Over the last two decades, Samaj PragatiSahayog (SPS) has grown to be one of India’slargest grass-roots initiatives for water andlivelihood security, working with its partnerson a million acres of land across 72 of India’smost backward districts, mainly in the centralIndian Adivasi belt. We take inspiration fromthe life and work of Baba Amte (our PramukhSahayogi) who rejected charity and successfullyempowered even the most challenged. SPS isheadquartered in a drought-prone, tribal areain the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh, whichtypifies the most difficult problems of thecountry. We concentrate all our directinterventions in about 220 villages and townsof this area. This work is not so much a modelas a living laboratory of learning for others toadapt to their own areas. To facilitate this mutual learning, in 1998 we setup the Baba Amte Centre for People’s Empowerment in tribal villageNeemkheda, where our watershed work began in the early 1990s.

SPS believes that location-specific watershed development combinedwith low-cost, low-risk agriculture, other nature-based livelihoods andwomen-led microfinance, can dramatically raise rural incomes, providingan enduring panacea to India’s suicide-ridden drylands. This approacharrests distress migration towards the metros and liberates the rural poorfrom the clutches of usurious moneylender-traders. Our central mandateis the empowerment of India’s most disadvantaged people – women,Adivasis, Dalits and the poor, which we believe contributes tostrengthening our fragile democracy at the grass-roots.

SAMAJ

PRAGATI

SAHAYOG

WATERSHED DEVELOPMENT

SPS has taken up 45,000acres for directimplementation ofwatershed programmesspread over 34 villages,spending Rs. 60 million.This has generated nearlya million person-days ofemployment. The totalstorage capacity of thewater harvestingstructures created by SPSis over 1 million cubic

metres. This has had the primary impact of ensuring drinking watersecurity to all households in these villages. Rabi irrigation has shown arise of 300% and the overall irrigation ratio has more than doubled. Asignificant impact of the work has been drought-proofing of the kharifcrop. As in any typical dryland region, rainfall in our area is low, highlyerratic and characterized by long dry spells between rainy days. Waterharvesting structures help farmers tide over this crisis by providing crucial“life-saving” protective irrigation. We see the watershed programme ascrucial public investment to incentivise private investments by even thepoorest farmers on their own lands.

The value of agricultural output has gone up mainly due to expansionin irrigated area and higher per hectare yields. The yield of kharif (mostlyrainfed) crops has shown a rise in the range of 10-20% and that of rabi(mostly irrigated) crops has shown a rise of 50-60%. Overall, the value ofproduction of kharif and rabi crops together has gone up in the range of

80-160%. The Benefit-CostRatio ranges from 1.49 to1.96 and Internal Rate ofReturn on investmentsfrom 30% to 49%. An 80%reduction in externalmigration has been observedduring the years of ongoingwatershed implementation.With significant expansionin irrigated area and crop

productivity, high labourabsorption in agriculture isvisible even after thewatershed programmecloses. It is this “sedimentedemployment” whichreduces external migrationfrom the area in the long run.Hundreds of tribal farmerswho have grown a singlerainfed crop all their livesare now cultivating 2-3

crops. Many have returned home afteryears to reclaim land they had virtuallygiven up for good.

Our work has broken withconventional wisdom by recognisingthat watershed development is not justabout harvesting rainwater; it is alsoabout sharing it equitably and managingit collectively. Whenever our dams arebuilt, written agreements are forgedabout water sharing, hours of pumping,sequence of irrigation, croppingpatterns and watering intensities. Inmany cases, all households irrespectiveof their size of land holding are entitledto an equal share of the water. Ouremphasis on equity and transparencyhas often met with severeresistance from vestedinterests. Our response hasbeen non-violent, collectivesatyagraha, always aimed atbuilding common groundwith those opposed to us.

SPS Core Team membersRangu Rao, MurlidharKharadia and Milind Panditlead the watershed team.

SHG-BANK LINKAGE

We believe that the fullpotential of our watershed workcan only be realised if it issupplemented by a microfinanceprogramme. This is essential if weare to ensure long-term livelihoodsecurity to the poor. We are alsoconvinced that no microfinanceprogramme can be successfuluntil it is tied up with livelihoodprogrammes such as agriculture,dairying, marketing etc. Thus,

microfinance and livelihood programmes are complementary to each otherand their simultaneous implementation is the key to poverty alleviation.Incomes raised through livelihood initiatives need to be saved. Of thesewomen are the best custodians. These savings must be reinvested inlivelihood options that in turn raise incomes, setting up a virtuous cycle.

Our microfinance programme isbased on the Self Help Group-BankLinkage (SBL) model. Over the lastfour years, we have formed about 900women’s Self-Help Groups (SHGs)with around 14,000 members. Mostmembers of these SHGs belong tomarginalised sections, such as the poor,Adivasis, Dalits, landless and displacedpeople. Our SHGs offer theirmembers a range of financial products including interest on savings,recurring deposits, fixed deposits, loans against fixed deposits, loans forgenuine needs and emergencies (the veracity of each of which is judged by

the members themselves), loansfor cattle and well construction,cattle insurance, life insuranceetc. So far SPS SHGs have saveda total of Rs. 20 million andprovided loans worth Rs.100million to their members.Individual loans range from Rs.3,000 to Rs. 30,000.

But the central goal of our SBL model goesbeyond finance. It is the empowerment of thesedisadvantaged women who learn to run theirown series of nested institutions – SHGs,Cluster Development Associations (of 15-20SHGs) and Federations (of around 200 SHGs).

The persistence of endemic poverty andhunger six decades after independence pointsto the glaring lack of good governance in ruralareas. It is our vision that Federations of thesewomen’s SHGs will emerge as a key buildingblock for effective empowerment of the poorin the tribal drylands of India, giving theseregions the necessary voice in the development process. The members ofthese Federations will also be able to provide effective and capableleadership to Panchayat Raj Institutions, which we see as the centerpieceof governance in rural India. The unique strength of our SHG programmeis financial and procedural discipline and transparency. It is mandatoryfor each group to go through an external audit every year, conducted byreputed chartered accountants. Thus, running SHGs is a great learningexperience and allows these women a space to become powerful articulatorsof their perceptions and interests. They carry forward this strength intothe panchayat arena.

In this extremely important task of nation building through people’sempowerment, public sector banks have a critical role to play. India hasthe largest banking network in the world. SHG Federations and banks inremote rural areas are complementary entities, whose existence dependson each other. Today, when the very existence of some of these publicsector banks is under threat, Federations of SHGs can be a massive supportto them. The credit extended by banks to SHGs is their lifeline. Therepayment rate of SHGs isunprecedented. Therefore, ifpublic sector banks becomepartners of Federations on alarge scale, the financialsituation of banks can alsoimprove.

SPS Core Team membersRangu Rao and AnimeshMondal lead the SHG team.

SUSTAINBALE LIVELIHOODS

Based on the building blocks of watershed and microfinance, we aredeveloping a series of sustainable livelihoods for the poor.

Dryland AgricultureWe have worked out a package of agricultural practices

finely tuned to the resource endowments of the watershed,which is accessible to the poor (low-cost) and sustainable(low-risk). We have experimented with 36 improved varietiesbased on indigenous seeds of 9 crops — sorghum, maize,pigeonpea, cotton, soyabean, gram, pearl millet, groundnutand wheat — which give good yields even with low externalinputs. These varieties have been developed from the localgermplasm by scientists working on-location across India’sdrylands and are, therefore, well adapted to this challengingenvironment. Of these we have shortlisted 15 varieties of sorghum, maize,pigeon pea, cotton, soyabean, gram and wheat. Under our agriculturalextension programme we encourage a few carefully selected farmers toset up seed production plots of some of these varieties. SPS buys backseeds from these farmers and then distributes them to farmers in the area.With an increasing number of these farmers the SPS team is encouragingthe adoption of No Pesticide Management (NPM) agriculture.

Along with 7 other partner NGOs, in2008, we initiated an All-India Consortiumon NPM Agriculture. The NPM idea cameup as a response to the difficulties faced inOrganic Certification, which is bothexpensive and inaccessible to small farmers.The idea of the NPM movement is toencourage farmers to grow crops withoutany chemical pesticides, create an identity

for their produce and link these small producers to markets. The need touse small doses of chemical fertilizers arises on account of the poor soilhealth in these areas. Unless soil health is built up over time, a move tofull organic agriculture will be impossible. Hence, NPM agriculture stressesbuilding up soil fertility through appropriate management practices (suchas composting and recycling of agricultural residues, use of farm yardmanure, green manuring crops and bio-pesticides) with a gradual phasingout of chemical fertilizers.

SPS Core Team members Dr. Debashis Banerji and P.S. Vijay Shankarguide the agriculture programme.

Crop Aggregation and MarketingTo make farming viable in

India, we need to ensureremunerative prices for small andmarginal farmers who sell offmost of their produce in localmarkets at very low pricesimmediately after the harvest.Through our SHGs, over thelast 2 years, we have facilitated aninitiative to help farmers aggregatetheir produce and collectively sellin bigger markets at a time whenthey can get a better price. A striking feature of this initiative is that fundshave been almost entirely mobilised by the SHGs from mainstream bankson the strength of their own corpus. This is an initiative by the peoplebased on their own institutions and capital. This has a significant impacton the empowerment of women, who play a crucial role in the wholeaggregation process, be it in fixing the price, ascertaining quality or inmaking payments through banks. The programme has extended to pigeonpea, soyabean, gram and wheat growers.

SPS Core Team member Rangu Rao directs the crop aggregation andmarketing programme

Livestock SupportOver the last two years, we have

started a livestock supportprogramme for small and marginalfarmers. While people have largestocks of cattle in our area, milk yieldshave been poor due to lack of health,water, fodder, affordable credit and amarket. Our watershed programmehad already ensured water and fodder.We have now introduced qualitypreventive and curative veterinarycare. Our painstaking efforts have ensured that the Indore Milk Unionincludes our area in their milk collection route. And SHGs have extendedcredit to their members (at low rates of interest with long repaymentperiods) to purchase quality indigenous breeds. These animals have allbeen insured through a tie-up with the Oriental Insurance Company.

Having first minimized risk, theprogramme now emphasises building upsystems to ensure transparency and provideincentives to the farmer to increaseproduction. On the procurement side,activities focus on building up a fair andefficient milk collection and paymentsystem. On the production side, variousprogrammes like pregnant cow care, fodderproduction, regular deworming and

vaccination, support in selection of good animals and improved breedingservices have tried to raiseproductivity of farm animals. In theseefforts, it has been our endeavour tostrike a balance between getting betteryields from the present stock as wellas induction of indigenous andcrossbred animals. A dedicated cadreof paravets and milk cooperativesociety secretaries provides feet to theprogramme by making available theseservices in far-flung villages.

SPS Core Team members Rangu Rao and G. Reghu lead the livestocksupport team.

KumbayaKumbaya, our garment fabrication

centre, has empowered women bycreating a new skill and employmentopportunity in the area. We have trainedover 500 women from 45 villages inready-to-wear garments and patchworkproducts. In the absence of a traditionalmarketable craft, by designing productsthat compete with mainstreamfabrication units, Kumbaya guaranteeswork and a market to women producersfor 300 days a year. Most of these tribalwomen had never stitched a garmentbefore and had no options other thanmanual labour. Kumbaya makes a range

of Indian and western casual wear, duvets,patchwork cushion covers, table and bedlinen, curtains, wall hangings and differenttypes of bags and rucksacks.

The accomplishment of Kumbaya hasbeen that the product by itself instantlyleaves a brand imprint leading to an ever-growing demand from customers,retailers and exporters in Delhi, Bangalore, Pondicherry, Bombay andIndore. The compelling pressure from hundreds of women in the areademanding fair livelihood opportunities and the ever-increasing demandfor its products has enabled Kumbaya to now open 3 training andproduction centres in the area. Kumbaya is also hope for many differently-abled people, particularly women, whose inability to contribute manuallabour in an agricultural area leads to their abandonment. The Kumbayacentres are supervised by a team of skilled and trained local people, whomanage training, production, and accounts.

SPS Core Team member Nivedita Banerji guides KumbayaNATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE ACT

The NationalRural EmploymentGuarantee Act(NREGA) promisesthe largest evere m p l o y m e n tprogramme inhuman history.Entitlements underNREGA aredemand-driven andcons t i tu t iona l lyprotected. Even sothere is a real dangerthat lack ofawareness amongintended beneficiaries and absence of implementation capability amongGram Panchayats (GPs, the chief implementing agency), will mean thatthe full potential of NREGA is not realised. To meet this challenge SPS setup the National Consortium of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) forNREGA in 2007. The Consortium includes 42 partners across 33 districts

in 9 states of India who areworking to make NREGA asuccess. Our role is the technicaland social empowerment of thesepartners.

The Consortium seeks to movebeyond the more traditional civilsociety role of acting as awatchdog for NREGA. The ideais to actively participate in makingNREGA effective and its implementation true to the spirit of the objectivesof the Act. This, of course, incorporates the vigilance role but focuses onan integrated approach to planning, implementation and social audit ofNREGA works. Our vision is that work done under NREGA would createthe necessary water infrastructure on whose basis a whole range of nature-based livelihood opportunities could be created for the disadvantaged.Planning for this convergence needs also to be done co-terminus withNREGA work. We also believe that NREGA affords an unprecedentedopportunity for governance reform at the grass roots. Even whilerecognising the great difficulties CSOs and PRIs have faced in workingtogether, a key element of the Consortium’s strategy is to facilitatepartnerships between grass-roots CSOs and PRIs, given the crucial roleassigned to PRIs under NREGA.

SPS Core Team member Pramathesh Ambasta is National Coordinatorof the NREGA Consortium

Training Material on NREGAWe are also working closely with the Government of India and a number

of state governments on NREGA. At the requestof the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD),Government of India, SPS has preparedwatershed works manuals in the NREGA context(300 pages+ in both English and Hindi). TheGovernments of Chhattisgarh and Bihar havedecided to distribute our manual to all their GramPanchayats and concerned officers. For theMoRD we have converted each of the 16chapters of these manuals into stand-alonebooklets. Design and typesetting of all SPSpublications has been a labour of love ofPramathesh Ambasta over the last two decades.

We have also made 5 training films (in bothHindi and English) based on these manuals.One of the films “Earthen Dams” won theMagna Mater Award at the 25th InternationalAgrofilm Festival in Slovakia in October 2008.This is the highest award given to the best filmof the festival across all categories. In addition,the film “Earthen Dams” was also nominatedin the competitive section of Eko Films (34thInternational Film Festival on theEnvironment and Natural and CulturalHeritage of the Czech Republic), the film“Ridge Area Treatment” was nominated in thecompetitive section of CineEco (14thInternational Environmental Film Festival, Portugal) and thefilm “On Farm Interventions” is nominated in the competitivesection of upcoming Wildlife Vaasa 2008 (InternationalNature Film Festival, Finland). These films have been directedby SPS Core Team members Pinky Brahma Chaudhuri andShobhit Jain who are both graduates from the Film andTelevision Institute of India. They lead the SPS Films Division.

RIGHT TO FOOD

A key area of governancereform in India needs to bethe many schemes related tothe Right to Food, such as themid-day meal scheme, theICDS and the PublicDistribution System. We areworking hard to generateawareness among the peopleabout these schemes and alsobuild pressure on thegovernment to reform the

way they are run and increase the resources allotted to them. Our workhas provided extensive relief to people living in malnutrition hotspots ofMadhya Pradesh and also ensured greater transparency and accountabilityin the functioning of the administration.

SPS Core Team members Dr. Mridula Banerji and Jyotsna Jain guidethe right to food programme.

BABA AMTE CENTRE FOR PEOPLE’S EMPOWERMENT

Rather than directly expandingour own operations (and riskbureaucratisation), we haveopted to remain a lean, learningorganisation that builds onpartnerships. In this way, we areable to retain quality whileachieving scale, thus overcomingthe oasis syndrome that mostNGO work suffers from. Thus,our direct interventions are

concentrated in the tribal pocket around Bagli. But we upscale the impactof this work through the Baba Amte Centre for People’s Empowerment.The Centre has been set up to carefully select, train and hand-hold genuinegrassroots partners for a few years, after which we believe they can dothis work potentially better than SPS could have. The Centre also buildsclose partnerships with a wide range of government departments and non-government research institutions. Some of these centres are doing excellentbut largely unrecognised work. We help bring this research out of ivorytowers by linking lab to land and securing invaluable feedback for scientistsfrom farmers. This beta-tested technology is then transmitted to ourpartners through the Baba Amte Centre. Through this “creative, organicchurning” R & D inputs are finalised. These are then disseminated notonly to the people of our area but also to people throughout India via ournetwork of partner organisations and governments.

Currently, we support watershed programmes of 122 partners on amillion acres in 72 districts of 12 states, including MP, Chhattisgarh,Rajasthan and Orissa. We conduct a variety of training courses at theCentre, including a 2-month Basic Training Course on WatershedDevelopment covering surveying and mapping, earthen and masonryengineering, hydrogeology,nursery and plantation, drylandagriculture, double entryaccounting, attitude behaviourchange, PRA and conflictmanagement.

The two campuses(Administrative and Training) ofthe Baba Amte Centre for

People’s Empowerment nestle invillages on the edge of the forest atthe foothills of the Vindhyan range.The architecture of these campuseswas imagined to harmonize with themagnificence of the landscape whosecolours dissolve from rugged ochreto verdant green through the seasons.The domes, vaults, and arches reflectthe undulations of nature. Thepyramids and corbels echo thestarkness of basalt. The exposedbrickwork and stone are homage tothe rough dignity of rural life.Embedded in these walls is theintricate effort of skilled artisansbecause of whom the structuresminimize the use of cement and steel.SPS Core Team member Nivedita Banerji guides the innovative buildingconstruction work at the Centre

RESEARCH AND POLICY ADVOCACY

In 1998 India’s Drylands, a study we carried out for theMinistry of Finance, GoI and the UNDP on the macro-economic significance of watershed programmes for foodsecurity, employment guarantee and sustainabledevelopment, was published and released world-wide bythe Oxford University Press. In 2005-06, SPS Secretary(1993-2008) Dr. Mihir Shah served as Honorary Adviserto the Parthasarathy Committee set up by theGovernment of India to review India’s watershedprogrammes. He was responsible for drafting the reportof the committee that suggests path-

breaking reforms in this sector. Dr. Shah is also Adviserto the Commissioner appointed by the Supreme Courtin the Right to Food case. His responsibilities includemonitoring the functioning of all food-related schemesin Madhya Pradesh and suggesting reforms to makethem work better. Dr. Shah jointly co-ordinated aResearch Project (along with Prof. Jean Dreze and Dr.N.C. Saxena) for the Indian Council for Social Science

Research on the Right toFood in India in 2004-06. Hewas also a member of 3Working Groups for the11th Five Year Plan.

Dr. Debashis Banerji is oneof a handful of distinguishedIndian scientists to havepublished original research inNature. He is currentlyengaged in bioinformaticresearch on improvements in

genetic engineering technology to make it relevant for poor farmers. Hisrecent papers include Strategies for Gene Stacking and Gene Containmentin Transgenic Crops – The Major Challenges in Engineering PlantTransformation for the International Conference on Molecular Biologyand Biotechnology, Banasthali University, Rajasthan, Transplastomic Plantsas Biosafe Bioreactors — Some Highlights for the International Conferenceon Photosynthesis in the Global Perspective, Indore University andStrategies for Gene Containment and Gene Stacking in TransplastomicEngineering for the All-India Botanical Conference & InternationalSymposium on Plant Biology and Environment, Allahabad University.

P.S. Vijay Shankar is conducting a wide-ranging study commissionedby the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Genevaon the history of education and health policy in independent India. Ahighlight of our research was the publication in April 2004 of the paperGroundwater Demand Management at Local Scale in Rural Areas of India: AStrategy to ensure Water Well Sustainability based on Aquifer Diffusivity andCommunity Participation in the Hydrogeology Journal (official journal of

the International Association of Hydrogeologists). Apaper on Rural Credit in 20th Century India by MihirShah, Rangu Rao and P.S. Vijay Shankar in the Economicand Political Weekly (April 14th 2007) has beenincluded as part of the prescribed syllabus for theDevelopment Theory paper for BA (Hons) Economicsfinal year students at Delhi University. Our recent workon NREGA reforms has attracted national attention(Two Years of NREGA: The Road Ahead by PramatheshAmbasta, Mihir Shah and P.S. Vijay Shankar, Economicand Political Weekly, 23rd February, 2008).

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE AND PRINCIPLES

SPS is an organisation registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.As per the Act, the Executive Committee (EC) is the highest decision-makingbody and executive powers are vested in the Secretary.

The role of the EC is to provide broad guidance and oversight to SPS work.Day-to-day responsibility rests with the 25-member Core Team of experiencedprofessionals who work full-time at headquarters, leading the team of 225 SPSactivists.

SPS is a learning organisation, highly self-critical of its own functioning, bothin terms of processes and performance. We regard every endeavour of ours as adrop in the vast ocean of strife. But that there must be a pure aspiration forperfection within the striving to be this drop. We believe that the inherent andfundamental limitation of bureaucracy derives from its foundation in thespecification of offices — that people are responsible only for their own jobs. Wehave sought to move towards an organization whose master concept is that“everyone contributes their best for the success of the whole”. This is a deeplyinteractive, consultational organization where consensus is created throughinstitutionalized dialogue. Our metro educated, local educated and villageprofessionals all have such unique insights that they can greatly benefit by beingopen to learning from the other, quite irrespective of position in the hierarchy.We see the maintenance of tension within healthy bounds as the key to anycreative and dynamic system. Greater emphasis is placed on principles ratherthan rules. This encourages flexibility and creativity in response to challenges.The regular interface of people across teams, facilitated by the Core Team, acts asa corrective to possible abuse of flexibility. The fluidity of such an organizationalstructure also demands that decision-making processes are frequentlyreconstructed — they cannot simply be “read” from an organogram.

SPS CORE VALUESCompassion: the central motivation for doing hard work in fairly difficult circumstancesForgiveness: the key attitude towards those who choose to stand against us in ourattempted movement towards greater social and economic equityHumility: the enduring sense of wonder of a true scientist, always a student, ever-learning, working as a team, building partnerships within SPS and beyondBalance: the aspiration for greater balance in nature and society and in our own striving

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF SAMAJ PRAGATI SAHAYOG1 Smt. Vidyaben Shah, Veteran Gandhian Social Worker, President

2 Ms. Nivedita Banerji, Founder Member, SPS, Secretary

3 Shri Pramathesh Ambasta, Founder Member, SPS, Treasurer

4 Dr. Shankar Mukherji, Retired Professor, Department of Physics, Banaras Hindu

University, Member

5 Dr. Mary John, Director, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, Member 6 Dr. Ramachandra Guha, Historian, Member

7 Dr. Rammanohar Reddy, Editor, Economic and Political Weekly, Member

8 Dr. Sriram Ramaswamy, Professor, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science,

Member

9 Shri Arvind Sardana, Coordinator, Academic Council, Eklavya Foundation, Member