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GRAM
SWARAJ ABHIYAN
Western
Orissa has been endowed with a plentiful of natural
resources like good rainfall, land, forests, minerals and
rivers etc. to feed, clothe and nurture the development of
its entire people. Despite of the huge resource potential of
the area the state stands to be the poorest among all the
states of India. Poverty, hunger, malnourishment, high
infant mortality rate and above all starvation death have
been the key feature of the area. Over a period of time
government has spent hundreds of crores of rupees towards
development of the area as well as the people. Government is
still pumping a lot of money through various rural
development schemes. Efforts from Non-government agencies
are nonetheless. But things are not moving as expected.
Devolution
of power to Gram Panchayats under the 73rd
amendment of the constitution sparkled a ray of hope but
temporarily. Government is trying out for all possible
solutions and putting the systems in place to work in. But
they fail to work due to the socio-economic set up of the
people inherited from the past. Majority of the people
belong to Scheduled caste and Scheduled Tribe communities
and over a period of time they have been marginalized
heavily by other communities. In the process of
marginalisation they have lost almost all of their resources
and with their limited resources they have accustomed
themselves to a specific standard of living. To their fate
the area is prone to many natural calamities and even a
disaster of very smaller scale affects their standard of
living seriously. This way their vulnerability is very very
high.
To
reduce vulnerability of the poor people in the area and to
find out sustainable solution to various issues Sahabhagi
Vikash Abhiyan initiated a programme titled Gram Swaraj
Abhiyan since 2002-03. The programme aims to initiate a
process of self-reliant development in villages of Nuapada,
Bolangir, Kalahandi and Bargarh districts, where the
community is involved in the process of collective
identification and analysis of their own issues. They
address those issues by utilizing local resources without or
with little external aid. To facilitate this they prepare a
comprehensive development plan of their own villages and
execute various development activities as per the plan.
The
key objectives of the programme was :
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Development
of a talent pool of activists in the region who can
undertake sustainable land and water management projects
in the future
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Community
mobilization and formation of village level institutions
like Pani Panchayats, Self-help groups, Saving and
credit groups that are capable of planning and executing
natural resource management and other developmental
projects
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Preparation
of village development plans in a participatory manner,
which will include construction of rainwater harvesting
structures, irrigation channels, aforestation etc.
-
Implementation
of the proposed activities to ensure drought-proofing of
the selected villages, with predominantly SC and ST
population
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