunity took the responsibility of digging pitsand maintaining planted trees. The trees planted arehaving fruit and commercial values. The benefit outof trees planted would be used by the Peoples’Organisation to meet the maintenance of the waterbodies.

Workshop on conservation

As part of the Madurai Symposium 2009 CALLProgramme has organised a workshop on coastalresource utilization, conservation and management.Around 200 community representatives from 10coastal districts participated in the event. As anoutcome of the event, eight resolutions were passedby the community. The workshop called for unifiedefforts of the state and central governments toensure environment sustainability through trainingat least one third of the people in the coastaldistricts in the next five years. The workshopresolved that the state and central governmentsshould take necessary legal actions to stop theproduction of banned nets and legally empower thevillage level conservation councils and communityinstitutions involved in coastal conservation. It alsocalled for setting up an exclusive department for thecoastal agriculture development. The resolutionencouraged the promotion of village levelconservation councils in all the coastal villages.

Insurance for disaster risk reduction

The coastal districts are prone to recurrent disastersand the most vulnerable are the poor and vulnerablefamilies living in huts and semi–pucca houses withlimited or no livelihood assets. When a breadwinnerdies or the income generating assets fail it will be agreat blow to the economy of a family. The fisherfolks involved in fishing face life threat due to the

nature of their livelihood. The farmers in the coastaldistrict frequent face crop failures due to pooravailability of water for irrigation. The familiesinvolved in dairy farming might face death ofanimals due to flash floods. Assessing the potentialvulnerabilities the CALL programme has introducedinsurance products according to the contexts toreduce or mitigate the impact of the disaster. Thediversified insurance products introduced includelife, health, livestock and crop insurance. As onMarch 2010, 63,191 individuals have been coveredunder life insurance, 1800 families were providedhealth insurance cover, 321 families were coveredunder crop insurance and 1100 families opted forlivestock insurance.

Training on disaster risk reduction

In October 2009, two training events were organisedto the coastal communities on Disaster RiskReduction with the support of Oxfam Australia.Over 50 participants from Andhra Pradesh andTamil Nadu representing NGOs working in thecoastal districts have participated in the event. Thetraining modules were designed to train thecommunity on basics of community based disasterrisk reduction, disaster risks in coastal areas, policieson disaster management and DHAN’s experience. Atthe end of the event all the participants havedeveloped action plans for disaster risk reduction.

Civic interventions

During this year, the SHG federations promoted byCALL programme have mobilised Rs 5.4 millionworth of scholarships from the Janashri BhimaYojan insurance scheme to support 6311 students.About 55 percent of the students supported weregirls. In addition the SHGs promoted have given Rs22 million worth of loans to support the education ofmembers’ children. Apart from the financial supportthe federations have established tuition centers toenhance the academic performance of the students.To build awareness and address the health relatedissues, the SHGs federations have organised severalhealth camps at village level and awareness events.Over 2450 members were benefitted through the eyecamps, breast cancer screening camps, generalhealth camps and alcohol de-addiction camps.


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The Tata-Dhan Academy, an institution for DevelopmentManagement is the result of a partnership between the

DHAN Foundation and Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Mumbai. TheAcademy was begun in December 2000 and aims at becominga Centre of Excellence in Development Management. The corepurposes of the Academy are inducting and grooming freshgraduates as Development Professionals through speciallydesigned programmes, and building capacity of thedevelopment practitioners. The key activities taken up by theAcademy are;

A two-year postgraduate programme in developmentmanagement (PDM) for building developmentprofessionals with high quality techno-managerialcompetence supported by appropriate motivations, valuesand attitudes to work with people, particularly thedisadvantaged.

A number of short duration management developmentprogrammes such as Social Development ResearchCapacity Building, LEAD: Future Search for NGOs,Advanced Reflective Training on scaling-up Microfinance,Micro insurance and Development ManagementAppreciation Programme for the NGO staff, academicians,researchers and government agencies.

Researches for generating case studies and teachingmaterials are coordinated by the faculty members andsupported by Research Associates.

The 'Advanced Centre for Skill and Knowledge on MutualInsurance (ASKMI)' promoted in the Academy works foradvancing the practice of micro insurance and the'Advanced Centre for Enabling Disaster Risk Reduction(ACE DRR)' works on enhancing the knowledge andpractice on disaster risk reduction. These Centres wouldtake up researches, pilot projects, training and education,documentation and publication, networking andconsultancy, and policy advocacy in the respective fields.

Tata-Dhan

Academy


Tata-Dhan Academy is in its 10th year of operations.During the nurturing phase, between 2001 and 2006,the core activities such as the Programme inDevelopment Management (PDM), short durationdevelopment management education programmes,research, documentation and publication,consultancy, and faculty development were initiatedand strengthened. The support extended by SRTTduring the transition (2006-2007) was significant toget into the second phase of stabilization (2007-2010).

Programme in Development Management

The design of Programme in DevelopmentManagement has been stabilized into a two-yearpost-graduate programme. The representation ofstudents was expanded to 14 states. The selectionand admission process was intensified byintroducing a two-day selection camp. Theplacement was opened to designated NGOs from thesixth batch onwards.

The students of PDM were exposed to variousdevelopment themes and issues such as ecology,legal environment, inequality and poverty, legalframeworks for carrying various developmentinterventions and ecological perspectives ondevelopment, agriculture, animal husbandry,forestry, fisheries, non-farm sector and urbanlivelihoods, microfinance, research methods andtools, social issues sanitation, safe drinking water,community health, child labour, gender issues,watershed concepts, written and oralcommunication, and micro-lab process on self andinterpersonal relationships through various coursesand fieldwork assignments. They were also exposedto different development organisations tounderstand the development initiatives and themission of the organisations and solidify their futurecareer in the development sector.

The admissions process to PDM 11 was initiated andadmissions test were conducted. The selectionprocess would be conducted in two centres, Chennaiand New Delhi, by a selection panel.

Faculty development

The investments made on the faculty members hasresulted in improvement of the teaching ability,

research and documentation ability, design andcoordination of events, and particularly theconfidence level. The short courses at IIM-A andCSRI, Chennai, were a few good opportunities forfaculty development. The complementary support byfaculty members has improved the capacity of theAcademy in taking new initiatives and activities.Consultancy was given due attention. The existingcampus and environment was utilized effectively tomanage diversified activities.

There are five disciplines under which core activitieswere planned and performed by the Academy duringthe last year. They Academy’s disciplines are (i)Basics of Development (BASICS), (ii) Technology ofDevelopment (TECH), Management of Development(MADE), Leadership Development and InstitutionBuilding (LAB), and Communication forDevelopment (CODE).

The position paper for each discipline has beenrevised to include integration between courses,themes under which training programmes should beoffered, research and consultancy activities to betaken up, and reference materials, publications andreports which support the discipline.

Researches and studies

The capacity of outsourcing people for research hasimproved. The Centres of both ASKMI and ACEDRRprovided opportunities for the team to initiate andcoordinate pilots and research projects on differentrelated themes of Centres. The funding support byOxfam America and ZLM, Netherlands has beensignificant in stabilizing the research activities of theAcademy.

Through the research team, district-level humandevelopment reports were prepared for the StatePlanning Commission for Sivaganga andThiruvannamalai districts; this increased theconfidence level of the team in undertakinggovernment projects.

Two dissemination workshops on district humandevelopment reports (DHDR) prepared for Dindiguland Sivaganga were conducted for the district leveldepartment officials, block level officials, Panchayatpresidents, and SHG federations. It was facilitatedby the district administration and was attended by


800 participants. The focus areas were orienting theparticipants on human development concepts, statusof livelihoods including agriculture and allied, socialstatus related to health and education, and genderstatus. The Academy has undertaken two projectson to prepare additional reports for Kanyakumariand the Nilgiris districts with the State PlanningCommission.

PDM students undertook micro studies on themessuch as community ethnographic studies, health(malnutrition and anaemia), education,microfinance, and livelihoods (forest based, andspecific activities in urban and rural contexts).

Development Management Programmes

The Academy has acquired confidence in conductingshort duration education courses; ART ofMicrofinance, Social Development ResearchCapacity Building, Micro Insurance, HumanResource Development, Development ManagementAppreciation, Leadership Education for AdvancingDevelopment, and Rural Development are seen asstar programmes.

Several short duration Development ManagementProgrammes were conducted including PerspectivesBuilding for Advancing Development; Trainers ofTraining on Gender; Development Finance;Participatory Research Methodology; UPNRM; a 12-day programme on development managementappreciation; five programmes on team building,human lab and leadership development; webdesigning; and managerial oral communication.These programmes were offered for youngprofessionals, bankers, university officers, middleand top management of national and internationalNGOs. About 300 participants benefited out of thesaid programmes.

Events

Workshops, seminars, micro-studies, and shortresearch projects were conducted. Brochures, casestudies, course materials, manuals, and guidelineswere prepared according to the needs and demands.These documents and a few other publications werebrought out.

Three dialogues were conducted on (i) Is politics analternative path for development leaders?, (ii)Quality of education in India: The role of NGOs, and(iii) Contract farming and its relevance in India. tofacilitate building knowledge from the national andglobal contexts through literature reviews,presentations, and discussions among the PDMstudents and the faculty members.

Seminars and workshops on “NurturingDevelopment Missionaries”, “Water ManagementPractices: The Netherlands Perspective”, “Researchand Development with Reference to MDGs”, and“Budget Watch and Dialogue on the Union Budget2010-11” were conducted with different developmentsector stakeholders. Internally faculty seminars wereconducted on “Tata-Dhan Academy as a Centre ofExcellence: Status, Challenges and Prospects” and“Using TDA Style Manual: Formatting andCitation”.

Events such as PDM 10 inauguration, IndependenceDay celebration, sports week, ethnic dinner(representing Bihar state, Cambodia, and India), anddevelopment seminars were organized to build thestudents’ skills in organizing and managing eventsas well as to offer opportunities to facilitateexpression of the students’ individual talents.

Specialised Centres

There are three specialized centres at the Academy:ASKMI (mutual insurance), ACEDRR (disaster riskmanagement), and WETC (water). ASKMI hasintensified its activities on building anddisseminating knowledge through online courses;national and international research on risks andvulnerabilities, microfinance and micro insurance;workshops on coping mechanisms for riskmanagement; and a seminar on micro pensioninvolving stakeholders of insurance industries,NGOs and the community. WET Centre hasconducted 16 training programmes on communityhealth promotion, sanitation, project planning,project implementation on biosand filter, filterfabrication and water awareness programmes forfield executives, NGOs, and masons. Documentationof DHAN’s experience in hygiene, sanitation andsafe drinking water was facilitated by involving a


team from CAWST, Canada. WET Centre has alsoequipped its lab on drinking water quality testing.

There are seven regions representing Tamil Nadu,Andhra Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh identified aspotential satellite centres to expand WETCactivities. The regional integrators have beenconsulted about it. They have sent a few masons forundertaking biosand filter training. SERP, agovernment organisation in Andhra Pradesh, hasbeen approached to undertake training on water.The Centre has been equipped with two full-timemembers and about ten part-time trainers andtechnical experts. It has constituted a steeringcommittee and conducted two committee meetings;a consultative group will be constituted torecommend strategic direction to the centre.

ACEDRR has revived its contact with the OxfamAmerica team. A three-day exposure programme for11 participants from three NGOs has beenconducted. Two internal review meetings wereconducted to consolidate the lessons andexperiences from pilots and research projects. Anintern was engaged to write the research briefs andcompile the research compendium for ACEDRR. TheCentre also published a primer on DRR.

Positioning Tata-Dhan Academy

The faculty members attended the followingseminars and workshops, and presented papers:

A seminar on “Indigenous coping mechanismsfor risk management” conducted as part of theMadurai Symposium 2009 in which a paper onthe subject was presented.

Connecting microfinance and MDGs in theAfrican context. A paper on DHAN’s experiencewas presented as a case.

A paper on deepening micofinance waspresented at a national seminar on“Sustainability of SHGs”.

A paper on the theme of “Relevance of Researchand MDGs” was presented during the MaduraiSymposium 2009.

Six senior DHANites were deputed to handlecourses and share a few administrativeresponsibilities in the Academy.

Several consultancy projects were undertakenincluding “Gender Impact Studies on SGSY andDr Muthulakshmi Reddy Maternity Scheme” forthe State Planning Commission, and studies onTamil Nadu microfinance projects were donewith Indian Bank, Usilampatti Branch, Madurai,Tamil Nadu.

Madurai Symposium 2009 was facilitated withthe support of DHAN collective. TheSymposium included 37 seminars and 11conventions and was attended by more than7500 participants.


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There exists a great divide between the access to and use ofinformation and communication technology (ICT) between

urban and rural, rich and poor, for profits and charities. DHANFoundation has taken up ICT for the poor as a new theme toexperiment, develop and implement socially-relevant ICTprogrammes through the ICT based people's organisationsbuilt at the grassroots. It has become a cross cutting theme tocomplement the microfinance, water, rainfed farming themes.The programme is involved in the following activities.

Promoting Thagavalagam Groups to provide ICT basedlivelihoods, Village Information Centres in rural areas aswell as urban slums to provide various e-services such ase-mail, e-Post, computer aided school education, e-Governance.

Facilitating the rural poor to get connected with theresources and expertise located distantly through onlineconsultations for eye care, health, agriculture, legal,education and animal husbandry and fishery.

Enabling the aged and illiterate women and men to learnreading and writing through computer-aided adultliteracy centres setup for the Kalanjiam and Vayalagammembers.

Establishing Community Colleges to offer a number ofICT related and job oriented courses to the poor youthsand helping them to get employed in the nearby townsand cities.

Developing content for educational use, software foragriculture and animal husbandry services being used byfarmers in VIC's.

Promoting partnership with the other stakeholders suchas ICT based academic, research and businessorganisations to channelise resources and expertise to thegrassroots

ICT for

Poverty

Reduction


The Thagavalagam model of DHAN using ICT forpoverty reduction has the right mixture ofdevelopment focus, community management andownership, revenue generation and integration withexisting development programmes of DHAN thusproviding synergy. The Thagavalagam theme nowenters the new phase of scaling–up with fullestintegration with other programmes and themes ofDHAN.

Village Information Centres

Thagavalagam is the brand name of the VillageInformation Centre (VICs), also called elsewhere asinternet kiosks. The VICs act as a resource centre forthe remote villages, where an operator and amultimedia computer system with internetconnectivity are available. They could providecomputer experience for the rural population in thevillages. The VICs help impoverished villagers toimprove their standard of living by expandinglivelihood options and empowering them withinformation tools, goods, and services.

Reach and use of VICs

There are 28 paid services ranging from data entry,e-governance, and computer education are offeredfrom the VICs at nominal costs and 17 types of freeservices such camps, library, and content display areprovided to the villagers. Thirteen services are onlineand the remaining 23 services are given offline. Fromthe 20 village information centres 8,363 users haveavailed paid services and over 9,642 users haveavailed free serves. During the year alone nearly3,540 users have used the multimedia content. Thereis a good response from the rural community to seeand use the offline content available at the VICs.Health content attarcts more number of usersfollowed by the HIV/AIDS Content.

ICT in agriculture development

This online interaction for agriculture is held once ina week either on Thursday or Friday. Agriculturedepartment officers, scientists from AgriculturalCollege participated regularly in the online sessions.On an average 15-20 farmers participate in each

session at the VICs. Farmers to Farmers sharing isalso influenced the farmers more.

The agriculture content in the form of video or flashor power point presentations were obtained fromTamil Nadu Agriculture University, Tamil NaduVeterinary and Animal Sciences University, Centrefor Indigenous Knowledge Systems and othersources. These content were regularly played at theVICs and farmers discussed the same during videoconference sessions.

Since most of these contents were not locationspecific, the VICs took up content development withthe help of experts as well as resourceful andprogressive farmers. Both the staff and VICoperators were technically trained in contentdevelopment. A special project on Community basedcontent development was initiated under which 100plus topics were developed with the support ofUNDP and CAPART. Contents on 36 topics are nowavailable especially for agriculture.

The market information is obtained fromwww.indg.in, www.oddanchatram.com andwww.agmark.nic.in. This market information isprovided to the villagers through the public addresssystem and by displaying in the information onnotice boards. For farmers having mobile phones,SMSs were sent using way2sms.com,indyarocks.com, and rediff mass amiling facility.Other information like availability of seeds,fertilizers, etc at Agriculture Office depot and localweather information are also given through SMSand Community Radio.

On seeing the usage and impact of the videosessions in Melur taluk, the soil testing unit of theAgriculture department came forward to help thefarmers on soil health improvement through theVICs. Farmers were trained to collect soil samplesfrom their lands, the samples were delivered to thesoil testing laboratory through the VICs. The resultsof the samples are sent to the farmers as email to therespective VICs where the operator would print theresult and give it to the respective farmers. The Soiltesting officials also participated in the videoconference sessions and gave technical inputs to thefarmers regarding their soil health level and


correction needed. The soil health cards are updatedregularly at the VICs after receiving feedback fromthe lab and experts advice during the videoconference sessions. Multimedia content briefingthe Soil Testing importance and Soil Health was alsodeveloped and being displayed at the VICs

ICT and women

With the multimedia programme developed by theTata Consultancy Services (TCS), the programmehas established Adult Literacy Centers in the remotevillages. These centres help the illiterate women tostart read and write in Tamil. This service has 6months reading and 6 months writing course.Following to this basic literacy programme, thestudents are also encouraged to participate in thefunctional literacy programme in different sectorslike Insurance and health subsequently.

Legal and Awareness on Women Specific Issues

The VICs also create awareness on legal and womenspecific issues through video conference and offlinemultimedia content. The lawyers are participating inthe video conference sessions and provide answersfor the women specific legal queries. The offlinecontent on women specific schemes and issues arealso shown at regular intervals

Health literacy

The VICs offer a variety of health related ICTservices for the rural poor, especially womenincluding health content show, video conference andhealth camps in the villages. The women areorganised at the village center or in a common placeand the content is shown on a regular intervalrelated to their health such as infectious diseases,kidney problems, HIV/AIDS, water related diseases,cancer, and other women specific health issues.Rural women from the Thagavalagam VillageInformation Centers can directly interact with thedoctors and clarify their health related queries. Thevideo conferences initiating a preliminaryconsultation with the experts, if required, for furthertreatment people would visit the doctors.

Educational services

The Thagavalagams, conscious of the gap betweenthe urban and rural school going students, offer aservice called “e-School” for the rural students. Themain focus of the e-School service is to improve therural school education with the support ofmultimedia educational content. The e-schoolincludes content display on the school curriculumand basics of computer operations. In some villages,where the schools are not having computer systems,the VIC operators would bring the primary schoolstudents to the VICs on a particular week days andoffers the e-School services. Every year, more than200 rural students get benefit out of the e-Schoolservice from each VIC. In addition to the schoolcurriculum, the Thagavalagam VICs also offergeneral e-literacy to the students including generalknowledge, moral stories, history and sports.

Computer education courses for youth

Thagavalagam Village Information Centers also offercomputer diploma and certificate courses for thevillagers. These courses are offered by the IndiraGandhi National Open University (IGNOU) throughthe Village Information Centers and facilitated bythe Thagavalagam community colleges. After thesix-month diploma course with a nominal fee, theycould earn from `2500–3000 per month. Every yearmore than 250 rural youths get employmentopportunity out of these courses through the VillageInformation centers. The rural youths also use theThagavalagam VICs to search for a suitable job.

VIC library

In order to improve the reading habit among therural youths, who wish to undertake competitiveexams for employment, a small library has beenestablished in all the VICs with a collection of nearly500 books on various topics. The books related tocomputer and information technology, agriculture,animal husbandry, government examinationpreparation, health, literature, women and child careare available.


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The rainfed agriculture plays a crucial role in India,covering 68 per cent of the total net sown area in 177

districts. Uncertainty in production due to fluctuations inrainfall and its distribution, decrease in relative productivity inrainfed lands affect the livelihoods of the poor andmarginalised farmers. DHAN foundation has launched RainfedFarming Development Programme to make the rainfed farmingviable by improving the total factor productivity throughlocation specific interventions. The programme is involved inthe following activities:

Organising farmers into Uzhavar Kuzhu (Farmers' Group)building nested institutions of Rainfed WatershedAssociation, Uzhavar Mandram and federating them intoUzhavar Mamandram.

Building on the local best practices of farmers in rainfedfarming, both indigenous and exogenous by documenting,standardizing and disseminating information.

Designing and implementing context specific, multipleand interrelated interventions across sub sectors likeagriculture, livestock and horticulture through landdevelopment, organic matter build up, crop productionenhancement and livestock development.

Developing and offering a package of social securityproducts such as deficit rainfall insurance, cattleinsurance and human insurance to mitigate the risks andvulnerabilities of rainfed farmers.

Creating access to savings and credit services for farmersthrough their groups.

Build the capacity of farmers in the areas of provenrainfed farming technology, leadership development, andchange in attitude of farmers towards rainfed farming tolead to significant changes.

Rainfed

Farming

Development


Promotion of rainfed farmers’ organisations

The rainfed farming development programme(RFDP) is implemented in nine locations. Theprogramme works in collaboration with CALLProgramme at Vedaraniyam and Kalanjiamprogramme in Koraput. The programme focused onpromoting self–managed rainfed farmers’organisations, establishing and practicingprogramme standards, scaling–up of proventhematic activities and experimenting newinterventions during this year.

During 2009-10, the programme has promoted 210groups with 3000 members and six associations. Theprogramme has so far reached over 10,679 members,organised into 651 groups, 31 associations.Federations of rainfed farmers’ association havebeen registered in Tirumangalam and Nattarampallilocations. The Thirumangalam UzhavarMamandram was registered under the Trust Act andthe federation had purchased land for constructing abuilding for the federation and for the VillageInformation Centre. Cost coverage concepts havebeen introduced in three new locations.

Land development

In Thirumanagalam, one retaining wall and twosurplus weirs were constructed under landdevelopment activity, Morinda tinctoria was clearedin 4.5 acres, Cynodon dactylon was cleared in 8.50acres. In Peraiyur location, prosopis clearance wastaken up by 16 members in 27.5 acres, siltapplication in five acres was taken up by the farmerson loan basis. Other NRM works such as landleveling and stone bunding in Pudur Nadu, farmpond construction in Vedaranyam were taken up. InKoraput, nine farmers with an area of 5.28 acreswere supported for land leveling. Six ring wells withrope pumps were constructed in Koraput,Borigumma and Semiliguda locations. Two farmponds were constructed in Borigumma location andloans were distributed to construct 30 farm ponds inBorigumma and B.Singhpur locations.

Organic matters build–up

On loan basis, Farm Yard Manure was applied in 546acres of land by 530 framers in Thirumanagalamlocation. In Nattarampalli, humic acid wasdistributed and the result of its application wasgood. 17 and 8 units of aerobic composting heapswere done in Nattarampalli and Thriumanagalmrespectively. In Peraiyur, 25 farmers went for FYMapplication and sheep penning was done by 12farmers through loan support.

Crop production enhancement

Seed supply

In Thirumangalam, 505 kilograms of maize seedswere supplied to 31 farmers covering 63 acres,another 210 kilograms of green gram seeds weresupplied to 42 farmers for 70 acres, 250 kilograms ofblackgram seeds were supplied to 54 farmers for 86acres. In Nattarampalli, 600 kilograms of groundnutseeds, 40 kilograms of ragi seeds and 6 kilograms ofcastor seeds was issued to the famers. In Peraiyur,30 kilograms of cottons seeds, 10 kilograms of greenand black gram were supplied to the famers. InKoraput, groundnut, niger, ragi, and paddy seedswere distributed to the farmers in requiredquantities. In addition, `0.3 million given as loan tobuy seed at bulk for 500 farmers.

Dryland horticulture

Totally 97 mulch pit was formed in two farmers’lands at Sengapadi Village in Thirumanagalam.Large scale tree planting activity was promoted inThirumangalam location, wherein saplings of curryleaf, teak casurina, pinarisangu, seedless Jamun,mango, coconut, sapota, amla and guava tree specieswere distributed to the farmers. In Nattarampalli,plantation of mango, sapota, tamarind and guavatrees were taken up by the farmers. InVedharanyam, coconut seedlings were distributedand in Koraput location, jackfruit and cashewseedlings were distributed.

Other experiments

In Nattarampalli, 25 farmers have tried Zero BudgetNatural Farming (ZBNF) for groundnut; five farmers


tried ZBNF for irrigated crops. Drum seeder inpaddy was demonstrated in one field with supportof Paiyur research station. Groundnut varietalselection experiment was done with varieties VRI 6,TVG 004 and TMV 73. In Koraput, SRI wasdemonstrated in 30 Farms, seven farmers did linesowing of ragi.

Livestock development

A total of 1649 milch animals, 1180 goats and sheepswere de–wormed through 28 animal health campsorganised in all the rainfed locations. The memberswere supported through loans for purchasing milchanimals, goats and sheeps. Eight units of flooring incattle sheds were taken up in Nattaramapalli. InGudiyatham, 127 units of Azolla green foddercultivation were taken up. CO-4 Cumbu Napierfodder slips were distributed to six farmers. In PudurNadu, cattle–shed was constructed by four memberswith loan support. Sixteen Azolla production unitshave been set up in Koraput.

Risk management

Life insurance

In Thirumangalam, 182 members were enrolled inthe Birla Sun Life Insurance with the premiumamount of Rs 18,200 for the sum assured of `1.82million. There was three death claims for Rs 25,000each. In Nattarampalli, 226 members have paidpremium and they are yet to be enrolled under thefor JBY insurance scheme. Four claim settlementswere given under Birla Sun Life insurance. InVedaraniam, 38 members were covered under JBYinsurance, In Pudur Nadu, 59 members have beenenrolled. In Gudiyatham, 503 members have beenenrolled under Birla Sun Life insurance and JBY ofLIC of India.

Livestock insurance

In Thirumangalam, 48 farmers have done the mutuallivestock insurance, paid premium of `24,206 for thesum assured of Rs 691,000 and eight farmers havegot a claim of Rs 10,800. In Peraiyur, 25 farmershave insured their 143 goats, 123 sheeps and four

milch animals. They have paid premium of `20,959for the sum assured of `0.6 million, there was aclaim of ̀ 16,800.

Piloting Crop insurance

In Tirumangalam, for green gram and black gram 53

acres of 80 farmers were covered under rainfallbased crop insurance. For maize, three farmers wereinsured covering four acres. In general, this year,there was good South West Monsoon during the

crop emergence period. After the crop emergenceand development there was no rainfall. There was anearly withdrawal of SWM and late onset of NEM

rainfall, there was crop yield reduction both in blackgram, green gram and in Maize. However, the maizewhich was late sown gave a reasonable return.

During September 2–23, K. Vellakulam rain gaugereceived 37mm rainfall and the Sengapadairaingauge received 125.5mm rainfall. Yield loss in

black gram and, green gram was 100 percent inSennampatty area and the loss was 50-75 percent inother locations. Hence, 16 farmers of this village,insured for eight acres of black gram and green gram

under K. Vellakulam raingauge received thecompensation for Rs 10,800.

During period of September 2 to October 2, both

Vellakulam and Sengapadai raingauges received >60mm (84mm) rainfall. Hence there was nocompensation for maize farmers. However, there

was a yield loss of more than 50 percent because oflong dry spell.

In Nattarampalli, 135 Farmers have insured for

groundnut crop on mutual basis; total premiumreceived was ̀ 27,250 and pay out `67,350 was given.

Supplementary activities

Kitchen garden

In all the rainfed farming locations, 2618 pockets of

kitchen garden seeds were distributed to themembers. The pockets containing seeds of bhendi,cluster bean, radish, bitter gourd, ridge gourd,Pumpkin, snake gourd and beans were distributed.


Agricultural marketing

The Vedharanyam location procured one ton ofGloriosa seeds and sold through the KTL. InKoraput, revolving fund was given for tamarind andNiger marketing. One dairy PPG has been promotedin Gudiyatham

Agricultural finance

Land leasing loan products were offered to 88farmers to take 90 acres of land on lease inThirumangalam, for four farmers to take land onlease in Peraiyur, A total of `0.41 million and ̀ 0.19million were issued as agricultural loans for themembers in Nattarampalli as well as Pudur Nadulocations respectively. `1.2 million was given asrevolving fund for various farm activities likecommunity nursery and seed supply in Koraputlocation.

Capacity building

The rainfed farming development programme hasorganised a number of capacity buildingprogrammes suiting to the needs of each location. AWorkshop on Mutual crop insurance was held withfarmers of Thirumangalam location. Trainings wereorganised for rearing of Japanese quail, paddy directsowing, integrated pest Management in avarai,groundnut mutual crop income insurance,participatory varietal selection and Zero BudgetNatural Farming were organised to the farmers ofNattarampalli location. Training on farm pond wasorganised to the members of Vedharanyam location.Exposure on SRI method and ZBNF were given tothe farmers of Koraput location.


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DHAN Foundation's Tourism for Development theme is anoutcome of the four-year pilot project 'Endogenous

Tourism for Rural Livelihoods' implemented in Karaikudi andKazhugumalai in Tamil Nadu with the support of UnitedNations Development Programme and Government of India.One of the key learnings of the project was that the diversifiedlivelihood opportunities exist in the tourism sector cancontribute in poverty reduction. 'Tourism for Development'would be a crosscutting theme to facilitate DHAN'sprogrammes working in the locations of tourism importance tocapitalize the emerging opportunities in the tourism sector. Itwould be a multi-stakeholder and inclusive approach with allthe stakeholders in tourism including the poor communities.The key programme strategies are

Organising the poor families into tourism based Peoples'Organisations and introducing savings, credit andinsurance services.

Conserving and promoting heritage and artisanal skills byorganising the artisans and service providers into Primaryproducer and marketing groups and federating them intoa Producer cum Marketing Company.

Strengthening existing skills and building new skills inproduction, servicing and marketing related to tourism.

Linking the Peoples' Organisations with commercialbanks, markets and resource institutions for mobilizingresources, production and marketing of quality products.

Facilitating research and development in the Peoples'Organisations for product innovation, packaging andmarketing.

Ensuring responsible tourism through promoting tourismliteracy and capacity building.

Tourism for

Development


DHAN Tourism for Development programme isadvancing the theme and started working onpromoting ‘responsible tourism’ in the pilot tourismprojects initiated with the support of UNDP andGovernment of India. As recognition for the effortstaken by DHAN in promoting community centricand pro-poor tourism in the pilot location, theTourism project implemented in Karaikudi receivedthe CNBC Awaaz Travel Award 2009, as the BestExample for community managed Tourism.Similarly, the Tourism programme of DHAN baggedthe National Tourism Award for the year 2008-2009in the category of ‘Best NGO promoting ruraltourism in India’. This Award was instituted by theMinistry of Tourism, GoI, and the Vice–President ofIndia presented this award to DHAN in a ceremonyat New Delhi.

Tourism project in Karaikudi and Kazhugumalai

During the year 2009-10, the programme focused onstrengthening the people institutions promotedaround tourism activity such as tourism basedKalanjiam federation (development focus), tourismbased Producer Company (livelihood focus) andtourism village development committee(convergence focus). The Registration of tourismProducer Company has been completed. The othertwo institutions are in the process of promotion.Focus was on strengthening tourism based livelihoodand mobilizing resources and promotion ofresponsible tourism is in progress.

Promotion of new tourism locations

During 2009-10, in addition to advancing theKaraikudi and Kazhugumalai locations as acrosscutting theme with Kalanjiam programme inthe context of microfinance, the tourism programmehas been initiated in Devipattinam location ofRamnad District as a crosscutting theme withCoastal Conservation and Livelihoods (CALL)programme, Theerthamalai in Dharmapuri Districtwith rainfed farming development theme, and inThirupudaimarudur of Tirunelveli District with theVayalagam programme.

Promotion of tourism-based livelihood

opportunities

DHAN Tourism for Development promotes tourismbased livelihoods opportunities and communitymanaged rural enterprises in various districts ofIndia in collaboration with district administrations,tourism department and other stake holders. Thetourism activity groups in Karaikudi got an order ofmaking Kandangi bags for the Rabo bank,Netherlands. The KalanjiamThozhilagam Limitedfacilitated shipping. A workshop on preparation of aspecial marketing plan to promote the Chettinad asa tourism destination with the support of theMinistry of Tourism, GoI, was organized.

Cultural immersion programme

A ‘development tour’ was organised for tourist fromFrance at Kazhugumalai. The programme team alsoorganised a heritage tour for a team of architectstudents and professors from International FieldSchool on Asian Heritage (IFSAH) from South Asiancountries like Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, China andThailand. A seven–member team from Friends ofDHAN, The Netherlands and Friends of DHAN,Canada, along with tourists from Sweden visitedheritage sites and got immersed in the localChettinad culture at Karaikudi and Kazhumalai.

Sharing knowledge from practice

A seminar on Public Private Partnership inPromoting Rural Tourism was organised as part ofMadurai Symposium, in which participantsincluding officials from the tourism department,tourism development committee, and other tourismstakeholders attended and shared their perspectives.In association with the Tamil Nadu TourismDepartment, the team has organised a tourism eventat Madurai Symposium. A paper on ‘Micro-levelPublic-Private Partnership model in Promoting RuralTourism’ was presented at the Asia-Africa Businessforum meet on Tourism held in Uganda, Africa. Theprogramme team has also organised a ‘Workshop onProtection of Monuments in and around Madurai’with students of colleges in and around Madurai tocreate awareness on the importance of protectingheritage sites.


Tourism promotion

Heritage walk: The programme has been regularlyorganising ‘Heritage Walk’ to promote tourism andshowcase the little–known heritage sites inMadurai. Heritage walk in 10 locations namelyKeelakuilkudi, Kongar puliankulam, Aanamalai,Puttuthoppu, Karadipatti, Perumalmalai,Thenpurankunram Gandhi Museum, Meenakshiamman temple were organized.

Folklore festival: To show case and promote folkarts, ‘Folklore Festival’ was organized at Maduraisymposium for the visiting delegates, tourists, andthe public. During this festival, folklore programmessuch as Paraiattam, Jinsha, Sattaikuchiattam,Karakam, Kuravan-kurathi attam, Sakkai, Kole,Panjha pootha nadanam, Drum and kalasa, Peranpachava, and Saraiattam were performed by variouscultural teams. In collaboration with the departmentof tourism, the programme has organised ‘Theruvora

Thiruvizha’ to promote folk–arts in the Madurai cityevery Saturday evening around Meenakshi Ammantemple.

Handicrafts exhibition: A Handicraft exhibitionwas organised with the support of CAPART betweenas part of the Madurai Symposium 2009. SHGs fromvarious locations across South India have showcasedtheir handicrafts for sale. The exhibition couldprovide an excellent opportunity to showcase thelocal heritage, tourism and handicrafts to delegatesfrom different states of India, abroad and theMadurai public.

Awareness programme for tourism stakeholders:The team also organised awareness programme forvarious tourism stakeholders like tourism officials,auto-drivers, official of Tamil Nadu Road TransportCorporation, staffs of Meenakshi Temple on thecode of ethics in association with the tourismdepartment.


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The history of the village-level Panchayat institutions inIndia goes back hundreds of years. After independence, the

Panchayat system was neglected. DHAN Foundation hasrealised that these institutions need to be vibrant andresponsive to the needs of the people to bring about lastingprogress, benefiting all. DHAN Foundation has launched aprogramme 'Working with Panchayats' to promote andstrengthen the informal functional groups in the village to getinvolved in the Panchayat affairs. The programme integratesthe existing traditional systems with the Panchayats toenhance the participation of the people and achieve synergy.

Promoting functional groups and village developmentforums, strengthening and guiding working committees tointegrate with the Panchayat system.

Facilitating preparation of multiyear micro planning forPanchayat Development by the community and make theworking committees responsible for executing those plans.

Advocating for enabling policies for effectivedecentralization through studies and publications,seminars and workshops.

Promoting network of Panchayat Raj representatives atthe Block and District level, and building their capacity ingood governance.

Creating awareness among the voters, youths, students onPRI, and ensuring benefits of the developmentprogrammes to reach the poor and vulnerablecommunities

Strengthening the Gram Saba and making it a forum forperforming social audit, and introducing e-Panchayats foropen and transparent administrative system

Enhancing the revenue for Panchayats through buildingcorpus and undertaking income generating activities atvillage level.

Working with

Panchayats


Panchayat Development Associations

The basic purpose of promoting PanchayatDevelopment Association is to integrate peopleinstitutions to assist the Panchayats inimplementing the development programmes andresist when they violate from their duties, ultimatelyto ensure the efficiency of the Panchayats. With thisconcept, all the SHGs and other people institutionsin the locations were the Panchayat programme isbeing implemented have been integrated into PDA.During this year 19 out of 25 working Panchayats,PDAs have been promoted. In 12 Panchayats,separate bank accounts have been opened. Everymonth PDA meetings were conducted and theexecutive committee initiated its works withPanchayat governance.

Panchayats achieving MDGs

Each Panchayat was guided to take up any one ofthe development goals in the line of MillenniumDevelopment Goals, such as education for all,electricity for all, employment for all and socialsecurity for all. Location teams have worked out toprepare base line information, action plan to achievethese goals for each Panchayat. Regular monthlymonitoring of goal attainment was taken up. All the25 Panchayats have taken up specific goals to attain,of which in four Panchayats, social security goalwas achieved almost at cent per cent. The averageachievement in other goals was around 60 percent.

MGNREGS Demonstration

In all the working Panchayats, demonstration ofMahatma Gandhi National Rural EmploymentGuarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was givensignificant importance. In five Panchayats, activitieslike ensuring work site facilities, enrolling all BPLfamilies, ensuring quality output, work selection anddocumentation were taken up in association withthe local Panchayat. In all the working Panchayats,all the eligible BPL families were enrolled under thisscheme. Location teams have extended support foropening of Bank account for MGNREGS workers.Work site facilities were provided in all the workingPanchayats. Social security for the workers was

taken up and most of them were enrolled underJanashri Bhima Yojana of Life InsuranceCorporation of India.

Microfinance Groups

The Working with Panchayats programme is in theprocess of organising an exclusive microfinancegroups (MFGs) in the working Panchayats to focuson financial inclusion through Panchayatinstitutions by organising the youth and left outpoor families. The MFG of non-poor will have onlysavings and insurance services. In addition to regularmicrofinance activities, these groups will getintensive training and orientation on localgovernance. These groups will also perform forexploring potential leaders for Panchayatgovernance. Sixty MFGs have been promoted duringthis year with a membership of 930 families.

Urban governance

Panchayat programme works with the MaduraiCorporation to enable urban governance. In fourselect corporation wards, the experimentation wasinitiated on solid waste management. A signaturecampaigns was organised to reach all thehouseholds and commercial establishments insistingon pledging to keep the ward clean and green.Developed handbills and pamphlets with a messageon Solid Wastes Management with the support offederation and distributed to the entire ward.Exclusive meetings were arranged with sweepersand corporation workers to motivate and getsupport from them. With the support of the wardcouncilors, officials and the local community, SWMcommittees were promoted in two wards with activevolunteers. The SWM committee members and thegeneral public, interested in putting dry waste intoother uses were provided plastic bags and thecollected dry waste sold in the local shops.

Panchayat Movement

Considering the high demand and scope for thecommunity to participate and work for Panchayatdevelopment, the Working with Panchayatsporgramme has promoted “Panchayat Movement” inFebruary 10th 2010. This movement would work on


networking of Panchayats, provide techno-managerial services and involve in policy advocacyinitiatives. Enrollment for Panchayat movement hasbeen initiated. As part of Panchayat movementactivity, the Tamil newsletter on Panchayatdevelopment (Panchayathu Thoodhu) got regularisedduring this year.

Social security

In all the working Panchayats, the programmeprovided social security coverage to all the poor andvulnerable families with the LIC’s JBY group policy.Over 4000 families have been covered with thescheme and so far, 26 claims have been processedand settled for deceased families.

Regular Panchayat affairs

Apart from above special initaives, monthlyPanchayat council meeting, meetings of workingcommittees, Gramsabha meetings have beenconducted regularly and the micro planning exercisehas been continued without much effort and about40 percent of the plan realisation was observed. Thefield teams focused on training and orientation ofcommunity and Panchayat leaders and as a result 86training events were conducted in the locationscovering around 3000 participants.

Policy workshop

Preparation of community based micro plandocuments was one of the key components of thePanchayat programme. The programme views microplanning as not just an annual event, it is a processin which local people get ownership and vision fortheir village development. The programme has alsoattempted micro planning on the thematic areassuch as tourism based micro planning, microplanning for disaster risk reduction, and micro

planning for coastal resource development and soon. In association with Tamil Nadu Stategovernment, under the IFAD assisted Post TsunamiSustainable Livelihoods Project, DHAN has servedas resource institute for developing participatorymicro plan documents for about 50 coastal villagePanchayats during this year. The outcomes andexperience from this exercise was quite enriching.

To advocate the importance of micro planning andmandate the Panchayat institutions to preparemicro plan every year, first policy workshop wasconducted at Chennai. In this event, selectPanchayat leaders took part and shared theirexperience relating to Micro planning. This initiativewould be further taken-up to next levels to changethe approaches of the government towardsparticipatory processes.

Considering the present need and scope, theadvisory committee was restructured with theaddition of Dr.Sivaramakrishnan, Former Secretaryto GoI (Urban Governance), Dr.Meenakshi-sundaram, Former Secretary to GoI (RuralDevelopment), and Prof. Ramakandhan, Director,Kerala Institute of Local Administration.

As part of Madurai Symposium 2009, the Workingwith Panchayat programme has organised a sectoralworkshop on Social Audit and Leader’s conventionon ‘Role of Panchayat institutions in attainingMDGs’. These two workshops have paved way tobuild contacts with more number of leaders and alsoit has provided good insights on the content. Theprogramme in association with the RuralDevelopment Department of Tamil NaduGovernment has organised training to 12 batches ofPanchayat leaders. Also in partnership withBuddhist University, Japan, the programme hastaken up a ‘Leadership development’ at Kovalam.


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The Central office plays the integration role across themes,geographic locations, and functions through innovativeintegrating mechanisms and events. It provides strategicsupport to the thematic institutions promoted by it. Thecentral office also coordinates resource mobilisation and itsmanagement, strategic planning, policy advocacy at higherlevels and legal compliances. DHAN has a number ofintegrating mechanisms that besides bringing in a commonculture, vision among all the members also builds theleadership capacity. Some of them are the Strategic Forum,Consultative Forum, retreat, task forces and working groupsfor specific purposes. They contribute to the institutionbuilding processes and collective leadership.

The Programme leaders, Regional Coordinators and anchors ofthe Centres met every month to review operational issues andplans and to workout mechanisms for integration acrossthemes and institutions. Knowledge building workshops wereorganised on select themes with them. The ConsultativeForum met twice during the year. It has reviewed all theprogrammes of DHAN collective. The Strategic Forum metseveral times during the year to review the growth and set thedirection for the future growth. The Twelfth Annual Retreatwas organised at Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate MedicalEducation and Research, Puducherry. DHANites stayed in theCoastal villages and understood the life of the fishers andreflected on their self, institutional growth and achievements.

Centres for

Integration


DHAN Foundation's core purpose is to attract and groom high quality professionals for development work. The Foundation creates opportunities to learn, grow and occupy leadership spaces and anchor

new themes.

The Centre for Human Resource Development created to steer the HRD practices in the DHAN Collectiveworks with a select academic institutes to identify and place socially concerned professionals in thegrassroots work. The focus is on building up the needed motivation, values, attitudes and competence.

The Centre ensures growth of staff with well designed professional development programmes on managerialand communication skills, village studies, poverty and livelihood studies, leadership development, institutionbuilding and so on.

The Centre facilitates Mentor-Mentee mechanisms among the staff to align both individual andorganisational purpose for each other's benefit and to enhance personal and professional growth in anindividual. The Centre works towards building a culture of self-regulation by providing supportiveenvironment for the staff to reflect on their self and the institution in the annual retreats, and to reflect ontheir achievements and learnings in the annual performance enabling programmes.

The Centre has identified and inducted around 170staff at various levels. The newly inducted staffswere oriented on institutional aspects such as vision,values and principles with a view to connect theinstitutional goals with the larger level communitygoals. A series of meetings were organised for thestaff those who were on probation andapprenticeship in order to facilitate cross learning aswell as co–learning for standardising the growthwith quality. Appropriate resource materials weregenerated and circulated for enhancing theirperspectives. The staffs were encouraged to undergo‘Knowledge building’ to theorize the field practicesfor an effective learning. The first batch DHANDevelopment Professional Programme (DDPP) hassuccessfully completed one year apprenticeshipperiod and entered into the full-fledged membershipwith the institution.

Attention on building 3Cs (Culture, Commitment,Competency) within the individuals was givenduring the appraisals and graduation processes. Thekey performance indicators in relation to 3Cs weredeveloped and the individuals were encouraged tomap out their personal growth for an improvedclarity on self. Leadership lab was organized for theProject Executives to analyze and organize the self

in relation to the community expectations. The labprocess encouraged them to set up milestones fortheir self development. The accountants andadministrative staff have undergone computerappreciation programme on hardware and softwareas part of building technical proficiency. Freshentrants were encouraged to stay with the poorcommunities to understand and appreciate the fieldrealities.

An exclusive workshop on ‘Professionalizing NGOsfor integrating MDGs’ was organized as part ofMadurai Symposium 2009. Delegates from variousNGOs have participated wherein professionalizingNGOs was reinforced with a greater emphasis onintegrating MDG framework in development action.A concrete action plan cum recommendation wasevolved in integrating HRD with MDGs. Orientationon gender and HIV AIDS was included as a specialsession in the induction programmes which in turnhelped the staff to relate the subject with theirthematic context. They were exposed to the genderpolicies of the institution and also encouraged tocontextualize the policies.

Development Management Programme (DMP) wasorganized for the staff at various levels for

Centres for

Human Resource Development


perspective building. The DMP on ‘Gender anddevelopment’ was organized for Team Leadersaiming at facilitating them to understand andappreciate the gender focus at work front. Besidesthe reflection on institutional perspectives, exclusivemodules on evolving context specific indicators ongender and development were incorporated in theDMP. The DMP on ‘Team building’ and ‘HumanProcess Lab’ was organized for senior accountantsand technical staff to bring out necessary awarenessand refinement in their ASK (Attitude, Knowledge,Skill). Various HR instruments were administeredwhich has facilitated the individuals to have a self

retrospection. Action points for refining the ASK wasdeveloped with verifiable indicators.

The Centre has organised the Annual PerformanceEnabling Programme (PEP) for the entire staffthrough facilitating a full-fledged mentor-menteepartnership. The mentor and mentee workedtogether to refine the mentoring process. Anassessment over the growth of the individuals wasdone in order to build confidence through gradedchallenges. The mentor and mentee wereencouraged to revisit their mentoring mechanisms atregular intervals to understand the progress andadvance them.

DHAN Foundation's community organising strategies are centred on building capacities of leaders,members and staff. The Foundation invests substantial resources to promote the leadership in collective

bodies of people.

Dhan People Academy (DPA) was initiated to provide learning environment for the staff and peoples' leaders.With the well furnished training infrastructure, the Academy devises appropriate pedagogy to facilitatelearning, building on the experience available, and participant-centered education. The Academy works inpartnership with academic and training institutes on common interests.

The DPA organises exposure visits to encourage cross learning of best practices, conflict resolution,workshops and seminars help the people's leaders to share their experiences and build their perspective.

Need-based certificate programmes and distance learning programmes are designed and offered by the DPA.Trainers Trainings are organized on various themes. Customized trainings are also offered to the other NGOsand Peoples' Organisations on demand.

The DPA facilitates setting up of Community Colleges - Livelihood Initiative with Functional Education(LIFE) to provide a variety of location specific and tailor-made livelihood skill building programmes for theyouths from the poor families.

Organising training programmes, exposureprogrammes, research and pilot studies and supportto programmes of DHAN were the focus areas of theyear for the DHAN People Academy. The Academyhas organised over 48 training programmes forvarious institutions and centres in DHAN Collective.

The Academy continued to offer the Diploma inPanchayat Management (DPM) course inassociation with the Working with Panchayatstheme. Fourth and fifth batch of DPM were

completed with 72 participants and results wereannounced. The self learning materials of DPM havebeen revised.

Three Leadership Development Programmes forbuilding the leadership capacity of the cluster andfederation leaders of Kalanjiam federations wereorganised during the year. Annual retreat for onefederation was facilitated by the Academy. Focus ofthe retreat was to evolve the strategic plan for thefederations. One batch of Vayalagam Movement

Dhan People Academy


workers Training programme was organised afterrevising the training modules in order to impartmore practical skills to the field associates, and twobatches of Kalanjiam Movement Associates trainingwere organised.

Four programmes on Community Health Promotionthrough Safe water and sanitation in associationwith the Water Expertise and Training Centre ofTata Dhan Academy were conducted for the blockintegrators, community accountants and associatesof select blocks. The main focus of the programme isto train the participants in order to train thecommunity on the importance of safe drinkingwater, sanitation and hygiene. Similarly anorientation programme was offered for the blockintegrators implementing Water, Sanitation andHygiene Programme in Kalanjiam programme. Thefocus was to educate the participants aboutdesigning, implementing, managing and monitoringa safe water and sanitation project.

As part of supporting other NGOs in training, theAcademy has organised two training programmes onAccounting and Financial Management of SHGs forthe project managers and field workers of ChristianMedical Association India.

As per the MoU signed between DHAN and TamilNadu Voluntary Resource Centre to offer twomodules of training for the Panchayat Level

Federations (PLF) promoted by the Mahalir thittamof Tamil Nadu Government, the People Academyhas conducted accounting and financialmanagement training for the 11 batches ofbookkeepers and Board of directors of PLFs and‘Governance and leadership development’ for 15batches of PLF office bearers.

For Tamil Nadu Vazhndhu Kattuvom project, twobatches of training were conducted on Accountingand Fiancial Management of PLFs. The district levelproject team members participated in the trainingprogramme. An exposure programme on Kalanjiammodel of MF was conducted with the sponsorship ofNABARD, Jharkhand in which representatives ofNGOs from Jharkhand participated.

A feasibility study of some business initiatives to betaken up by the SHGs supported by the ChristianMedical Association of India conducted in 52villages in two of their project locations Tirunelveliand Nagercoil. The research project on risks andvulnerability mapping was consolidated and aresource book was prepared. The book focuses onthe process of conducting risks and vulnerabilitymapping of disaster prone areas. Publication ofVayalagam Newsletter is coordinated by theAcademy with the involvement of Vayalagamprogramme. Three issues were brought out duringthis year.

DHAN Foundation strongly believes that community provides a powerful learning opportunity and itviews communication as a human factor in development. Also the Foundation believes that media can be

used as a means for education, for motivation in the spheres of development action.

The Centre for Development Communication facilitates documentation and dissemination of field learningwithin and outside the organisation and promotes the application of the traditional and modern media indevelopment action.

The Centre documents and publishes the field experiences of the programmes and Institutions of the DHANCollective in both print and audio visual formats for information sharing and advocacy.

Centre for Development Communication


The Centre supports the People's Organisations to setup and run community media centres with thecombination of community radio, video and web based technologies. It has also promoted a Forum forDevelopment Journalists to discuss and write on the community initiatives that would reflect grassrootsrealities.

The Centre undertakes thematic campaigns combining digital and folk media for fostering BCC. TheDevelopment Film Festival is an exciting annual feature organised by this Centre on a development theme.

In addition to providing audio visual documentationfor the regular products of DAHN Collective ofinstitutions, the Centre has made a number ofdocumentaries on the projects and their impacts. Afilm ‘Sustaining Livelihoods-Making RainfedFarming Viable’ was made on the Nattrampallirainfed farming experience. Similarly, a film onKaraikudi endogenous tourism project piloted byDHAN with the support of the Government of Indiaand United Nations Development Programme wasmade into a small visual presentation.

Visual reporting on the community participationprojects implemented by the Thenmadurai VattaraKalanjiam and Sellur Vattara Kalanjiam, supportedby the JNNURM and Madurai Corporation weretaken up. A film on the European Union sponsoredproject – increased water harvesting and diminisheddesertification was made and screened to the groupof Ambassadors from European Union during theirvisit to the project locations.

The Centre made a film on the Jain caves inKeelakuyilkudi, Madurai titled ‘Samanar Malai’with interviews from the historians andarcheologists help the campaign for theirpreservation. The Centre also supported thestudents of Fatima College to make a film on thevanishing urban water bodies in Madurai titled‘Vanishing Wisdom’ as part of the documentarymaking course offered to them by the Centre.

The Fifth edition of the Development Film Festivalwas organised on the theme of ‘Fight Poverty:Connect and Commit to Millennium DevelopmentGoals’. The festival was envisioned to be a creativeplatform for film makers to showcase their films onvarious social and development issues, so as to raiseawareness among the public and sensitize thefilmmakers. A total of 90 films participated in this

event, from various countries like UK, Philippines,and Thailand; and also from different states of India.The first round of screening and selection was heldin Madurai Symposium, 2009, with notablepersonalities including academicians, journalists,film makers and NGO workers as juries. Theselected films, around 14 in number, were thenscreened in Chennai for the final round of selection.Eminent personalities from film industry,government, media and business houses participatedas juries in the event. Three films were awarded inthe Foundation Day of DHAN on October 2, 2009.

The Centre in association with the Department ofEnglish, Fatima College and US Consulate, Chennai,organized a 2-day National seminar on“Documentary Film Making”. Understanding ofDHAN on Films and filmmaking was presentedthrough a paper titled ‘Films for Development’. Ms.Sandra J. Ruch, Executive Director, InternationalDocumentary Association, Los Angeles, addressedthe audience on building up of an audience andstressed the documentarians to use technology astheir friend and create a strong story line. Theseminar stressed the filmmakers to reach theunreached and encouraged them to explore newavenues in the field of documentaries.

LIFE Centre in Madurai has got a project from theslum clearance board for providing VideographyTraining for the Slum Children. A practice orientedskill training programme was designed and offeredto 25 students.

The Centre manages the websites of the DHANCollective institutions and efforts were made toenhance its visual appeal and content to promotevisitors’ activity. The in–house monthly magazine‘Development Matters’ was published on variousthemes with wide range of articles contributed bythe professionals working at the grassroots.


The Centre for Finance is an integral part of the central office, collating financial functions acrossprogrammes, centres and thematic organisations of the DHAN Collective. The Centre places greater

emphasis on building a transparent and foolproof financial management system at all levels.

The Centre evolves financial policies for the Foundation and other Institutions in DHAN Collective andPeoples Organisations. The Centre ensures online accounting system with the support of accountingsoftware packages and builds the capacity of accountants and finance managers for it.

The Centre facilitates the audit process and statutory compliances of DHAN Collective institutions andPeople Organisations promoted by it. With a sound internal auditing system and continued interaction withthe panel of Charted Accountants constituted for these institutions, the Centre ensures regular appraisaland feedback for the quality of books and expenses.

The Centre develops operational accounting manuals and provides ICAI-formulated accounting guidelinesfor quality audit standards to ensure uniformity in programmes and institutions of the DHAN Collective.

DHAN’s principles and practices in deepeninggrassroots democracy were visualised as calendarand greetings. Media relation for variousprogrammes organised by DHAN was facilitatedwith press meets, interviews and media tour.

The Kalanjiam Community Radio Station hasobtained license in the end of March 2009. After testbroadcasting for a few months, the station wasinaugurated on 12th July 2009 and formally went onair. The listeners of the Kalanjiam Samuga Vanoliparticipated in the event in good numbers. Thestation broadcasts for three hours every day withthe content made with / by the community. Withthe expertise gained from this experience, the Centrealso provided support to community organisations inKottampatty and Nagarcoil in Tamil Nadu,Punganur in Andhra Pradesh.

As a part of the Madurai Symposium 2009, a oneday workshop was organized for the communityradio practitioners and potential community radioaspirants in association with the Community RadioForum, India. The event gave an opportunity for the

community radio practitioners to come together anddiscuss how to take forward the community radiomovement in Tamil Nadu. The Centre also took partin the six-day workshop and the conferenceorganised by the World Association of CommunityRadio Broadcasters made a presentation on ourexperiences.

As part of Behaviour Change Communicationcampaign launched by the Kalanjiam Foundation inassociation with the State Health Society, theCentre undertook a campaign to create anaemiaawareness and behaviour change in 100 villages inMudukulathur, Sanarpatti, Thiruvidaimaruthur,Bodi, and Kottampatti blocks in Tamil Nadu. Apackage of folk programmes were developed on thistheme and performed in common places, schools,and colleges. A structured feedback for assessing thelevel of understanding was administered at the end.Similarly the Centre undertook a folklore campaignon prevention of HIV-AIDS in 28 Kalanjiamfederations in eight regions and nearly 300 streetcorner performances were organised.

Centre for Finance


The Centre for Finance is an integral part of thecentral office, coordinating financial functions acrossprogrammes, centres and thematic organisations ofthe DHAN Collective and Peoples’ Organisations bygiving training and setting up financial managementsystems at all levels. The Centre places greateremphasis on building a transparent and foolprooffinancial management system. The Centre evolvesfinancial policies for the Foundation and otherInstitutions in DHAN Collective and Peoples’Organisations.

The Centre for Finance has coordinated timelycompletion of annual financial audits of all theinstitutions in DHAN Collective. The Centre hasestablished Quality Assurance Audit Team headedby a Chartered Accountant to undertake monthlyconcurrent audit so as to facilitate easy completionof external audit. The Centre acts as a secretariat forthe Purchase committee and Finance Committeeconstituted at the Central office. Policies andguidelines have been evolved, discussed and sharedacross the entire spectrum of organisation andcompliance thereof is ensured.

The Centre coordinates Employees Provident Fundscheme with the Government owned EmployeesProvident Fund Organisation. Also the Centre

manages the Staff Gratuity Funds with the LIC ofIndia. In addition to managing staff group accidentand medi-claim policies with insurance companies,the Centre also ensures legal compliances with theGovernment. It ensures systems for budgetmonitoring and corpus investments and approvalthrough Financial Responsibility Centres.

The Centre interacts with the panel of CharteredAccountants in public practice regularly forimproving the accounting system across thethematic programmes and People Institutions.Auditors workshop was organised during the yearfor brainstorming by empanelled auditors regardingmacro level changes affecting the audit andaccounts of the development sectors. In the MaduraiSymposium 2009, the Centre organised conferencesand seminars on accounting, audit, regulations andpolicies practiced in DHAN and changes mandatedby the Central and State Government.

In order to strengthen transparency in the Peoples,Organisations, the Centre has evolved StandardOperating Procedures (SOP) in the thematic andPeople Institutions and monitor them periodically. Italso undertook reviews on the SOP with the Peoples,Organisations periodically and communicated thefeedback.

DHAN Foundation is working on promoting a sharing culture among the poor communities with whomit is working, the general public both in India and abroad,and corporates by creating meaningful

opportunities and partnerships.

The Centre for Facilitating Philanthropy develops context specific philanthropic products and sophisticatedforms of giving in consultation with the community. It works with the Corporates and Indian Diaspora witha long term perspective and on a partnership mode that seeks to build on each other's competencies andareas of interest to bring about an enduring and lasting benefit to the poor communities. Also it establishesfriends of DHAN Chapters to aid development work in India in select countries.

The Centre builds awareness among the individuals or a group of individuals to understand the developmentwork through field visits, and motivates them to provide support for such works, which would be mutuallybeneficial to both the givers, and the receivers-the poor people. With the resources raised from theindividuals and institutions the Centre supports small community projects that have the elements ofcommunity contribution, collective action and sustainability.

Centre for Facilitating Philanthropy


The focus during the year for the Centre forFacilitating Philanthropy was on fundraising for thecause of water through various initiatives, sharing offinal progress reports to donors related to the causesupported as well the financial report, strengtheningthe interface mechanisms with the programmes tomatch donor interests with the needs of thecommunity, timely implementation and feedback tothe donors and reconciliation of donor funds andprojects, and preparing publicity materials forfundraising as well as revamping the website. Thefocus was also on exploring CSR opportunities forfund raising.

The Centre worked in close coordination with theVayalagam Foundation to complete 20 Ooranis(drinking water ponds) work which has benefitted20 villages in areas where there is scarcity ofdrinking water. This includes the eight water bodiesdone in partnership with the Pan IIT Alumni. Theprogress was shared with the donors and there wererepeat support from some of the donors. Theprogress of individual Ooranis was also shared onthe Ooranis webpage. A people convention on‘Sustainability of Drinking Water Ooranis’ wasorganized as part of Madurai Symposium 2009 withthe active participation of the community and waterexperts.

The team was able to facilitate the completion andreporting of a CSR project taken in partnership withHUL on livelihood enhancement for 75,000 women.The positive experience of HUL and DHAN has ledto new partnership on water with a longer termperspective and higher outlay on the theme ofwater. A proposal for the Gundar Basin tanks (waterbodies) renovation in partnership with HUL,Vayalagam Foundation and NABARD has beenprepared and would be taken up in the coming year.Exploration for CSR partnerships with othercorporate bodies based in Chennai, Bangalore,Hyderabad and Vishakapatnam and the Netherlandswas taken up during the year.

The Friends of DHAN Foundation in theNetherlands continued their support for the healthand health insurance initiative by forging newpartnerships with HIVOS, DHAN and EurekoAchmea Foundation. Besides this they facilitated a

partnership with Westberg Foundation to set up acommunity college at Salem for vocationaleducation.

The Centre acted as a bridge between thefederations and local Rabobanks who have adoptedthem in the Netherlands sharing the progress andupdating them. The Centre also coordinates theworks at the DHAN Karunai Illam at Nilakottaiwhich is supported by the Karunai Illam trust inNew Zealand on the theme of education. The DHANKarunai Illam runs a primary school and acommunity college for vocational education inNilakottai besides a home for children from poor anddestitute families.

The Madurai Marathon on the theme of Anemia wasorganised in January with over 30,000 peopleincluding school children, college students andwomen from SHGs participating in it. This eventwas organized in partnership with the Tamil NaduState Health Society and the Madurai Corporation.This is the fourth year in row that the marathon isbeing organised. The Madurai Marathon 2011 willfocus on climate change adaptation as the Causebeing highlighted by the Marathon.

A Small Grants committee has been set up with therepresentatives of different programmes of DHAN.The function of the small grants committee is toreview grants proposals and approvals of grantapplications after scrutiny and recommendationfrom technical committee. Besides approval of thesmall grants applications it will also review thedonor reporting, explore leads for fund raising,review new proposals, funds received, disbursed andbalances.

The Centre has raised about 4.5 million during theyear and it has facilitated and extended support tothe programmes and centres in DHAN for raisingfunds from various sources to the tune of a fewcrores over the year and for the next three yearsespecially for water and health. The Centre plans toset up a Humanitarian Cell within DHANFoundation. With the existing man power DHANwants to render humanitarian assistance to theneedy, immediately after any kind of calamity, inareas where DHAN operates.


DHAN Foundation as a member of many policy-making bodies on microfinance and water conservationstrongly advocates pro-poor policies. As a resource centre, it organises many capacity building events andtraining programmes for bankers, government officials and representatives of NGOs within and outside thecountry.

The Centre for Policy and Planning has been set up to support the programmes and institutions of the DHANCollective so that they evolve, develop and modify their policies and plans to fulfill their aims. It providesframeworks and tool kits to the programmes in planning, review and monitoring performance in line withthe corporate plan.

The Centre works with the programmes for advocating pro-poor policies in the fields of microfinance, water,rainfed farming, Panchayat Raj institutions and disaster mitigation. It helps the programmes in undertakingstudies and policy research, organising policy seminars, publishing policy briefs and policy notes on specificissues related to these themes.

The Centre also ensures gender mainstreaming in the DHAN Collective by building gender perspectivesamong the staff through capacity building programmes, evolving and assessing gender policies in practice.

The Centre for Policy and Planning focused onfacilitating Strategic Planning of DHAN for theperiod 2011-2015 and mainstreaming Gender acrossDHAN Collective of institutions during this year.The Strategic planning exercise was facilitatedthrough a series of discussions and meetings withstrategic forum, consultative forum members. Also itassisted the programmes and institutions in DHANCollective to prepare their perspective plandocument. Strategic direction during the planperiod, resource requirement and decentralisedresource mobilisation were the key areas ofdiscussion in the strategic forum meetings for planoperations.

A note on gender mainstreaming in DHANCollective was prepared and presentation was madeto the senior staff of DHAN to operationalise theprogrammes. A frame work on gender monitoringindicators was prepared and shared with all theprogrammes. The programmes have refined theirgender policy for operations.

The Centre has studied the experiences of DHAN inimplementing tank based watershed over the lastone decade and a policy brief on the ‘tank basedwatershed development for sustaining farmers’

livelihoods’ was brought out and it was shared withthe policy making bodies.

CPP has participated and shared the experiences ofDHAN at the state level seminar organised byNABARD on the draft microfinance bill,recommendation such as inclusion of farm ponds ona scale in watershed programmes, and consideringSHG account in financial inclusion . CPP providesstrategic linkages by representing to State PlanningCommission, Rural Development Department. It hasalso taken consultancy services for the InternationalFund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)sponsored Post Tsunami Sustainable LivelihoodsProgramme in Kancheepuram, Thiruvallur andVillupuram districts under implemented by theTamil Nadu Development of Women CorporationLimited for providing programme design support,development of training materials, capacity buildingto field NGOs and District Implementing Offices inthe areas of base line survey, structured survey,micro planning, and livelihood resource mapping.The Centre has provided handholding support to theNGOs. The Centre has also prepared the genderaction plan for the districts and undertook anassessment of vocational institutes.

Centre for Policy and Planning


In response to Madurai Corporation’s request, theCentre for Research undertook a survey, covering allthe households in all the 72 wards of MaduraiCorporation for identifying the beneficiaries forproviding toilets in their house premises itself. TheCentre facilitated the design for preparing thesurvey and Detailed Project Report. A total of 1, 94,556 households have been surveyed in 72 wards ofMadurai Corporation and 4366 households wereidentified as beneficiaries. The DPRs for all thethree phases have been submitted. Also theinformation collected from the survey would be keptat the City Information Centre, anchored by theCentre for Research as part of promotingtransparency and accountability in implementingthe Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban RenewalMission in the City.

Building on the earlier experience of conductingmortality study for the People Mutuals, this year,the Centre has covered 84,315 households from 45Kalanjiam and four Vayalagam locations. Thepurpose of the study was to build the data base ofmortality and life expectancy of poor in rural,coastal, urban and tribal areas.across programmes,gender and age wise in different states to design theinsurance products suiting the poor. Presentationwas done to the advisory team and donor agenciesfor further process. The Centre also facilitated abaseline survey for evolving micro-pension schemein 20 locations by the People Mutuals. A total of38,990 households from these locations were coveredunder Micro pension baseline survey.

For the Kalanjiam Programme, the Centre undertooka baseline survey on knowledge, attitude andpractice related to anaemia among the adolescentgirls and pregnant women in Singampunari andVishakapattnam locations. A similar survey onknowledge, attitude and practice related to HIV /AIDS was taken up in Sellur slum in Madurai city,Ponnammapettai and Kondalampatti blocks inSalem district.

The Centre continued to work on the JNNURM onbehalf of DHAN. It has facilitated a regionalworkshop on community participation fund atPuducherry that led to the promotion of CityTechnical Advisor Group (CTAG) and CityVolunteer Technical Corps (CVTC) under JNNURMin Puducherry. The Centre facilitated thepublication of the newsletter ‘City Communiqué’ atMadurai on behalf of CTAG and CVTC in Madurai.This newsletter was well received by the other citiesimplementing JNNURM.

The Centre for Research supported the threeMadurai Urban locations namely Sellur,Thenmadurai and Jaihindpuram Vattara Kalanjiamsto send their people representatives to share theirexperiences in the National Workshop onCommunity Participation Fund (CPF) at New Delhi.Two documentary films on CPF in Thenmadurai andSellur locations were released in that workshop. Alsothe Centre has facilitated the Kalanjiam locations inthe Vishakapattnam Region to submit three CPFproposals as part of implementing JNNURM inVishakapattnam city.

DHAN Foundation nurtures development innovations which can transform the lives of the poor on a largerscale. The Foundation encourages reflective practices among the professionals and the communities withwhom they are working to bring out the best possible solutions for the issues that would suit to the localcontexts.

The Centre for Research facilitates field-based research on issues common to the sector and the Foundation.It undertakes sectoral research on microfinance, tankfed agriculture and other rural and urban developmentissues in addition to taking up impact studies of DHAN projects in order to build up a knowledge base for thesector

The Centre facilitates the professionals working at the grassroots to take up micro studies and actionresearches on the issues concerning them to come out with operational solutions to improve theperformance.

The Centre collaborates with educational institutions, research organisations and universities on commonresearch interests to exchange expertise and to bring academic rigour to the research outcomes.

Centre for Research

Impact


A Development Information System (DIS) has beeninitiated in Kalanjiam Community Programme withthe objectives of understanding developmental needsof the members of SHGs, developing context-specificproducts and strategies for poverty reduction andassessing changes in the lives of the members due tothe Programme interventions. As a part of theinitiative, an impact survey was undertaken during2009-10 with the primary objective of analysing theimpact of the Programme intervention on theeconomic status of member households. Specifically,the study aimed to track changes in the followingeconomic parameters:

Household income and expenditure

Asset possession

Savings, credit, and insurance

Quality of life

Research Methodology

The survey household interview schedule wasdesigned to collect quantitative variables on theaforesaid parameters and was pre-tested with 15groups. Households of Kalanjiam SHG memberswere taken as the basic unit of the survey whichwas undertaken in 94 federations of the KalanjiamCommunity Banking Programme functioning indifferent parts and contexts of India. As many asthree groups from each location were randomlyselected and all the members in each selected groupwere interviewed individually for data collection.The groups were stratified based on their years ofexistence namely less than one year, 1-3 years, 3-6years and greater than six years. The stratificationwas done to analyse the impact of Kalanjiams oneach of these strata and to see the changes over timeon different age groups of SHGs. A total of 3,404members were interviewed (Table 1).

Table no.1: Sample number of SHGs selected andmembers interviewed in the study

Group ageNumber of

Number of

SHGs selected members

interviewed

Less than 1 year 10 175From 1 to 3 years 55 809From 3 to 6 years 117 1,4626 years and above 84 958

Total 266 3,404

Results

1. INCOME

1.1. Average household income

The average monthly income of the members’households in greater than six years old groups ishigher than the members’ households of less thanone year old groups. It can be inferred that themembers households in the greater than six yearsold have expanded their income opportunities andproductive assets base, which is evident in thesubsequent analysis in this report. (Figure 1.1)

Kalanjiam Community Banking Programme


1.2. Income from Income generating activities

The Kalanjiams have supported its members to take up income generating activities such as agriculture, dairyfarming, fishing, petty–business and trading activities. The average household income from these incomegenerating activities show an increasing trend. Furthermore, the proportion of income from these incomegenerating activities to total income has also increased (Figure 1.2). This shows that members in the oldergroups were able to graduate and diversify from wage labour–dependent source of income to take up otherentrepreneurial activities.

Among the various income generating activities taken up by the members, agriculture and dairy form themajor activities (Figure 1.3). This shows that the proportion of households involved in agricultural or dairyactivities has increased with the increase in age of the groups, indicating increased flow of credit towardsbuying or leasing in farm lands and for working capital to buy farm inputs. Also it denotes that memberscould get credit support suiting to their needs and contexts with flexible loan products from their Kalanjiams.


2. HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES

2.1. Total household expenditure

Household expenditure can be considered as a proxyindicator to assess economic well-being of a family.The study revealed that there was an increasingtrend in expenditure pattern among the householdof the members of various age groups (Figure 2.1).The members in older groups were able to meet theincreased household expenses, from their enhancedhousehold income. This could be considered as ahealthy sign as the households have enhancedopportunities to spend on some of their essentialneeds unmet earlier.

2.2. For what do they spend?

Food expenses form the major part of householdexpenditure. Around `1400 to 1600 is spent on foodper household in a month across all householdsirrespective of the age of the Kalanjiam. However,interestingly, the proportion of money spent on foodshows a consistent decline from 47.09 per centamong households of members in less than one yearold groups to 27.29 per cent among those householdsof members in Kalanjiams greater than 6 years(Figure 2.2). While there is no significant variation inamount spent on food across different age groups,there is a reduction in proportion of expenditure onfood to the total expenditure. It shows that theKalanjiam families diversified their spendingtowards nonfood items such as clothing, shelter,health and education, which is evident from thesubsequent charts. At the same time, changes in thequality of food need to be studied further.

Looking at the household expenditure on clothing, education and for medical expenses show a consistentincrease as we move from households with members of new groups to members of mature groups (Figure 2.3).While the expenses made on upgrading their house is increasing with the maturity of the Kalanjiams, theexpenses on house rent is decreasing, which leads to an inference that members have bought new houses orleased houses thus reducing the money spent on house rent. These trends show that the Kalanjiams were ableto make an impact on the quality of life of the members with enhanced savings and credit opportunities.


3. ASSETS

3.1. Value of land

At the given point of time, the monetary value ofland owned by members in different age groups ofKalanjiams show an increase (Figure 3.1). This couldbe inferred that the increase may be due toenhanced performance of the land with an additionof irrigation facility and land treatment; secondlymembers may have increased the area of landowned by them. With the increased maturity ofgroups and enhanced credit absorption capacity ofmembers, they tend to invest on their lands. Thisphenomenon needs to be studied further to evolveappropriate products to create performing assets tothe members.

3.2. Value of income generating assets

The productive assets that can bring income to thefamilies are known as income generating assets. Thestudy elucidates that the value of income generatingassets such as milch animals, cattle, goats/sheeps,rickshaws, autos, and the like, possessed byKalanjiam families has grown over the years withthe maturity of the groups. This increase isparticularly significant among groups more than 6years of age. It suggests that the members of theolder groups show an increased credit absorptioncapability and have now started investing onproductive assets (Figure 3.2).


4.1.2. Savings at different sources

While savings by the Kalanjiam members in the formal and informal sources decrease, savings in Kalanjiamshows a consistent increase (Figure 4.1.2). Most of the members view the Kalanjiams as their trusted source ofsavings. Also it is due to flexibility and accessibility to save in the Kalanjiams. Further the ‘security’ of savingsprovided by the Kalanjaim and the ‘liquidity and leverage’ that the savings in Kalanjiam proves to beimportant reasons to save in Kalanjiam. The Kalanjaims have inculcated the habit of savings among the poor,proving that poor has a need to save and can save. At the same time, it shows that informal system of savingsexists even among members of mature group and indicates the untapped savings potential among theKalanjiam members’ households.

3.3. Value of household assets

Household assets mean household consumer goodslike Radio, TV, two-wheelers, washing machines, etc.Generally, there is an increase in the value ofhousehold assets possessed by Kalanjiam familiesover the years – though not consistent. It suggeststhat as the group graduates, members’concentration of spending on household assets shiftsto spending on income-generating assets in theinitial six years and once the household income isassured and stabilised, they tend to invest on otherhousehold consumer goods, which helps themenhance their quality of life.

4. ACCESS TO FINANCIAL SERVICES

4.1. SAVINGS

4.1.1. Total savings per householdThe Kalanjiams lay equal emphasis on savings,credit and insurance. With inbuilt financial literacyand exposure in the Kalanjiams, the poor householdsstart accumulating their savings in various sourcesincluding Kalanjiams. While the following chart(Figure 4.1.1) shows consistent increase in savings inthe members’ households as the group matures, thesubsequent chart (Figure 4.1.2) highlights theproportion of savings kept by the members in theirKalanjiams.


4.2.2. Loan outstanding at different sources

The outstanding of loans borrowed by the Kalanjiam members individually from ‘formal sources’ such asbanks and cooperatives has decreased considerably, while loan outstanding from Kalanjiam have increasedgradually and consistently (Figure 4.2.2). Also the study reveals that still the members depend on informalsources of credit such as money lenders and social networks, but the outstanding declines with the maturityof the groups and these sources are replaced by the Kalanjiams. While it proves the increased accessibility ofthe members to get loan from Kalanjiam, it also shows the increasing credit absorption of the members. This isan area to explore further and it will help Kalanjiams to evolve suitable products to the meet the credit needsof the poor. At the same time, it is to be noted that unlike the formal or informal credit systems, almost all theloans from Kalanjiam are collateral free.

4.2.3. Credit Affordability

The Kalanjiam members are now able to get loans atlower rates of interest (less than 25 percent perannum) – this indirectly shows the impact ofKalanjiams on interest rates of lending among othersources like money lenders, traders (Figure 4.2.3).Given the presence of Kalanjiams, the members havereduced their dependence on informal sources, whoare charging more than 25 percent interest perannum. It also provides an evidence for increasedcredit worthiness of the members, where themembers get a better deal in availing loans at lowerrate of interest from the informal sources.

4.2. CREDIT

4.2.1. Access to credit

Enhancing accessibility and availability of credit isone of the major services offered by Kalanjiam.Members avail loan from the groups for variousconsumption and production needs. As it can beseen in the Figure 4.2.1, the average cumulative loanavailed by the members from their Kalanjiamsincreases from the new groups to mature groups.


4.3. INSURANCE

The Kalanjiams insist on the approach of ‘savingsfirst, credit next and insurance must’ among theirmembers. Insurance coverage among members andtheir families show an increasing trend (Figure 4.3).Also the persons who have insured have reneweduntil the date of survey.

5. QUALITY OF LIFE

The study reveals that the quality of housing among the Kalanjiam members’ households has increasedconsiderably (Figure 5.1). The proportion of household having houses with bricked walls and RCC roofs haveincreased. Also the accessibility to toilet facilities had increased. The proportion of households with electricityconnections have also increased considerably, while the usage of LPG as fuel has also increased though notsignificantly.

Conclusion

Results of this study show that there is an evidence of impact of Kalanjiams in the lives of poor. Theintervention has made significant change in the behaviour of poor to save and on the other hand theKalanjiams have been able to mobilise a considerable quantum of credit with repeat support from formalfinancing institutions. The findings apparently reveal that the SHGs have demonstrated that ‘poor can saveand they are bankable’. Financing through SHGs has resulted in improvement in asset status and increase infamily income. There has been a substantial decline in the debt burden of the poor families with usuriousmoneylenders due to the services of SHGs. However, the debt with informal credit sources in increases inconsonant with the investment on assets with financial support of Kalanjiams. This finding reiterates the needfor ensuring adequacy of credit for asset creation and developing appropriate products and services suiting tothe needs and capacity of the members. There is a considerable increase in the asset possession of memberhouseholds as the groups mature. At the same time, a decline in value of assets and household income wasnoticed among the members of SHGs from 1-3 years of age category while the same figures show a positivetrend in the other two matured categories. This interesting dimension needs to be investigated further. In anutshell, potential of SHGs in organising poor and addressing development issues is quite evident. But itshould be understood that it is just an entry point and these women organisations have to go long way inachieving overall development taking up multiple development agenda and should evolve into civicinstitutions.


DHAN Foundation entered Punganur Mandal,Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh in December 1997,and undertook a detailed study to explore thepotential of implementing its programs in that area,and submitted a proposal to District RuralDevelopment Agency, Chittoor. Based on this, theDistrict Collector invited DHAN Foundation toimplement Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP)at Punganur Mandal. From April 1998, the projectwas started with DHAN Foundation as ProjectImplementing Agency.

Initially, the district administration wanted DHANto follow conventional watershed norms, which didnot include tanks as part of the watershed program.After continuous persuasion, the team from DHANconvinced the authorities on the importance ofincluding tank as a part of watershed development.This tank-centric watershed approach was aptlynamed Tank-based Watershed DevelopmentProgram (TBWDP).

Promotion of Vayalagam Federation

DHAN’s intervention started with organising thevillage communities around tanks and watershedcomponents as laid out in the watershed norms.Farmers’ organisations were organised at tank level,village level and watershed level. Once the tankswere identified and selected, the tank associationswere promoted at the village level. The members ofthese associations were involved in planning tankrehabilitation works through PRA and interactingwith all the stake holders. The office bearers wereselected / elected by the members and they weremade responsible for mobilising local contributions,planning and implementing and operating andmaintaining the systems. In order to have a widerimpact across location, tank cascade association wasformed from among the tank associations. The majorroles of tank cascade associations were to regularlymaintain the common feeder channel of tankslocated in cascade, resolve the conflicts, if any,arising out of water distribution from feederchannels among the chain of tanks and provide an

opportunity for crosslearning and sharingexperiences on workimplementation acrosstank associations.

In Punganur, there are98 Vayalagamspromoted in 76 villagesin and aroundPunganur Mandal. Atotal of 6,725 farmershave been organised atdifferent levels andfederated into Punganur Mandal Vayalaga RythyulaSamakhya (PMVRS). Ten watershed associationswere promoted at the designated micro-watershedlevel and registered under Trust Act, with anindependent savings bank account. The DistrictWater Management Agency (DWMA), which acts asthe nodal agency for the project, was linked directlywith these associations. The Watershed Associationsplanned and allocated funds to activities as per theWatershed Guidelines. A Professional team fromDHAN made the technical estimates of the work andassisted the Associations to implement them. Therewere regular monthly meeting to review theprogress of the associations and plans.

Vayalagam Tankfed Agriculture Development Programme


Tank Based Watershed Development

The PMVRS executed development works in ten micro–watersheds sanctioned by DPAP in two batches since1999. The watershed development works have benefitted a total area of 5491 hectare with a budget outlay of`2.2 crores in all ten watersheds. The Project area in Punganur Mandal covered 76 villages of 24 panchayats inPunganur and Ramasamudram Mandals.

Watershed activites

The Watershed Activities were taken up under four broader components, viz., soil and moisture conservation,construction and renovation of water harvesting structures, biomass enhacement, and other activities.

People’s Contribution: Out of the total cost of `17,678,150 invested in various watershed activities, around`1,639,379 (around 10 percent) has been contributed by the people for Watershed Development Fund (WDF),as per the watershed guidelines. Apart from this, ̀26, 51,677 (around 15 percent) has been mobilized as UserGroup’s Contribution. In total, the farmers `42,91,056 (over 25 percent) has been mobilized from thecommunity alone for the various watershed activities.

S.No. Components No. of worksTotal cost of

work (`̀̀̀̀)

A Waterharvesting structures 1,238 1,25,11,803

B Soil moisture conservation 1,264 41,26,214

C Biomass enhancement 330 9,79,110

D Others 12 61,023

Total 2,850 1,76,78,150

A. Water harvesting structures

Under renovation and/or construction of water harvesting structures, a total of `12,511,803 has been investedwith the WDF contribution of `1,150,704 for renovation and construction of water structures. The table belowshows the various activities done under this component, in terms of cost of work done and the number ofworks done.

S.No. Activities Value ` Nos. WDF Contribution `

1 Tank rehabilitation 2,659,694 67 247,527 Water links renovation 931,323 235 98,005 Silt application 1,312,803 282 125,740

2 Farm pond construction (new) 1,660,899 235 152,998 Farm pond renovation 137,794 29 8,567

3 Mini Percolation Tanks (MPT) new 3,283,616 221 286,627 MPT renovation 686,894 49 61,547

4 Check dam construction (new) 680,129 10 58,943 Check dam renovation 238,834 24 20,859 Check wall construction (new) 715,087 25 70,783 Check wall renovation 49,471 3 3,372 Mini check wall 52,499 7 6,179

5 Village pond construction (new) 40,013 3 4,001 Village pond renovation 7,025 4 731

6 Well renovation 55,722 44 4,825

Total 12,511,803 1,238 1,150,704


‘Tank is the one and only source oflivelihood for a small farmer like me,’ says

C.Anjeppa, one of the three farmers in theayacut area of Nagulakunta tank in Gudisebandavillage of Kummaranatham micro-watershed.Gudisebanda is a small hamlet in Punganurmandal of Chittoor district. Nagulakunta is oneof the three tanks in this village.

Anjeppa owns around 5 acres of the ayacut landin this small tank, and another 5 acres of drylanddownstream. Previously, Anjeppa had no landand this land belonged to upper caste villagers,‘For generations, we were landless labourers. Iwas very much interested to buy land tocultivate. When opportunities favoured, I boughtthis land that belongs to Agragarathars orBrahmins.’

The tank was completely ignored by the previousowners, and left uncared for more than 25 years.‘When I bought this land in 2000, it was full ofshrubs and weeds and I started converting thisland into cultivable land. When we cleared theforests, we found a bund in the middle of theland, which was also severely breached. Later, wefound out that it was an age-old tank thatirrigated the ayacut area downstream. At thattime, I had no money to repair this tank. But wegrew rainfed paddy (Byrodlu) in the first year inkharif season; there was no second season rabicrops. The yield was just enough to satisfy ourhome consumption. We didn’t get any surplus to

sell or to get an income.’ This was the situationtill 2002.

‘It was during that time, DHAN Foundation cameto our village,’ he recalls. Workers from DHANtold us that through watershed project theayacutdhars could renovate the tank by repairingand strengthening the bund, building a cementcorewall, and also construct a sluice. Th ey askedus to form an association, and the three members,Mahesh, Vijayakumar and myself formed theNagalakunta Tank Farmers Association (TFA),and opened a bank account in the name of theassociation. We approached KummaranathamWatershed Committee (WSC) and gave arequisition in the committee meeting to renovatethe tank. The Watershed Development Team(WDT) visited the tank and we prepared anestimate for the rehabilitation work by consultingthe ayacutdars”

The cost of the works done wasaround ̀ 1,02,905 and the members’contributed `30,000. The memberscontributed both in cash and in labourfor the work. The renovation worksincluded core wall construction andbreach closing, construction of sluiceand surplus weir, and laying roughstone revetment , strengthening ofbunds and provision of plug and rodshutter. The member’s contributionwas put into fixed deposit (F.D.) in theassociation’s bank account.

Case: Impact of Vayalagam in Nagulakunta tank


Impact of the work

1. The entire 8 acre of ayacut area has been restored and stability in crop production has been achieved.Now the ayacutdhars take an assured crop yield. The details of the crops grown in the field ofC. Anjeppa, before the rehabilitation and now, are given in the table below.

2. Cultivation of paddy was made possible, which could ensure the food security of Anjeppa’s family,in addition to providing enough fodder for his cattle.

3. It is evident from the table that Anjeppa has been able to cultivate in both the season, which wasnot possible before.

4. There has been continuous source of employment throughout the year.

5. The tank also serves as a source of drinking water for cattle and other livestock.

6. Importantly, the farmer has gained enough confidence in farming that he has nowplanted five acres of his drylands with horticulture crops which was fallow before.

Season/Year

First season

Second season

Before (in 2002)

Area: 5 acres oflandCrops: Rainfedpaddy (Byrodlu)Yield:enough for homeconsumption

None

2008-09

Area: 4.5 acres, 0.5 ac to leaseCrops & Yield

3 ac Paddy (own) + 0.5 ac(leased to) paddy – 40 bagsper acre (70 kgs) = 140 bags

0.5 ac Ragi – 3 bags (70 kg)

1 ac Groundnut – 10 bags(40 kg) with Red gram, beansas intercrops (for homeconsumption)

0.25 ac Paddy (own) + 0.25 acPaddy (leased to) – 10-15 bags

2009-10

3 ac Paddy

1 ac groundnut

1 ac lease

5.0 acres of Mangoplantationdownstream

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Marimakulapalli is a small village inKummaranatham micro-watershed of PunganurMandal. In 1999, DHAN Foundation initiated thetank-based watershed development programmein this village. Initially, the villagers wereorganised and formed as farmers’ association.The association took up a lot of developmentactivities for the village, with the help of DHANnamely: cleaning of village, tank bunddevelopment, tank desilting, silt application, andalso health activities. Renovation of a villagepond was the work that still remains in thehearts of people. Prior to the work, there was a

Case: Village pond renovation in Marimakulapalli Village


small natural depression in the area thatcaptured runoff water, and got collected. Beingsmaller in size, it had limited usage, and thevillagers used it as drinking water source for theircattle. And to deepen and widen the pond hadbeen in the minds of the villagers for long.

The renovation and its impact

It was only in 2002, that the villagers with thehelp of DHAN de–silted and widened the pond.The pond renovation was done at a total cost of`36,853 with contribution of `3685 as WDFcontribution, with 25 percent contributioncoming from the villagers both in cash and inlabour. The pond was widened and deepened byde–silting and the excavated silt was applied indrylands to enhance the soil fertility. The pondbund was strengthened and a bund revetment

was provided. Steps were constructed, thusmaking it easy to take water from the pond.

Now, the bigger and wider pond is used fordrinking water by cattle from nearby villagesalso. During summer time, all the villagers cometogether and de–silt the pond and the silt isapplied in the fields to enrich the soil.

Even in the summer there is some water presentin the pond. The villagers rear fish, and get anincome of `6000-7000 per year from this fishrearing activity. This income from the pond goesto the village common fund. The villagers haveeffectively used this money, by installing adrinking water bore in their village. Themoney is also contributed to villagefestivals every year. The common fundis also used to maintain the pond.

B. Soil moisture conservation

Field bunding: One of the major activities taken upunder Soil and Moisture Conservation componentwas the construction of field bunds. Around 817.5acres of field bunds were constructed to check soilerosion and conserve moisture with the totalinvestment of `3,784,570. Farmers have contributed`3,83,259 (around 10 percent) towards theWatershed Development Fund, and another 15percent towards User Groups’ Contribution.

Other soil moisture conservation measures: Otherthan Field Bunding, SMC works were also done. Fivemajor activities were done viz., Sunken pits, StoneBunding, Rock fill dams (RFDs), Rock fill dams inconjunction with revetment for Supply channel(SCR), and Continuous Contour Trenches (CCT). Atotal amount of `341,644 was invested in the aboveactivities, with WDF contribution of `24,602.

C. Biomass enhancement

Horticulture plantation: One of the fourcomponents of Watershed Activities is promotion ofhorticulture plantation. Under this component, atotal of 757.24 acres of land had been brought underhorticulture plantation. Around `9,79,110 wasinvested for the promotion of horticulture crops.


V1 mulberry promotion: Sericulture wasthe prominent activity in PunganurMandal. DHAN has promoted cultivationof an improved V1 Mulberry variety.Around 122 farmers availed this supportat the cost of ̀ 1,47,500 from thewatershed fund with their WDFcontribution of `12,950.

Community nursery: Around `70,000was invested to initiate a communitynursery in Punganur. The nurserymanaged by the farmers’ organisationworks on supplying good qualityseedlings at a competitive price, lower thancommercial nurseries.

D. Others

Also other activities were done as people’s need anddemand under the project. A total of 12 activitieswere done at the cost of `61,023 with WDFcontribution of `2744. Three cattle ponds wereconstructed at the cost of `15,856, and two gobargas plants were established. A culvert wasconstructed in one village at the cost of `13,636.

E. Microfinance activities

The intensity of the farmers’ collective action inPunganur has gone beyond watershed works. Giventhe gap between the farmers and mainstreamfinancial institutions, and usurious money lendingpractices exist in this area, DHAN has promotedVayalaga Pothupu Sangams, i.e., microfinance

A Decade of Impact

In 2009-10, an impact study was taken up forassessing the impact of the tank based watersheddevelopment programme implemented in PunganurMandal for the past one decade. A field survey wasdesigned and conducted with 81 farmers selected onrandom sampling. The physical achievements of theprogramme were consolidated with themeasurement books compiled from the beginning ofthe project. Case study of few of the farmers fromthe sample was taken and impact created at theTank level was documented as case studies.

groups (MFGs) among the farmers. Through MFGs,the farmers were able to avail financial services likesavings and easy access to credit services and creditlinkage with the local Banks.

As of March 2010, around 174 MFGs have beenpromoted by DHAN Foundation in PunganurMandal with a total of 2329 members. The farmershave saved a total of ̀ 59,49,122 in their MFGs andavailed credit to the tune of `2,36,36,626 is theamount of loan mobilised from the local commercialbanks.

Around 1668 members have been insured and a totalpremium of ̀ 1,66,800 has been mobilised. As ofMarch, 2010, a total of three death claims have beenmade and an amount of `90,000 was settled as deathclaims. Around 250 students have so far availed thisscholarship and a total amount of `1,50,000 havebeen distributed.


Water HarvestingNo. of farmers

AreaStructure irrigated (ac)

Mini Percolation Tank 35 52.25

Farm pond 30 57.65

Check wall 2 3.45

Check dam 2 8.5

Total 69 121.9

2. Increase in area under paddy cultivation

There has also been significant increase in the paddycultivation – both in terms of number of farmerscultivating paddy, and area under paddy cultivation.It was found that out of the 81 farmers surveyed,around 71 farmers now cultivate paddy (84.15 acres)as against just 32 farmers who previously cultivatedpaddy (24.90 acres). There has been 3.4 times increasein area under paddy cultivation, as a result ofwatershed project. The area under paddy cultivationhas gone up from 24.9 acres to 84.15 acres after thewatershed works. The increase in paddy cultivationwas due to renovation and creation of waterharvesting structures which contributed to increase inarea under paddy cultivation. Most of the respondents use the paddy thus harvested, for their own householdconsumption. This has significantly improved the food availability in the household, ensuring food security.The following table depicts the augmentation of irrigation sources that resulted in increased area under paddycultivation due to watershed development works undertaken among the respondents’ farm holdings.

Sl No Irrigation Water source Area under paddy cultivation(acres)

Before project Now

1 Tank 9.50 19.40

2 Water Harvesting Structures 0.00 59.55

3 Wells 9.30 5.20

4 Rainfed 6.10 0.00

Total 24.90 84.15

Conclusions of the Impact Study

The field survey in the project area revealed insightsinto the impacts realised by the farmers athousehold level as a result of watershed project.

1. Increased Area under irrigation

Among the surveyed households, around 121.85acres were newly brought under irrigation with thehelp of newly created water-harvesting structures,namely: mini-percolation tank (MPT), farm pond,check wall and check dam. Out of the 81 farmerssurveyed, a total of 69 such new structures werecreated, for 69 farmers.


'Before forming our Vayalagam in ourvillage, I have had no confidence of getting

surplus income from my farmland' saysGangireddy, a small farmer who owns around 3.7acres of land in Alajaneru village ofVanamaladinne Micro-watershed. Earlier, heused to grow rainfed paddy in half-an-acre ofland and the remaining he sowed groundnut. 'Igot a yield of just 2-3 bags of paddy then, eventhat was uncertain due to unpredictable rainfalland frequent failure of monsoons,' he says. 'Now Icultivate irrigated paddy in 2.7 acres and get anassured yield of 50-60 bags of paddy - thanks tothe MPT,' he gladly spells the changes thathappened in his life. And change was due to theMini-Percolation Pond that he constructed in hisfield with the support of Vayalagam.

It was in 2002-03 that Gangireddy constructed anMPT with the support of watershed projectexecuted through the Vayalagam, in which hebecame a member. With the financial assistancefrom WDF and his contribution of `6542, heconstructed a mini percolation tank in his landwith an investment of `65,424. 'We purchasediron rods, spades and the like to dig the tank andall five of us from my family contributed ourlabour. In return, we have got `3500 and 1100 kgof rice as coolie, thanks to the Food for WorkProgram (FFWP),' he says. He also cultivatedcucurbits and other vegetable crops on the bundsof MPT; this satisfies his household needs.

After seeing the impact that the MPT in his land,he took up field bunding as a soil and moistureconservation measure at the cost of `3,877, withhis contribution of `387. When the MFG wasintroduced in his village, he readily accepted it

Case: MPT impacts life of Gangireddy

and joined the group. He availed a loan `2,500 forsilt application, and later ̀ 10,000 to meet the costof cultivation and for seed purchase.

Impact

Because of the construction of the MPT,Gangireddy is able to take an assured yield of 50-60 bags of paddy in two seasons, in 2.7 acres ofpaddy field. The silt that was removed during theexcavation of MPT was applied to his fields. Heavailed a loan of ̀ 2,500 from his MFG to applysilt in the field. This has significantly increasedthe soil fertility and thereby the crop yield.

Through MFG, Gangireddy is able to avail creditfacilities when and as required. He is also able tosave an amount of `1820.

With the income from the farm, he has alsoupgraded his house. He had spent around `13,000for cement flooring, plastering and brick wallconstruction. Also, he got electricity connectionfor his house. Now, Gangireddy hopes to de-silt and deepen his MPT further, so as tostore more water. He is also planning tolevel the remaining land, and bring thatland under cultivation.

3. Increase in area under horticulture crops

Among the 81 sample farmers surveyed, 36farmers have reported that 95.48 acres of landwere brought under horticulture plantation.These farmers have planted different types ofhorticulture crops as shown in the table. Thetrees were in different stages yield and manyof the famers have started reaping the benefitsof the plantation.

S.No Horticulture Crops No. of farmers Area (in acres)

1 Mango 24 83.82 Coconut 6 3.683 Sappota 2 34 Tamarind 1 25 Jamoon 1 0.56 Eucalyptus 2 2.5

Total 36 95.48


4. Additional investment in creation of farm assets

After constructing mini percolation tanks and farm ponds, the farmers have invested on their own in farmassets like oil engine/motor and installed pipelines for irrigation purposes and so on. For this alone, 43 farmershave invested around `2,49,400. Out of this, 29 farmers have purchased oil engines to lift water from pondswith an investment of `2,01,200, and 14 farmers have installed pipelines at the cost of `48,200 to irrigate thedistant plots.

Increase in livestock population shows a positive trend of farmers moving towards a livestock-agricultureintegrated farming system. This will greatly enable the farmers to get a regular source of income, either byselling sheep, or by selling milk. More importantly the livestock would bring organic manure to the land,which has a greater role in enhancing the productivity of crops.

Credit support for livestock purchase: All the 81respondents availed loans from their MFGs, andcumulatively they have taken `13,78,752 as loan forvarious purposes. Out of this, nearly 50 percent of theloan amounting to `6,68,500 was used for livestockrelated activities viz., for purchase of milch animals orcattle or sheep or to carry out fish rearing activities.More than 88 percent of the loan amount was used forpurchasing milch animals.

Sl No Livestock Loan Amount (Rs.)

1 Milch animals 5,93,300

2 Plough animals 5,000

3 Sheeps and goats 43,500

4 Fish rearing 26,700

Total 6,68,500

6. Dairy activities

There has been considerable increase in milch animal population. Among the 81 farmers surveyed, they haveadded 56 cows with the support from the MFGs with the loan assistance from their MFGs to the tune of`5,93,300. In order to enhance the availability of green fodder for the additional milch animals, Co3 CumbuNapier grass was promoted among the farmers who purchased milch animals. Dry fodder was also suppliedduring the years of drought. The new dairy processing and marketing units emerged in the Punganur Mandalin the past three years help them easy marketing of milk.

5. Increase in livestock population

Livestock like milch animals, and small ruminantslike sheeps and goats are integral part of farmingsystem for the small and marginal farmers. Therehas also been considerable increase in the number oflivestock owned by the farmers during the projectperiod. Among the respondent households, there hasbeen 72.7 percent increase in the cattle population,294.7 percent increase in milch animal population,and around 261.8 percent increase in sheeppopulation.


'Before, several organisations came to ourvillage telling us to form sanghams and told

that they will create ponds, bunds, etc. Theyasked us to deposit money. After sometimes theytook away our money and never came back,' saysV.Venkataramana, briefing the disbelief prevailedamong the villagers like him in the beginning ofthe watershed program.

Similar voices echoed when DHAN Foundationinitiated the watershed program in PeddaAlsapuram village of Nekkondi Micro-Watershedin 1999. Many of the villagers doubted the wordsof the field staff went from DHAN, they werevery apprehensive, 'We were reminded of otherNGOs who promised us of doing such works, butdid nothing whatsoever,' Venkataramanacontinues.

Only when the villagers heard of the work beingdone in the nearby village, Nekkondi that theystarted trusting DHAN and invited the DHANstaffs to come to their village to do similar kind ofworks in their village also.

Initially, the field staff from DHAN asked thevillagers to come together as groups and startsaving of `50 per month, and again, the anxiousvillagers found themselves in disbelief, as otherNGOs formed groups with women only. Aftercontinued discussions and clarifications, theyformed a group, much reluctantly, and told thatthey will not be able to pay `50, and will pay `30as savings. DHAN staffs anyway agreed to dothat, and asked them to continue for threemonths. 'Now our Sri Balaji Vayalaga PothuppuSangam (VPS) has been running for the past 7-8years and has 13 members,' he says. They nowsave ̀ 100 per month and have done a lot ofactivities and availed loans for various needsthrough this sangam. 'And I am the President ofthe sangam,' Venkataramana said about theirsangam.

Case: Financing agricultural activities - V.Venkataramana of Nekkondi

Watershed works in his land

Thus, convincing the villagers, and organisingthem as groups and associations, DHANFoundation implemented its watershed programin this village also. As per the norm, the villagerswere asked to contribute 25 percent of the totalcost of the work. 'But we told them (DHANFoundation) we will not able to contribute inmoney, but we will contribute as labour,' saysVenkataramana. In this way the members of thegroup constructed two farm ponds, one checkdam and cleared jungle for the members of ourgroup with the support of DHAN Foundation.V.Venkataramana, also a member of the groupdid the following activities in his land with thesupport from the group.

He owns around 15 acres of land awarded by theGovernment under DKT patta (given free by thegovernment to landless SC/ST with conditions onfuture sale and land use). He has done a lot ofdevelopment activities in his land with the helpof watershed project, and from the loan he gotfrom the MFG.

Jungle clearance: His entire land waspreviously full of trees and shrubs and wasunsuitable for cultivation. He grew onlyrainfed paddy in between the trees and gotsome 1-2 bags of paddy. Then with thesupport of Vayalagam, he cleared the jungle


and slowly and steadily brought around sixacres of land under cultivation.

Check dam and well recharge: At the sametime, two members in the group constructedfarm ponds with the help of Vayalagam.Looking at this, he also asked them toconstruct a check dam that will restrict theflow of water, recharge the well and helphim cultivate the land downstream. Nowwith the recharge well, he cultivates 3.5acres of paddy and gets an additional yieldof 10-15 bags of paddy whereas has got just1-2 bags earlier.

Land leveling: But the remaining drylandwas undulated and uncultivable. So, he got aloan of `10000 and leveled those dryland.Now he grows sugarcane in the 1.5 acres ofland and gets an income of `60,000 to 70,000.

Silt Application: DHAN staffs have advisedhim to apply silt on his land and for this hetook `2500 as loan from his MFG. After this,he got an yield of 15-20 tonnes (an increaseof 3-5 tonnes) with income of `60,000-70,000from sugarcane (at the rate of `2500-3000 pertonnes). 'When I applied silt in the paddyfield, I was able to get a yield of 30-40 bagsper acre (100 bags in 3.5 acres of paddy),whereas I have harvested only 20-30 bags peracre earlier,' he says.

Milch animal purchase: He also purchased amilch animal with the help of the loan he gotfrom the group. The family earns around

`10-12 per litre by selling milk, around`3000-4000 per month.

Horticulture plantation: Out of the total 15acres of land, he cultivates paddy in 3.5acres, sugarcane in 1.5 acres, and rest 10acres he has planted mango. It has nowstarted yielding, and he has got an income of`42,000 last year.

Impact of the work

The greatest impact that the Venkataramana andhis family members are proudly sharing is thatthey are now working on their own land, as hesays, 'Before we were coolies, now afterdeveloping our land we have become farmers andnow we ourselves employ labour to do farmwork.' He further adds, 'Now my wife is takingcare of the milch animals and she has stoppedgoing for labour works.' With the support fromhis Vayalagam and MFG, he could increase thearea under cultivation, and area under paddycultivation. He has also been able to grow cashcrops and has increased his income from thefarm. With this income, he had purchased fivemore acres of land at the cost of `56,000 with theloan he availed from the group. Already owning atractor, he recently purchased a new tractor atthe cost of `4 lakhs, with `1 lakh coming fromthe income earned from his farm and theremaining he got as loan from bank. Also hehas spent `20,000 to improve his house.

5. Improved access to savings and credit services

Adding to the watershed project, DHAN Foundationalso promoted microfinance groups (MFGs) amongthe farmers. Among the 81 members surveyed, 55 aremembers of various MFGs. These MFG membershave a total savings of `1,63,551 and borrowed anamount of `13,78,752 as loan from the groups. TheMFGs were able to mobilize loans from varioussources like Banks, KDFS, Watershed Fund, andFederation Fund and used for various purposes. Thepercentage distribution of purpose-wise loan availedshows that maximum proportion of loans, i.e., 49percent has been used for livestock development

6. Access to insurance

Out of the 81 members surveyed, 55 members wereinsured under LIC-JBY scheme and 31 memberswere insured in HDFC insurance scheme. Oneamong the members, Mr.Ramaiah surveyed recentlydied and a death claim of `30,000 was given to hiswife Ms.Thimmakka. Also, under the LIC-JBYscheme around 45 children of the members availedthe scholarship amount of `22,500.

7. Quality of life improvements

Purchase of land: Given the increase in income, asignificant number of farmers purchased agriculturalland. Among the 81 farmers surveyed, 22 farmerspurchased 25.45 acres of land investing an amountof ̀ 22,33,000. The farmers have purchased landsranging from three cents to 3.3 acres, at the costranging from `10000 to `8 lakhs per acre. Most of

these farmers have purchased land from the bigfarmers, who had started diversifying into otheractivities. Thus, as a consequence of the Watershedproject, many of these farmers have startedpurchasing land, increasing their land holding. Thisshows a positive trend in moving towards a farming-based livelihood options, which was once a not-so-dependable source of income.

House up-gradation and new house construction:The farmers have also made significant investmentfor new house construction and house up–gradation.Out of the 81 famers surveyed, a total of 36 farmershave constructed a new house of `21,41,500, and 32farmers on house up-gradation worth ̀ 15,23,300 andeight farmers purchased new housing plot worth`2,49,000. Also, 20 farmers have got new electricityconnections for their house, in the post-projectperiod.


Financial Statements


‘TRIDIPA’ Ground Floor, 46/2, I Cross,Someshwarapura Extension, Ulsoor, BANGALORE - 560 008.

Tel.: 91 - 80 - 25364740 / 25368228 Fax: 91 - 80 - 25367711

FORM NO. 10B

Audit report under section 12 A(b) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 in the case of charitable or religious trusts orinstitutions.

We have examined the consolidated Balance Sheet of DHAN (Development of Humane Action)Foundation, 18, Pillayar Koil Street, S.S.Colony, Madurai – 625 010, Tamilnadu, India (Permanent AccountNumber : AAA TD 2591 B) as at 31 March 2010 and the Consolidated Income and Expenditure Account forthe year ended on that date which are in agreement with the books of account maintained by the said Trust.

This financial statement is the responsibility of the Trust’s management. Our responsibility is to express anopinion on the financial statement based on our audit.

We conducted our audit in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in India. Those standardsrequire that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financialstatements are free of material misstatement. An audit includes examining, on a test basis, evidencesupporting the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. An audit also includes assessing theaccounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overallfinancial statement presentation. We believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.

We have obtained all the information and explanations which to the best of our knowledge and belief werenecessary for the purposes of the audit subject to non confirmation of balances of certain advances depositsand loan recoverable, bank balances and donor balances and current liabilities. In our opinion, proper booksof account have been kept by the head office and branches of the Trust so far as appears from ourexamination of the books.

In our opinion and to the best of our information and according to the information given to us, the saidaccounts give a true and fair view :

i) in the case of the consolidated Balance Sheet of the state of affairs of the above named trust as at 31March 2010 and

ii) in the case of the consolidated income and expenditure account of the excess of income over expenditureof its accounting year ending on 31 March 2010.

for SUNANDA & SHESHADRIChartered Accountants

Sd/-Place : Madurai K.SHESHADRIDate : 21 August 2010 Partner, Membership No. 20956.

Firm Registration Number : 004191S

Financial Statements


DHAN (Development of Humane Action) Foundation

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET

(in Rupees)

Schedule March 31, 2010 March 31, 2009

A S S E T S

FIXED ASSETS

Written off as per contra 1 110,999,981 108,723,651

INVESTMENTS 2 120,619,678 99,478,037

CURRENT ASSETS, LOANS AND ADVANCES

Bank Balances 3 44,326,300 28,143,882

Inventory - 14,200

Loans and Advances 4 9,748,169 11,191,961

SPECIFIED FUNDS 6 14,544,339 12,271,997

Total 300,238,467 259,823,728

L I A B I L I T I E S

CORPUS AND CAPITAL FUND 5 124,173,125 102,291,822

SPECIFIED FUNDS 6 63,208,618 47,099,159

CURRENT LIABILITIES 7 1,856,743 1,709,096

FIXED ASSETS WRITTEN OFF AS PER CONTRA 1 110,999,981 108,723,651

Total 300,238,467 259,823,728

Notes on Accounts 12

Schedules 1 to 7 & 12 form an integral part of the Balance sheet

As per our Report of even date.Sd/- Sd/- For Sunanda & Sheshadri

Chairman Treasurer Chartered Accountants

Sd/- Sd/-Executive Director K. SHESHADRI

Madurai PartnerAugust 21, 2010



CONSOLIDATED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNTFOR THE YEAR ENDED

(in Rupees)

Schedule March 31, 2010 March 31, 2009I N C O M E :

Grants Received 8 172,691,836 174,979,839Techno Managerial Services Receipts 491,017 1,149,497Other Receipts 9 27,431,758 13,790,238

Total 200,614,611 189,919,574

E X P E N D I T U R E:

Community Banking ProgrammeProgramme Implementation and Administration 10 56,237,558 43,032,674Capital Expenditure 1 1,438,722 5,873,476

Tank fed Agriculture ProgrammeProgramme Implementation and Administration 10 33,889,759 30,301,895Capital Expenditure 1 915,404 1,625,782

Coastal Agriculture and Livelihood programmeProgramme Implementation and Administration 10 8,502,852 51,716,570Capital Expenditure 1 3,393,950 20,568,327

New Themes and Other ProgrammesProgramme Implementation and Administration 10 42,164,267 38,538,638Capital Expenditure 1 7,217,679 9,983,581

Central support systemProgramme Implementation and Administration 10 11,409,243 12,429,737Capital Expenditure 1 832,903 1,320,948

“Excess of income over expenditure / “(Expenditure over income)" 34,612,274 (25,472,054)

Total 200,614,611 189,919,574

Appropriation of Excess of Income over Expenditure / (Expenditure over income) 11 34,612,274 (25,472,054)

Notes on Accounts 12

Schedules 1& 8 to 12 form an integral part of the Income and Expenditure account

As per our Report of even date.Sd/- Sd/- For Sunanda & Sheshadri

Chairman Treasurer Chartered Accountants

Sd/- Sd/-Executive Director K. SHESHADRI

Madurai PartnerAugust 21, 2010


Com

munity B

anking P

rogram

me

Free

hold

Lan

d 2

,037

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- 2

0,88

0 2

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- -

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2,0

16,4

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Bui

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g 5

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- -

5,4

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432

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103

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321

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52,

453

179

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525

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472

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563

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Off

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Equi

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ts 4

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58 6

3,89

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71,6

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2,57

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943

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2,7

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5,8

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97,7

18 2

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3,9

76,5

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31,8

12 5

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56,6

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0 6

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77 2

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36 1

2,64

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13,7

88 9

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5,4

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25 3

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411

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485

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53,4

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2,9

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315

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466

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Plan

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,686

- -

1,3

04,6

86 3

54,7

15 1

42,4

95 -

497

,210

807

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949

,971

Tot

al

I 2

3,88

2,96

8 1

,438

,722

4,3

51,7

03 2

0,96

9,98

7 1

1,78

1,26

0 1

,872

,050

3,4

44,4

97 1

0,20

8,81

3 1

0,76

1,17

4 1

2,10

1,70

8

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Lan

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76,6

89 -

- 1

76,6

89 -

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and

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ures

612

,591

92,

387

63,

837

641

,141

271

,882

38,

827

19,

008

291

,701

349

,440

340

,709

Off

ice

Equi

pmen

ts 3

33,2

12 3

2,10

5 5

7,95

1 3

07,3

66 2

02,3

56 2

1,21

9 3

6,45

3 1

87,1

22 1

20,2

44 1

30,8

56Pr

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al E

quip

men

ts 2

,921

,411

649

,122

423

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3,1

46,5

53 2

,608

,651

576

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422

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2,7

62,4

57 3

84,0

96 3

12,7

60El

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ical

Fit

ting

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60,3

37 1

7,77

5 6

,571

171

,541

106

,706

6,8

29 3

,459

110

,076

61,

465

53,

631

Veh

icle

s 1

,773

,575

- -

1,7

73,5

75 8

55,6

40 1

37,6

90 -

993

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780

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917

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Staf

f Veh

icle

s 1

30,5

10 1

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15 1

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Tot

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7,4

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25 9

15,4

04 6

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5,1

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30 8

13,4

96 4

82,3

20 5

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2,1

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Coastal A

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Lan

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6,9

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88,8

88 -

3,4

84,2

21 -

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- 3

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1,2

95,3

33B

uild

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22,

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184

- -

22,

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184

3,8

66,7

29 1

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- 5

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16,

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409

18,

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Furn

itur

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d Fi

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79 8

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0,01

2 1

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33 5

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62,8

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ents

877

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170

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211

,379

837

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394

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80,

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90,

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383

,663

453

,506

483

,392

Prof

essi

onal

Equ

ipm

ents

6,6

60,6

88 9

74,9

84 1

,148

,215

6,4

87,4

57 6

,136

,648

871

,716

1,1

02,0

51 5

,906

,313

581

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524

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Elec

tric

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itti

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494

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59,

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157

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395

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215

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25,

296

73,

169

168

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227

,659

278

,564

Veh

icle

s 6

,478

,851

- 7

70,3

47 5

,708

,504

3,0

64,6

82 4

28,8

76 2

15,3

47 3

,278

,211

2,4

30,2

93 3

,414

,169

Plan

t an

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achi

nery

11,

291,

517

- -

11,

291,

517

1,6

93,7

38 1

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- 3

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8,1

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,779

Staf

f Veh

icle

s 2

95,8

98 -

- 2

95,8

98 -

- -

- 2

95,8

98 2

95,8

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Tot

al

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57,

665,

569

3,3

93,9

50 2

,685

,925

58,

373,

594

15,

795,

546

4,7

19,6

44 1

,616

,462

18,

898,

728

39,

474,

866

41,

870,

023

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(in

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Bui

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277

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711

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957

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979

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Equi

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ts 7

65,7

56 5

,500

81,

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690

,206

381

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52,

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38,

741

394

,531

295

,673

384

,660

Prof

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onal

Equ

ipm

ents

8,9

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61 4

34,1

35 2

,319

,097

7,0

65,3

99 8

,054

,018

790

,650

2,3

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,538

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527

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896

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Elec

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504

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7,7

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509

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258

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82,3

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32,6

83 6

84,0

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88 5

67,0

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22,2

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5,52

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767

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193

,518

86,

130

279

,648

488

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528

,682

Tot

al

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53,

365,

807

7,2

17,6

79 2

,500

,502

58,

826,

654

11,

013,

635

1,5

25,4

65 2

,351

,757

10,

187,

340

48,

639,

314

42,

352,

172

(743

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Lan

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270

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594

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- 8

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Fixt

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355

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- 1

36,9

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18,3

47 1

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1,76

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7 1

12,4

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05,8

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91,

630

68,

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352

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Equ

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55,

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963

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581

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37,

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itti

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95,

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869

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130

,424

110

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- 2

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aff V

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184

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184

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- -

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al

V 1

2,06

0,06

3 8

32,9

03 1

,139

,989

11,0

09,3

07 1

,942

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184

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1,0

60,5

09 1

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,654

9,9

42,6

53 1

0,11

7,65

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Tot

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(I+

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V+V

) 1

54,4

07,5

3213

,798

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11,3

62,4

6815

6,84

3,72

245

,683

,881

9,11

5,40

88,

955,

545

45,8

43,7

4111

0,99

9,98

110

8,72

3,65

1(7

43,6

70)

(743

,670

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SCHEDULES TO CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET

(in Rupees)

March 31, 2010 March 31, 2009Schedule 2 : Investments

Ford Foundation Corpus Deposits with :Post Office - KVP Scheme - 14,300,000Housing & Urban Development Corporation Ltd - 5,000,000Housing Development Financial Corporation 7,500,000 7,500,000Govt. of India - RBI bonds 2,430,000 2,430,000Fixed Deposits with Repco Bank 17,500,000 -Fixed Deposits with City Union Bank 5,000,000 -Fixed Deposits with Pandiyan Grama Bank 6,640,066 -Fixed Deposits with Canara Bank 6,950,640 46,020,706 4,281,979

Sir Dorabji Tata Trust Corpus Fund Deposits :Govt. of India RBI bonds 16,373,500 16,373,500Post office - Kisan Vikas Patra Scheme 7,500,000 7,500,000Fixed Deposit with REPCO Bank 8,696,667 -Fixed Deposit with Pandian Gramma Bank 411,000 32,981,167 7,411,000

DHAN own /Tata-Dhan Acadmey /Other Corpus Fund Deposits :

Govt. of India RBI bonds 1,122,500 1,122,500Post office - Kisan Vikas Patra Scheme 1,500,000 1,500,000Fixed Deposit with REPCO Bank 6,791,412 11,584,309Fixed Deposit with Pandian Gramma Bank 14,880,610 7,207,470Fixed Deposit with HDFC Bank 1,550,000 3,050,000Fixed Deposits with ICICI HFC Ltd 450,000 450,000Fixed Deposits with City Union Bank 2,500,000 2,500,000Fixed Deposits with Others - 28,794,522 500,000

Community Risk Reserve & Other Funds with:Fixed Deposits with Pandiyan Grama Bank 5,463,283 5,107,279Fixed Deposits with HDFC 5,260,000 1,660,000Fixed Deposits with State Bank of India 2,100,000 12,823,283 -

Total 120,619,678 99,478,037Schedule 3 : Bank Balances

In Savings accounts 18,161,853 16,551,038In Fixed Deposits 26,164,447 11,492,844Cheques in Transit - 100,000

Total 44,326,300 28,143,882Schedule 4 : Loans and Advances

Advances Recoverable:Project Advances to staff 250,121 239,926Deposits 2,411,948 2,660,057Other Advances Recoverable 7,086,100 8,291,978

Total 9,748,169 11,191,961

Madurai Sd/- Sd/- Sd/-AugJuly 21, 2010 Chairman Executive Director Treasurer


Schedule

5

: C

orpus and C

apit

al Fund

Cor

pus

Fund

Ford

Fou

ndat

ion

33,1

14,7

69-

15,8

24,3

34(2

,922

,621

)46

,016

,482

Sir

Dor

abji

Tata

Tru

st

31,

159,

723

-

3

,032

,757

(1,4

81,9

84)

3

2,71

0,49

6D

HA

N F

ound

atio

n O

wn

1

7,75

2,42

0

21,

146

3,9

86,6

21

(

594,

562)

2

1,16

5,62

5O

ther

Cor

pus

Fund

4,3

50,8

00

1,

000,

000

-

-

5,3

50,8

00Ta

ta D

HA

N A

cade

my

1,7

08,8

49

-

2

91,1

51

-

2,0

00,0

00

Tot

al

88,

086,

561

1,02

1,14

6

23

,134

,863

(4,9

99,1

67)

10

7,24

3,40

3

Cap

ital

Fun

d

14,

205,

261

-

2

,724

,461

1

6,92

9,72

2

TO

TA

L

102

,291

,822

1,02

1,14

6

23

,134

,863

(2,2

74,7

06)

12

4,17

3,12

5

Schedule

6

: S

pecif

ied Fund

Don

ors’

Acc

ount

- N

et

25,

453,

987

1

45,1

03

8

,545

,335

3

4,14

4,42

5Si

r R

atan

Tat

a Tr

ust

(SR

TT) R

evol

ving

Fun

d

376

,000

37

6,00

0O

ther

Rev

olvi

ng fu

nd r

etur

ns

4

,556

,544

8

5,00

0

165

,000

4,8

06,5

44C

omm

unit

y R

isk

Res

erve

Fun

d

3

,940

,212

3,8

88,3

79

-

7,8

28,5

91B

ook

Fund

4

12,4

19

-

41

2,41

9V

ehic

le F

und

88,0

00

1

,008

,300

-

1

,096

,300

TO

TA

L

34,

827,

162

8

5,00

0

5

,206

,782

8,5

45,3

35

-

48,

664,

279

Less

: Don

ors’

acc

ount

net

bal

ance

incl

uded

abo

ve

25,

453,

987

3

4,14

4,42

5

9

,373

,175

1

4,51

9,85

4A

dd: D

onor

s’ a

ccou

nt S

urpl

us b

alan

ces

37,

725,

984

3

7,72

5,98

4

48,6

88,7

64

48,

688,

764

Don

ors’

acc

ount

Def

icit

bal

ance

s

12,

271,

997

14

,544

,339

TO

TA

L

47,

099,

159

6

3,20

8,61

8

Mad

urai

Sd/-

Sd/-

Sd/-

Aug

ust

21, 2

010

Cha

irm

anEx

ecut

ive

Dir

ecto

rTr

easu

rer

Part

icul

ars

Clo

sin

gB

alan

ce a

s on

Mar

31,

201

0

Am

ount

s no

tin

clud

ed in

Inco

me

and

Expe

ndi

ture

acco

untR

ecei

pt/

(Adv

ance

)

Op

enin

gba

lan

ces

as o

nA

pr 1

, 200

9

App

ropr

iati

on f

rom

Inco

me

and

expe

ndi

ture

a/c

Inco

me

Surp

lus

/(E

xpen

ses)

DH

AN

(D

evel

op

men

t o

f H

um

ane

Act

ion

) F

ou

nd

atio

n

SC

HE

DU

LE

S T

O C

ON

SO

LID

AT

ED

BA

LA

NC

E S

HE

ET



SCHEDULES TO CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET

(in Rupees)

March 31, 2010 March 31, 2009

Schedule 7 : Current Liabilities

Payables 1,856,743 1,709,096

Total 1,856,743 1,709,096

SCHEDULES TO CONSOLIDATED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT

(in Rupees)

March 31, 2010 March 31, 2009

Schedule 8 : Grants Received

From Foreign Agencies Oxfam Novib - The Netherlands 85,298,457 108,127,646

Rabobank Foundation, The Netherlands 22,444,671 7,500,560

Donations for Tank renovation works 430,250 2,991,922

Karunai Illam Trust, Newzealand 2,343,559 1,454,728

CAWST (CIDA) Water Expertise Centre, Canada 388,015 1,307,676

Oxfam (America) Trust 1,510,737 5,333,003

New Zealand High Commission, New Delhi 400,000 499,000 HIVOS - The Netherlands 12,222,171 -

International Labour Office - Switzerland 3,747,033 -

Consortium of DEWATS dissemination Society 515,472 -

HOPE international 438,088 -

International Water Management Institute 496,055 -

Canadian Water Works 43,000 -

World Granny 1,719,593 - Population Service International - USA 3,909,000 -

Health Net TPO, Combodia 1,293,139 -

IBEKU, Japan 258,000 Others 956,478 7,968,952

From Indian Agencies

ITC Rural Development Trust 2,437,000 3,200,000

Department of Agriculture NWDPRA - Watershed 200,000 287,932

District Rural Development Agency -Tamil Nadu 339,200 308,680 National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) 1,866,300 983,317

Ministry of Water Resources, Govt. of India 86,831 1,260,000




(in Rupees)

March 31, 2010 March 31, 2009

Donations for Tank renovation works 750,000 550,700

COIR Board, Govt. of India 351,487 465,000

Department of Health, Tamilnadu 2,524,500 1,450,000APCBTMP , Govt. of AP 1,354,159 1,373,879

Hindustan Unilever Limited 6,650,000 8,650,000

Sir Ratan Tata Trust 1,375,000 1,375,000

Care Today Fund 2,590,846 1,454,300

National Agricultural Innovation Project 703,622 931,096

Jala Samvardhane Yojana Sangha - GoK 397,875 1,414,481

Tamil Nadu Vaazhndu Kaatuvom Project - GoTN 1,755,988 -State Planning Commission - GoTN 600,000 -

Directorate of Tourism - GoTN 3,346,916 -

Centre for Environment Education (GEF) 871,127 -

State Bank of India 911,000 -

National Institute of Rural Development 360,000 -

Madurai Symposium - Grants 828,904 -

Madurai Marathon 2009 - Grants 300,000 -Sir Dorabji Tata Trust - 7,506,000

Others 4,367,968 8,585,967

Total 173,382,441

Less: Unspent grant returned-UNDP , New Delhi 690,605

Total 172,691,836 174,979,839

Schedule 9 : Other Receipts

Interest from Banks, etc., 1,926,358 3,309,371

Income from corpus Investment 22,008,712 6,096,230

Interest from Investment of other funds 453,379 595,668

Other Income 2,854,950 2,838,966

Donations 188,359 950,003

Total 27,431,758 13,790,238

Madurai Sd/- Sd/- Sd/-August 21, 2010 Chairman Executive Director Treasurer


Schedule

1

0 : P

rogram

me Im

ple

mentatio

n and A

dm

inis

tratio

n

Post

Tsu

nam

i- R

esto

ring

live

lihoo

ds &

oth

ers

11,

468,

936

Endo

wm

ent

and

othe

r G

rant

s to

Tan

k Fa

rmer

s A

ssoc

iati

ons,

NG

Os,

Pan

chay

ats

etc,

. 5

,516

,000

- -

- -

5,5

16,0

00 4

,573

,190

Orp

hana

ge C

entr

e -

- -

1,0

55,8

07 -

1,0

55,8

07 1

,438

,060

Vol

unte

er A

llow

ance

s an

d Tr

avel

8,4

57,4

76 3

,452

,490

110

,940

3,9

59,5

33 1

27,8

01 1

6,10

8,24

0 1

7,44

0,93

9Tr

aini

ng /

Expe

nses

on

Vol

unte

ers,

G

roup

s,

Mem

bers

& F

eder

atio

ns 9

,514

,725

246

,800

668

,579

2,8

87,4

74 -

13,

317,

578

8,8

77,9

89C

ivic

Pro

gram

mes

- H

ealt

h, E

duca

tion

9,7

03,2

73 -

- 2

,389

,769

- 1

2,09

3,04

2 7

,459

,299

Supp

ort

for

Inco

me

gene

rati

on b

y m

embe

rs 1

,332

,873

1,2

89,5

38 4

9,90

0 4

33,9

60 -

3,1

06,2

71 1

8,15

2,47

0C

rop

Prod

ucti

on &

Wat

er M

anag

emen

t Tr

aini

ng -

349

,210

- 1

,937

,458

- 2

,286

,668

477

,811

Dri

nkin

g W

ater

Pon

ds P

rogr

amm

e -

7,0

39,7

46 2

,048

,907

- -

9,0

88,6

53 5

,959

,158

Con

vent

ion,

Wor

ksho

p, E

vent

s an

d m

eeti

ngs

1,3

15,7

55 1

,229

,951

275

,514

5,3

90,9

32 1

,141

,306

9,3

53,4

58 8

,268

,258

Empl

oyee

s re

mun

erat

ion

and

bene

fits

15,

097,

038

15,

088,

710

3,7

95,5

02 1

8,11

6,45

4 7

,087

,922

59,

185,

626

65,

976,

905

Prof

essi

onal

/ C

onsu

ltan

cy C

harg

es 4

03,0

26 4

90,5

59 1

81,3

57 4

44,7

74 9

63,9

67 2

,483

,683

2,8

73,1

89Tr

avel

/ C

onve

yanc

e 1

,808

,813

2,1

90,9

25 2

87,3

33 1

,261

,881

424

,989

5,9

73,9

41 7

,421

,750

Veh

icle

mai

nten

ance

551

,675

544

,882

395

,736

824

,370

188

,864

2,5

05,5

27 2

,936

,815

Boo

ks a

nd A

udio

Vis

ual E

xpen

ses

66,

279

42,

972

20,

694

23,

404

85,

729

239

,078

375

,958

Prin

ting

and

Sta

tion

ery

392

,527

343

,569

240

,853

340

,488

245

,794

1,5

63,2

31 1

,954

,184

Com

mun

icat

ion

339

,455

403

,026

91,

590

496

,534

419

,347

1,7

49,9

52 2

,168

,021

Ren

t, W

ater

, Ele

ctri

city

and

Mai

nten

ance

1,6

99,7

63 1

,154

,544

333

,988

2,5

67,6

38 7

14,5

49 6

,470

,482

7,8

96,3

29M

isce

llane

ous

Expe

nses

38,

880

22,

837

1,9

59 3

3,79

1 8

,975

106

,442

300

,253

Tot

al56

,237

,558

33,8

89,7

598,

502,

852

42,1

64,2

6711

,409

,243

152,

203,

679

176,

019,

514

Prev

ious

yea

r43

,032

,674

30,3

01,8

95 5

1,71

6,57

038

,538

,638

12,4

29,7

3717

6,01

9,51

4

Mad

urai

Sd/-

Sd/-

Sd/-

Aug

usut

21,

201

0C

hair

man

Exec

utiv

e D

irec

tor

Trea

sure

r

Act

ivit

y /

Expe

ndi

ture

/ I

tem

sM

arch

31,

201

0

Tot

al

Tan

k fe

dA

gric

ultu

rePr

ogra

mm

e

Com

mun

ity

Ban

king

Prog

ram

me

Coa

stal

Agr

icul

ture

Live

lih

ood

prog

ram

me

New

Th

emes

and

Oth

erPr

ogra

mm

es

DH

AN

(D

evel

op

men

t o

f H

um

ane

Act

ion

) F

ou

nd

atio

n

SC

HE

DU

LE

S T

O C

ON

SO

LID

AT

ED

INC

OM

E A

ND

EX

PE

ND

ITU

RE

AC

CO

UN

T(i

n R

upee

s)

Cen

tral

sup

por

tsy

stem

Mar

ch 3

1, 2

009

Tot

al




(in Rupees)

March 31, 2010 March 31, 2009

Schedule 11 : Appropriation of Excess of Income over Expenditure / (Expenditure over income)

Excess of Income over expenditure / (Expenditure over income) 34,612,274 (25,472,054)

Transfer :

From Investment income

Ford Foundation Corpus fund 15,824,334 1,640,055

Sir Dorabji Tata Trust corpus fund 3,032,757 1,320,173

DHAN Foundation own Corpus fund 2,986,621 2,971,002

Tata Dhan Academy Corpus fund 165,000 165,000

Revolving fund 165,000 330,364

Community Risk Reserve Fund 288,379 265,304

Community Risk Reserve Fund from Grant Income 3,600,000

Vehicle Fund 1,008,300 76,000

SRTT from Interest on Building fund 145,103 399,897

DHAN Corpus from TMS Receipts and other income 1,000,000 1,000,000

Tata Dhan Academy Corpus fund from other income 126,151 -

Book Fund - 51,996

Of Expenses to Corpus funds

DHAN Foundation Own (594,562) (247,937)

Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (1,481,984) (1,447,055)

Ford Foundation (2,922,621) (1,867,886)

SRTT Expendable Field Campus - (87,117)

Vehicle Fund - (561,890)

Of Surplus / (Deficit)

Capital Fund Surplus / (Deficit) 2,724,461 (96,940)

Other Donors' - Net Surplus / (Deficit) 8,545,335 (29,383,020)

Total 34,612,274 (25,472,054)




Schedules to Balance sheet & Income and Expenditure account -Consolidated - for the year ended March 31, 2010

Schedule 12 : Notes on accounts

1. The guiding principles that are fundamental to the Trust are:

1.1 High quality human resources will be engaged in grassroots work. The focus of the work will be onenabling rather than delivering through direct action.

1.2 Value collaboration with mainstream institutions and government to demonstrate new and effectiveways of development intervention and to build viable linkages between people and mainstream.

1.3 Promoting people's organisations at various levels, with focus on one particular theme forsustainability.

1.4 The strategy for growth is towards enriching the themes and retain subsectoral focus.

2. In pursuance of its objects and based on the guiding principles set out in para 1 above the Trust:

2.1 undertakes projects and facilitates government and private local institution sponsored projects forpromotion, renovation and maintenance of irrigation systems, and of natural resources, by landtreatment, watershed management, afforestation, waste land development and management andalso housing/housing finance for the needy.

2.2 promotes women's mutual credit and savings groups, associations of such groups and federations ofsuch associations to enhance the savings and borrowing power of the poor to promote incomegeneration activities for their livelihood.

2.3 works with the poor through locally active groups, informal and otherwise, in the accomplishment ofits objectives.

2.4 provides technical and management assistance to similar voluntary agencies, institutions,government departments and funding agencies involved in developmental work in India. Thereimbursement of cost/services are accounted under the head Techno Managerial service receipts &other receipts.

3. In the course of implementing the development projects the Trust facilitates the mobilisation ofsubstantial resources from various rural development schemes of the government and banks and throughparticipants' own contribution, which are directly channeled to the participants. These have no monetaryimpact on the accounts of the Trust. This is in keeping with the Trust's policy of progressivelystrengthening the capability of the weaker sections to deal effectively with development agencies and tomanage development activities themselves. The administrative overheads incurred on account of thetechnical/managerial support extended are charged as expenditure of the Trust.

4. In the case of informal savings and credit groups and other income generation activities flowingtherefrom, the Trust provides inter alia revolving fund grants & working capital loans, as per themandate of the donors to the beneficiaries and the same are separately accounted for through theBalance Sheet, held in Trust and administered. All other grants (except corpus grants), including capitalgrants, are taken as revenue receipts of the Trust in the year of receipt.

5. The Trust follows cash basis of accounting.

6. Fixed assets are written off in the year of acquisition as expenditure in the income and expenditureaccount.

However to present a more realistic picture of the value of assets appearing in the balance sheet,depreciation at the rates provided in the Income Tax Act, 1961 is being reduced from the cost of the fixed


assets on the written down value method. Written down value of assets so arrived at is shown as contraon both the assets & liabilities side of the Balance sheet.

No depreciation has however been provided on staff vehicles as they are deleted when transferred to theemployees at cost on their repayment of the loan taken to acquire the vehicle.

7. Fixed Assets include ̀ 30,46,703/- consisting of Motor vehicle `1,78,008/-, Furniture and Fixtures`1,31,888/- Office equipments `96,751/- Electrical fittings `11,538/- Professional equipments `80,218/-Plant and Machinery ̀ 13,23,300 and Land & Building `12,25,000/- being assets acquired out of grantsreceived from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), for a programme titled 'Promotion ofalternative livelihoods for the poor in the biosphere of Gulf of Mannar' through the Ministry of RuralDevelopment, Government of India (executing agency) and the M.S. Swamninathan Research Foundation,Chennai (implementing agency). These assets remain the property of UNDP and disposal /transfer was totake place at the end of the project. The project has ended and in the absence of any specific instructionsfrom UNDP the assets are still held by DHAN Foundation. Depreciation has been provided as explainedin paragraph 6 above on these assets also.

8. Fixed deposits of ̀ 1,36,830/- (Previous year `1,36,830) are under lien with Banks as 100% margin for thebank guarantees issued by them in favour of CAPART and Government of India.

9. Previous year's figures have been regrouped / reclassified wherever necessary.



…Working in partnership towards a common goal generates new learning and solutions. Wecherish collaboration as our core value because the collaborative process enables DHAN and ourpartners to combine our complementary knowledge, skills, and resources, making it possible for usto accomplish much more than we can on our own. The development of a partnership is acontinuous process which demands active input from both sides. An effective partnership providesa greater chance of continuity, consistency and sustainability for development.

We are deeply indebted to the contributions and continued support rendered by our institutional partners,collaborators, resource institutions, philanthropists and well-wishers in the progress and achievements of theDHAN Collective.

Our Institutional Partners

Oxfam Novib, the Netherlands (Oxfam India)Sir Ratan Tata Trust, MumbaiSir Dorabji Tata Trust, MumbaiHivos, the Netherlands

Our Overseas Partners

American Service to India - Rural Learning Journey India Participants, USAAnand Charity, USACanadian International Development Agency (CIDA)CARITAS, SwitzerlandEureka Achmea Foundation, The NetherlandsEuropean UnionFonds Familie van Beek, The NetherlandsHuguenin Ralapalli Foundation, USAKarunai Illam Trust, New ZealandKlein Hofwijck Foundation, The NetherlandsMicro Insurance Association Network, The NetherlandsNew Zealand High CommissionOxfam AmericaRabobank Centraal Twente, The NetherlandsRabobank Hage-Beek, The NetherlandsRabobank Maas en Waal, The NetherlandsRabobank West-Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, The NetherlandsRabobank Zuidwest-Drenthe, The NetherlandsStichting Vrienden van DHAN , The NetherlandsWestberg Foundation, The NetherlandsZLM Verzekeringen, The Netherlands

Acknowledgement


Our Water Partners

Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST), CanadaInternational Water Management Institute – RUAF FoundationNational Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development

National Agricultural Innovation Project–ICARPanIIT Alumni IndiaWater4life Foundation, The Netherlands

Our CSR Partners

ABN AMRO FoundationArghyam Foundation, BangaloreBharat Sanchar Nigam Limited

Bharat Petroleum Corporation LimitedCare Today FundHindustan Unilever LimitedHitech Arai Limited, Madurai

ITC Rural Development TrustMicro labs, ChennaiRabobank Foundation, the Netherlands

State Government

Andhra Pradesh Community Based Tank Management ProjectDepartment of Agriculture, Tamil Nadu and KarnatakaDepartment of Tourism, Tamil Nadu

Directorate of Rural Development, Tamil NaduDistrict Rural Development Agency, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil NaduHealth and Family Welfare Department, Tamil Nadu

Integrated Tribal Development AgencyJala Samvardhane Yojana Sangha (JSYS), Government of KarnatakaMadurai Corporation

MAVIM-Maharashtra Women’s Economic Development CorporationNational Watershed Development Programme for Rainfed AreasState Health Society, Tamil NaduTamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society

Government of India

Central Water CommissionCoir BoardCouncil for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART)

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM)Ministry of TourismMinistry of Urban Development

Ministry of Water Resources


United Nations Agencies / Projects

Food and Agriculture OrganisationUNDP–Global Environment Facility (GEF)UNDP–Tsunami Emergency Assistance Project (TEAP)

Commercial Banks

Andhra BankBank of BarodaBank of IndiaCanara BankCentral Bank of IndiaCorporation BankICICI BankIndian BankIndian Overseas BankKarnataka BankPunjab National BankState Bank of HyderabadState Bank of IndiaState Bank of MysoreUCO BankUnion Bank of IndiaUnited Commercial BankVijaya Bank

Regional Rural Banks

Andhra Pradesh Grameena Vikas BankBangalore Rural Dstrict Central Cooperative BankKalapatharu Grameena BankNagarjuna Grameena BankPandiyan Grama BankSri Saraswathi Grameena BankSri Venkateswara Grameena BankSri Visakha Grameena BankThanjavur Central Coorperative BankDeccan Gramina BankSaptagiri Gramina Bank

Apex Banks

ABN AMRO BankHDFC LimitedNational Bank for Agriculture and Rural DevelopmentRabo India Finance (P) LimitedSmall Industries Development Bank of India


Insurance Companies

Agriculture Insurance CompanyBirla Sun LifeHDFC Standard Life InsuranceICICI LombardLife Insurance Corporation of IndiaMetlife India InsuranceNational Insurance CompanyNew India Assuarnce Co. LimitedOriental Insurance CompanyStar Health and Allied Insurance CompanyUnited India Insurance

Academic and Research Institutes

Anna UniversityCentral Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI)Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)Indira Gandhi National Open UniversityIrrigation Management Training Institute (IMTI), TrichyKerala Institute of Local AdministrationNational Institute of Rural DevelopmentNational Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA)Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth DevelopmentTamil Nadu Agricultural University

Above all, we acknowledge with high gratitude, the contributions by the communities withwhom we are working, for their commitment, ownership and responsibility in the collectiveefforts for achieving the mission of poverty reduction


Mr. B.T. Bangera, Chairperson, DHAN Foundation is an MBA from Indian Instituteof Management, Ahmedabad. He is currently the Managing Director of M/s Hi-TechArai Limited., an Indo-Japanese joint venture at Madurai. He has over 30 years ofexperience, holding senior management positions in reputed companies in India. He hasbeen an office-bearer in the Management Associations and Confederation of IndianIndustries (CII) at different levels. He is keenly interested in education and is a memberon the Board of Governors and Board of Studies of a number of management andengineering institutions

Mr. B.T. Bangera

Ms. K. Noorjehan, Vice Chairperson, DHAN Foundation is currently anAdministrative member of Central Administrative Tribunal, Ernakulam Bench. She wasthe Chief Post Master General, Haryana Postal Circle and later became Chief PrincipalPost Master General of Maharasthra circle. She was subsequently promoted to thegrade of Member, Postal Services Board. She has over 30 years of experience indifferent parts of the country. She was instrumental in computerising postal operationsin the southern region, and in creating own infrastructure for several post offices. Sheis interested in women development, especially the poor and the disadvantaged.

Ms. K. Noorjehan

Mr. R.D. Thulsiraj, Treasurer, DHAN Foundation is an MBA from Indian Institute ofManagement, Calcutta, is the Executive Director of LAICO-Aravind Eye Care System.For almost 20 years he had been the Administrator of Aravind Eye Hospitals. He wasalso the South-East Asia Regional Chair for the International Agency for the Preventionof Blindness (IAPB). He worked with the board of Seva Foundation (an US-based NGO)for more than 15 years. He has a number of published papers to his credit, and haspresented papers at international conferences on eye care.

Mr. R.D. Thulsiraj

Dr. Nirmala Murthy is currently the President for the Foundation for Research inHealth Systems. She holds a Doctorate from the Harvard School of Public Health. Shehas over three decades of rich experience in public health, involving monitoring andevaluation, research, and health information systems. She has taught at the IndianInstitute of Management, Ahmedabad. She has worked at Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology (MIT), Massachusetts and Management Sciences for Health, Boston. Shehas been a consultant for various national and international health-related programmesof the Government of India and the World Bank. She has a number of papers andpublications related to health, health policies, programmes and research to her credit.

Dr. Nirmala Murthy

Dr. Priscilla Daniel holds two Master's degrees and a Ph. D. in Social Marketing ofHealth Education. She was formerly the Programme Executive in ECLOF International.She appraises large loan proposals, trains the staff and Boards of NECs. She worked asan educationist for more than 20 years and was the Founder-President of two NGOs(SUEB - Society for the Upliftment of the Economically Backward and SIRPI - SocialInitiative for Rural Peoples' Integration) and a Board member of ECLOF, India. Nowshe is in the Board of Management of Friends of India at Geneva, Switzerland. She wasawarded the Ashoka Fellowship for Public Innovators in 1991 for her contribution inthe field of development.

Dr. Priscilla Daniel

Board of Trustees


Dr. V. Abhai Kumar holds Engineering Master's degree in Communication Systems.He received his Ph.D Degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Currently,he is Principal of Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai. He is a senior memberof IEEE. He has authored and co-authored a number of technical papers in reputedjournals and presented papers at international and national conferences. He has morethan two decades of research and teaching experience in microwaves, remotesensing, digital signal processing and image processing. His research interests includearray signal processing and smart antennas.

Dr. V. Abhai Kumar

Mr. M. Balachandran is a post graduate in Agricultural Science and a CertifiedAssociate of Indian Institute of Bankers. He is currently the Director of Institute ofBanking Personnel Selection. He is also serving as the Chairman of Star Union Dai-Ichi Life Insurance Corporation Limited. Recently he has been nominated as amember of the High Power Advisory Committee of SEBI, on consent orders and alsoas a Director of SIDBI. He is a member in the Research and Development AdvisoryCommittee of the National Housing Bank and the Oversight Committee of IndiaInfrastructural Finance Corporation Limited (IIFCL). During the span of his 37 yearsof operational banking, he has held positions at various capacities and coveredPriority Sector, Corporate Credit and International Banking.

Mr. M. Balachandran

Ms. N. Shanthi Maduresan is a post graduate in Rural Economics and ExtensionEducation. She has more than 20 years of experience in Microfinance. She wasinstrumental in promoting Federations of Kalanjiam women SHGs in Ramnad andTuticorin districts of Tamil Nadu. She is currently working as a Faculty in Tata-DhanAcademy, teaching Participatory Learning Methods (PALM), Building People'sOrganisations (BUD) courses. She is also serving as Chief Executive of IndianNetwork of Federations of Microfinance Self Help Groups (INFOS). Her areas ofinterest are building community-based institutions and capacity building fordevelopment.

Ms. N. Shanthi

Maduresan

Mr. M.P. Vasimalai, Executive Director of DHAN Foundation is a post graduate inAgriculture and a management graduate from the IIM, Ahmedabad. He has overthree decades of experience in development work and one of the key people in settingup PRADAN. He was instrumental in setting up DHAN Foundation in 1997. Hespecialises in community organisation, designing development interventions in thefields of natural resource management, livelihood promotion and institutionaldevelopment. He holds various positions in national and international forums,working groups, task forces and missions of Central and State governments. Hisareas of interest are institution building, leadership development and promotingvarious development themes for poverty reduction.

Mr. M.P.Vasimalai

Mr. C. Sudhakar is a post graduate in Commerce and ICWA of India. He is presentlyleading the Center for Finance in DHAN Foundation. He has about fifteen years ofexperience in the development sector. He handled management accounting andfinancial management courses for the Tata-Dhan Academy. He anchored trainingprogrammes for NGOs on Financial Management and on legal aspects. He is currentlyinvolved in setting up systems for financial accounting and monitoring in the peopleorganisations promoted by DHAN Foundation. His areas of interest are buildingcapacities of the community-based institutions in financial management anddeveloping systems for monitoring and transparency in such institutions.

Mr. C. Sudhakar


Programme Offices

Central OfficeDHAN Foundation18, Pillaiyar Koil Street,S.S Colony, Madurai-625 016Tel: +91-452-2610794, 2610805Fax: +91-452-2602247Email: [email protected]:http://www.dhan.org

Kalanjiam FoundationN0-7, Valmigi Street,S.S.Colony, Madurai-625016Tel: +91-452-2604256, 2608949Email: [email protected]

DHAN Vayalagam (Tank)FoundationNo-17, Vellai Pillaiyar Koil Street,Madurai-625016Tel: +91-452-2601673/2601683Email: [email protected]

Tata-Dhan AcademyNew CampusT.Malaipatti, ThenkaraiMullipalllam Post,Vadipatti Taluk, Madurai-627 207Tel: +91-4543-293405Email: [email protected]

Center for DevelopmentCommunicationDHAN Foundation7E, Valmigi Street,S.S.Colony,Madurai-625 016Tel: +91-452-4353983Email: [email protected]

ICT for poor ProgrammeNo: 34/22,Pillaiyar Koil Street,Madurai-625 016Email: [email protected]

People Academy & INFOSPulloothu.Ellis Nagar Via,Madurai-625 016Tel: +91-452-2475416/2475305Email: [email protected]

DHAN Livelihood Initiativewith Functional Education(LIFE)No: - 55, Kennett Road,Ellis NagarMadurai-625016Tel: +91-452-2300084Email: [email protected]

DHAN People Mutuals &ASKMINo-22, Pillaiyar Koil Street,S.S ColonyMadurai-625 016Tel: +91-452-2301510Email: [email protected]

Kalanjium Thozhilagam Limited(KTL)52, La selle Towers,II Floor, T.B.Road,Opp. ESI Hospital,MahaboopalayamMadurai-625 016Tel: +91-452-2301112/4358001Email: [email protected]

Kalanjiam Development FiancialServices21, Pillayar Kovil Street,S.S. Colony, Madurai-625 016,Tel: +91-452-2301102/6505978Email: [email protected]

INAFI - INDIANew No 65, Ist Floor,Harvey Nagar III StMadurai-16.(Near Raj Scans)Tel: +91-452-2300490/4358490Email: [email protected]

Center for Policy and PlanningDHAN Foundation23, West Park Road, I Floor,Shenoy Nagar, Chennai-600 030.Tel: +91-452-26280236/26265189Email: [email protected]

REGIONAL OFFICES

Tamil Nadu

Madurai Urban/Rural Region52, Kathanampillai StreetJawahar Main RoadS.S.Colony, Madurai-625016Tel: +91-452-2300569Email: [email protected]

Madurai Vayalagam RegionDHAN Foundation667/B7, Mohan earth movercomplexII Floor,Opp to PKN boys School,ThirumangalamMadurai DistrictTel: +91-452-281053

DHAN Foundation - Addressess


Dindigul RegionDHAN Foundtion,No.1, Vakkil Thottam, NearDoctors Colony, Sanarpatti.Dindigul-624 001Tel: +95-451-3296667

Theni RegionDHAN Foundation34,Sowdeswari Nagar, 1st FloorNear PC Patti Police Station,Theni-625 531Tel: +91-4546-324449

Ramanathapuram CoastalRegionDHAN Foundation(Regional Office)1/372 I street, Nehru Nagar,Collectrate Post, Ramnad-623 501Tel: +91-4567-231676

Kamudhi Kalanjia MahalirVattara sangamMudhukulathur Raod,Kalanjia Nagar,Kottaimedu, KamudhiRamnad District

Ramanathapuram VayalagaRegionDHAN FoundationSanthananivas illam,Kamudhi Road,MuthukulathurRamnad DistrictTel: +91-4576-320052

Thanjavur RegionDHAN Foundation43 / 3045, SK Illam,VOC Nagar II Street,Near senthil Kalyana Mandapam,Thanjavur-613 007Tel: +91-4362-270353

Salem RegionDHAN Foundation40/423 Chinnappa Chetty Colony,Mullai Nagar,

SuramangalamSalem-636 005Tel: +91-427-2442740

Kancheepuram Region

Thiruvalangadu VattaraKalanjiam

Old No-B18, New No-8,Alagesan Nagar,Chengalpat–603001Tel: +91-44-27429480

Cuddalore Region

DHAN Foundation

49, Dowlath Nagar,Opp. KNC CollegeSemmandalamCuddaloreTel: +91-4142-292234

Karaikal Region

DHAN Foundation4,Ist Street, Balaji Nagar,Near CRC Bus ShedKaraikal-609 602

Tel: +91-4368-320215

Nagapattinam RegionDHAN FoundationNo 6, Anthoniar kovil melsanthuNagapattinam

Tel: +91-4365 – 240045

Vellore RegionDHAN FoundationNo 73, I floor, Broad Bazaar,Ambur-635802

Vellore DistrictTel: +91-4365-240045

Tuticorin Coastal RegionDHAN Foundation2/603A, New sundaram Nagar,

Madhanvan Nagar (W)SorispuramKorampallam

Tuticorin-628 101.Tel: +91- 461-2341246

Thiruvalangadu Vattara

Kalanjiam3/442, Bazar Street,Kanakammachatram Post-631204Thiruvallur District

Tel: +91-44-27874368

Tuticorin Coastal RegionDHAN Foundation

45,Keelakottai vassal Street,Sri Vaikundam-628601Tuticorin District

Tel: +91-4630-256980

Kanchipuram Vayalagam RegionDHAN FoundationNew No 377/1,

Old No 188/1 3rd Street,New ColonyVallam Post

Chengalpattu-630 002Kanchipuram DistrictTel: +91-44-27429480/37403952

Pondicherry

Puducherry Magalir Vattaram45, 4th cross street,Moogambigai Nagar

II nd main RoadNainar MandapamPondicherry

Tel: +91-413-6538865


ANDHRA PRADESH

Sri Indrayee Mahila KalanjiaSamakya (Regional Office)Beside Andhra Bank,Main road,Indervelly-504 346,Adilabad DistrictTel: +91-8731-277501

Hyderabad RegionDHAN FoundationH.No:1-8-522/7,SISS Building 1st Floor,

T.V.Meekshamma MemorialBhavan,Chikkadapally,Hyderabad–500 020.Tel: +91-40-65169017Email: [email protected]@dhan.org

Chittoor RegionDHAN Foundation4-422, CB Road,Opp., to SBI,Greamspet,Chittoor-517002Tel: +91-8572-651767

Vizag RegionDHAN FoundationD.No.9-36-10, Besides ICDSProject II, Pithapuram Colony,Maffilapalem,Vishakapatnam-530 003Tel: +91- 891-6578990

KARNATAKA

DHAN Foundation17, Sri Lakshmi VenkateshwaraNilaya, Sri Renganath BadavaneHarohalli, Bengaluru Rural DtKarnatakaTel: +91-98805 34410

MADHYA PRADESH

SAILANADHAN FoundationH.N - 198

Beside Joshi Medical Store

Infront of Jain TempleSadar BajarMain Road, Sailana.Ratlam District-457 550Tel: +91-7413-279025

ORISSA

DHAN FoundationSri Sita Rama Niwas, I Floor,Opp To Pragadi English School,Hospital Road, Pujariput,Koraput, OrissaTel: +91-6852-252916

RAJASTHAN & MAHARASHTRA

DHAN FoundationBlock No 9, 3rd FloorNear Kothadiya Hospital,Siddheshwer Peth,Solapur-413004, Maharashtra.Tel: +91-217-6450203

ASSAM

DHAN FoundationProfessor colonyNear Barama BazarBarama 781346District Baksa (Assam)Pin-781346Barama (BTAD), AssamTel: +91-3624 282440

JHARKHAND

DHAN Foundation,House No. 122,Ward No.6,Chatnahi (on Bye Pass Road),Latehar–829206Tel: +91-6565 248423

BIHAR

DHAN FoundationC/O Anand Prasad SinghWest Church RoadOpp. Khalish ParkGayawal BighaGaya District- 823001Tel: +91-6565 248423

Districts covered by

programmes of DHAN Foundation

(March 2010)

Tamil Nadu Kerala Orissa

Andhra Pradesh

Maharashtra

Madhya Pradesh

KarnatakaRajasthan

Jharkand

Bihar

Assam

Pondicherry

1. Madurai 23. Idukki 41. Koraput2. Sivagangai 42. Mayurbhanj3. Ramnad 43. Dhenkanal

24.Chittoor4. Tuticorin

25. Nalgonda5. Tirunelveli

26. Rangareddy 44. Beed6. Theni

27. Adilabad 45. Solapur7. Virudhunagar

28. Vizag 46. Osmanabad8. Dindigul

29. Nellore9. Pudukottai

30. Warangal10. Thanjavur 47. Ratlam11. Tiruppur12. Namakkal 31. Bangalore urban

48. Banswara13. Salem 32. Kolar14. Villupuram 33. Tumkur15. Kanchipuram 34. Mandya 49. Latehar16. Vellore 35. Mysore17. Thiruvallur 36. Gulburga

50. Gaya18. Cuddalore 37. Belgaum19. Nagapattinam 38. Chamarajanagar20. Thiruvannamalai 39. Ramanagara / 51. Nalbari

Bangalore Rural40. Yadgir

21. Puducherry22. Karaikal

Illuminating lives…he Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that every nation has committed to achieve by 2015 call for Tpartnership and sharing responsibility among all the stakeholders including governments, donors, NGOs, civil

societies and corporate to share knowledge, resources, expertise, explore joint ventures and develop solutions. To join this global commitment, DHAN Foundation and the localised institutions of poor communities built by it, rededicate to localize the MDGs and achieve them in partnership with like minded institutions.

The main goal of the MDGs is the Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. The revelations of Thirukkural on poverty and suffering of poor are relevant even today. The following couplets depict the plight of poor.

What is more painful than poverty? The pain of poverty itself! (Kural: 1041)

The demon of poverty takes away The joys of this life and the next. (Kural: 1042)

A poor man's words carry no weight, However meaningful and profound. (Kural: 1046)

One may sleep even in the midst of fire, But by no means in the midst of poverty. (Kural: 1049)

That misery called poverty brings with itA diversity of sufferings. (Kural: 1045)

Thiruvalluvar does not stop with portraying only the issues of poverty, he calls for humane response from the fellow human beings. The following couplets enlighten us on what is to be done to alleviate poverty and hunger.

To give the poor is charity The rest is loan and vanity. (Kural: 221)

All the wealth that toils give Is meant to serve those who deserve. (Kural: 212)

Duty demands nothing in turn; How can the world recompense rain? (Kural: 211)

The wealth of a wise philanthropist Is a village pool ever full. (Kural: 215)

Those known for their duty will not slacken to helpEven during times of poverty. (Kural: 218)

Strong is the strength of enduring hunger,But stronger still is the strength of relieving it. (Kural: 225)

Brevity is the soul of wit. Thirukkural is brief and to the point. Though written 2000 years ago, the views expressed in the couplets by Thiruvalluvar, a Tamil sage poet are still relevant today. There is hardly any subject, be it Virtue, Wealth or Love, which Thiruvalluvar has left untouched. He has condensed a world of thoughts in each of the 1330 couplets. The wisdom of the Thirukkural's is universal and it has been translated in over 60 languages of the world.

The picture on the opposite page signifies the role of every person, either rich or poor in relieving the hunger and poverty of fellow human beings.

DHAN Foundation (Development of Humane Action)18, Pillaiyar Koil Street, S.S. Colony, Madurai - 625 016. Tamil Nadu. INDIA.Tel: +91-452-2610794, 2610805 Fax: +91-452-2602247Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.dhan.org

DHAN Foundation · 2020. 1. 13. · 5 Abbreviations & Acronyms 7 Introduction to DHAN Foundation 9...

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Transcript of DHAN Foundation · 2020. 1. 13. · 5 Abbreviations & Acronyms 7 Introduction to DHAN Foundation 9...