RRA GP LEVEL COMPREHENSIVE PILOT
Kunigal Taluk, Karnataka
idf
Initiatives for Development Foundation
Bengaluru
Background, Context and Design
• Project Area: Kunigal Taluk, Tumkur
district Karnataka. Falls under Southern
Dry Zone, major area under rain fed
conditions
• Normal annual rainfall is 680 mm
• Roughly 22% of the area is under
irrigation
• CP Location: Two GPs-Madakehalli
(Latitude 13.05, Longitude 76.99) and
Chowdanakuppe
(Latitude
12.85,
Longitude 77.03). The total population
together-14880 with 3096 families. 33
habitations under 19 revenue villages
Background, Context and Design
Situation
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Degradation of productivity due to
indiscriminate use of chemical
fertilizers for the last two decades;
Low organic matter content, low
moisture holding capacity of soils
Unpredictable
rainfall
and
intermittent drought
Eroding diversity and inclination
towards mono-cropping
Dwindling livestock due to capital
constraint
Low productivity of indigenous
cattle
Water bodies are seasonal, drying
up of bore wells and open wells –
recent phenomenon
Large proportion of the farming
community financially excluded (up
to 87%)
Systemic gaps
1.
Promotion
of
sustainable
practices (biomass and manure
application) absent
2.
Lack of focus on drought proofing
and climate change adaptations
Seed supply systems concentrate
on major crops, not on diversity
Dairy federation promoting cross
breeds and lack of bank lending
credit to indigenous animals
Breeding program focusing on
cross breeds
Lack of promotional activities on
recharging ground water
Low outreach by banks, legal
hurdles like titles for accessing
credit
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Strategies and Approach
 Capacity building and awareness creation
 Partnership building with mainstream agencies
 Sensitization of stakeholders
 CBO platform as voice of change
 Experience as base for up scaling at taluk level
Progress
Programme
 Capacity building
trainings
 FFS, awareness
through
campaigns
 Animal health
camps
 Adoptions of
sustainable
practices
 Financial inclusion
Institutions
 CBOs
 Line
departmentsDoAH, DoA, GPs,
MNREGA, KSSC,
DoH, KVK
 Public sector
banks-mainly SBI
Nodes
 Soil
 Seeds
 Cropping
systems
 Livestock
 Fisheries
 Institutions
Key Activities
Planned
Undertaken
 Intensive capacity building on
soil and land productivity such
as composting, application of
manures
 Seed production program on
finger millet, minor millets and
pulses
 Seed bank establishment
 Multi-cropping with minor
millets
 Promotion of SRI and Guli in
finger millet
 Health care services to small
ruminants
 FFS, node specific trainings,
campaigns
involving
line
departments like GP, MNREGA
and DoA
 Taken up with KSSC on finger
millet on 11 acres
 Credit linkage through JLGs
and SHGs
 Established at GP level
 Minor millets identified and
seeds gathered for 386 acres
 88 acres under these practices
 Over 67,000 animals covered in
partnership with DoAH (80%
small ruminants)
 2.65 Cr linked to 54 groups with
SBI
SBI Kiosk Banking
Key Activities
Planned and Not taken-up
 Protective
irrigation
through collectivization
and sharing
Reason
 Farmers having water
resources
are
not
prepared to share it
Deliverables and Outputs




Planned
Data base on NRM and
rain fed systems
Analysis of challenges in
rain fed farming, interface
with mainstream agencies
and
alternatives
to
address them
Interventions
and
strategies at taluk level
Accessing
mainstream
programs
 Detailed RRA-CP proposal
for Kunigal taluk
 Fine-tuned interface with
RRA nodes
Delivered
 Data base collected, to be
consolidated
 Challenges
identified,
analyzed
based
FGDs,
experiences and interactions
 To be fine-tuned, one internal
review meet completed
 Could achieve with DoAH,
KSSC. Partnership building
with DoA to some extent, GP
and MNREGA. Credit was
accessed from SBI
 Proposal yet to be developed
 Interface with RRA nodes in
progress
Key Risks and Assumptions





Risks
Climate
risks-continued
drought or semi-drought
situation
Policies of the state
government
as
new
dispensation is likely to
take over
Administrative reshuffle
once the new government
takes over
Institutional risks
Bankers’ risk of nonalignment
Assumptions for mitigation
 Normal monsoon prevails
 Political stability after the
state elections
 More responsive/sensitive
administrative machinery
 Robust support system
 Stable business models
Institutional Arrangement and Support
Systems
1. From the Project
Expenditure for activities and human resources
2. From the Organization
Human resources for facilitation, community mobilization, partnership
building, capacity building
3. From RRAN/Secretariat
Vision building, guidance for proposal development, strategies for
intervention
4. From Thematic Nodes
Field assessment, planning and fine-tuning of activities
5. Contribution from CP to RRA Networking
Introduced to KFRC-an SLBC initiative at Bagalkot, Dr. Prakash Bhat-an
eminent thinker in rural development, Line departments of state as
part of CP, represented RRAN in forums like KFRC governance board,
Chief Secretariat of GoK, NABARD and Banking sector
Analysis and Reflections
1. Addressing issues in RF agriculture
Focus was on FI and SA in IDF program in Kunigal while CP
could help reorient itself to focus on rain fed conditions. Small
ruminants, poultry and fisheries were untouched but we
could take steps in this direction. Credit access to rain fed
farmers is a new beginning due to focus on rain fed conditions
2. Layer, Scale and Convergence
Concept of layering has crept in but concrete layering has to
happen. Scale of outreach was significant but adoption scale
is yet to reach critical mass. Convergence was encouraging in
service sector like credit, animal health care in cattle and
inputs like seed.
Analysis and Reflections
3. Extent of establishment and confidence over
programmatic FW of RRA
It is evolving but dichotomy still exists. Convinced about
concepts and framework but struggling to understand the
ways out to operationalize
4. Extent of establishment and confidence over institutional
FW
Clarity of concepts and ideas
5. Institutional arrangements by RRAN
Good support through nodes and secretariat, technically.
Contextual approaches would be of value from nodes
Analysis and Reflections
6. Key takeaways
 Community voice more effective to engage the
mainstream agencies at grass roots and local level
 More vocal voices of development leaders critical to
engage policy makers at higher level of governance
 Programmatic changes in mainstream agencies is very
slow process due to significant gaps in developmental
thinking
 Programmatic FW of mainstream agencies is topdown. Disconnect between ground realities and
program planning
 Outreach by mainstream agencies is low, more of
demonstration approach
Way Forward
Proposal Development and Next Phase
 First draft prepared but needs extensive finetuning based on the experience of first phase
 Decision on continuing based on thorough
discussion between RRAN and IDF team
 Critical feedback on CP to decide on way
forward
 Exposure to other CPs would be useful to revise
strategies and programs
What keeps us focussed?
Remember that dark brown starved man,
bending under the scorching sun,
scratching a little plot of land to eke out a
living, any thing you do, do for his benefit
- Mahatma Gandhi