Programmes for poverty alleviation

The Visakhapatnam District Rural Development Agency has successfully implemented a range of income-generating programmes for poverty alleviation in rural communities.

SUSTAINABLE poverty alleviation is achievable if there is a will. The Visakhapatnam District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) has demonstrated this emphatically over and again through the dedicated implementation of income-generating training programmes for women in self-help groups (SHGs) among economically weaker sections.

The Training and Technology Development Centre (TTDA), Pendurthy, has evolved into a showpiece by systematically providing skills improvement training exclusively for women, in order to empower them economically. This well-maintained centre has professionals who teach methods to improve traditional skills to these women for gainful employment in their rural set-up.

Emphasis is laid on encouraging thrift activity by the SHGs, so that the women can take up sustainable group economic activity at their places of residence, utilising raw materials available in their vicinity, and also avoid depending on middlemen or some government agency for the procurement and marketing of finished products.

Value addition and fine-tuning and sustaining the good work done by his predecessors is the prime objective of DRDA Project director A.V.V.S. Prasad. That his efforts have borne fruit is reflected in the amount of savings generated by the SHGs. About 2.6 lakh members of over 18,000 SHGs have pooled a whopping Rs.46 crores.

A matching grant from the government and a like sum as bank loan have made some entrepreneurial ventures possible. This can be contrasted with the scores of such programmes floated both by the Centre and the State government, which never took off.

Thanks to the DRDA, fashion technology is no longer the exclusive preserve of urbanites. Its efforts have put at least some rural women on the fashion map of the State.

The uniqueness of the course is its stress on working in the most eco-friendly manner with indigenously and naturally available materials while keeping track of the latest fashion trends. Though the products have not adorned supermodels, the items are in no way inferior to branded apparel either in material quality or design.

Pure cotton cloth processed with alum and myrobalan (`karakkai') in the fabric-processing unit is subjected to natural dyeing utilising locally available vegetables, fruits, tree barks and flowers like marigold, hibiscus and jaffra. The instructor at the centre is G. Nageshwari, a National Institute of Fashion Technology graduate. She methodically trains the women in creating various designs that are popular in the market.

The centre has 30 state-of-the-art Juki sewing machines imported from Singapore. The present two batches have 55 trainees in all, who are either ready to set up their own units or have landed well-paid jobs in fashion units.

The courses offered at the TTDA give the women enormous choices for starting self-sustaining entrepreneurial ventures. Fashion designing, making of jute bags and other jute products, kalamkari painting, screen printing, hand-made paper production, wooden and lac toy making, vermi compost preparation, vegetable farming and preparation of juices, jams, pickles and papad are some of the popular programmes.

Popularising the Deepam scheme by providing more than the targeted LPG domestic connections (68,000), providing job opportunities through the Swarnajayanthi Gram Swarozgar Yojana, disbursing benefits like pensions under the National Social Assistance Programme are some of the other major activities of the DRDA.

Turning `agricultural waste' into trendy, income-generating products is another unique programme of the DRDA. At a time when people look for environment-friendly and durable alternatives to plastics, this DRDA is making waves by training women in paper-making utilising fibrous farm waste, at Anandapuram. This eco-friendly, hand-made paper is used for packaging and other ordinary stationery needs.

An experimental paper-making training and production unit was started at Anandapuram three months ago with investment coming from the AP Council of Science and Technology or APCOST. The man behind the project was T. Sudhakara Reddy, a Professor in the Andhra University's Fine Arts department.

The factory, set up with a meagre investment of Rs.2.67 lakhs, provides employment to women belonging to local DWCRA (Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas) group and also earns enough to take care of the training centre's maintenance. ``The centre currently has orders for 1,000 sheets of paper a day, but it is able to produce only 100,'' says Prasad.

Encouraged by the success of the Anandapuram experiment, the DRDA has requested APCOST to finance three more such training centres, out of which one has already been sanctioned at S. Rayavaram. The other two are proposed at Payakaraopeta and Narsipatnam, which have banana plantations in abundance.

An active DWCRA group could begin production practically without any investment, and there is a heavy demand for paper in the market. The DRDA proposes to train them in value addition techniques.