States / Goa

Goa, a coastal state in western part of India, is bounded by Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the east and south, with the Arabian Sea forming its western coast. It is India’s smallest state by area (5,400 sq km) and the fourth smallest by population (1,457,723). 37.83% of the state population lives in rural area while 62.17% live in urban area according to Census 2011. Literacy rate in Goa has seen upward trend and is 88.70 percent as per 2011 population census. There are 2 districts, 12 blocks and 182 village panchayats in the state. 

Though Panchayati Raj Institutions in Goa functioned since 1959, it was only after the enactment of Goa Panchayat Raj Bill in 1994 that it was constitutionally implemented. Goa state has adopted Two Tier Panchayat Raj System. One at the Village Level which is called Village Panchayat and at the District Level is called Zilla Panchayat. The task of addressing the issue of rural poverty has been entrusted with District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) which implements and executes various schemes of the government for the economic upliftment of the rural poor, backward and weaker sections.

Kudumbashree NRO has been working with Goa State Rural Livelihood Mission, Goa for implementing special project in two districts of the state- North & South.

Special Project 

The MoU between Goa State Rural Livelihood Mission (GSRLM) and Kudumbashree- National Resource Organization was started on 29th August, 2016. The work in Goa started on 26th of September 2016. Two workshops have been conducted at the State level. One for the Preliminary Orientation of SRLM officials and second was a Training of Trainers. After the training, the work has started in 89 GPs across five blocks of Goa. Two of our mentors were working out of these five blocks.

The activities revolved around

a. Institution Building and Developing federations for the existing Self Help Group as part of the strategy
b. Developing trained community cadre for addressing poverty by enhancing and building capacities of human resource in villages
c. Strengthening SHG and its federations to engage with PRIs for addressing the special needs of the poor and the marginalised and enabling Panchayati Raj Institution’s convergence with SHG and its federations
d. Developing and executing community based sensitization campaigns

During the field interventions, code of conduct was declared twice due to elections. So the work was briefly stopped at different points in time for a period of one month. Review meeting of the work undertaken by GSRLM and KS-NRO was conducted twice. The first review meeting was conducted on 11th November, 2016. The major decisions undertaken as part of the first review meeting was to concentrate on few GPs and complete the process till SHG training till their local resource pool get stronger, rather than going for all 91 GPs. The second review meeting was conducted on 8th May, 2017. During this meeting, a decision was taken to expand the project in three more blocks. So, now the work is being undertaken in 8 blocks and 131 GPs in Goa. Details of the new blocks are given below.

Extension MoU has been signed in January 2018 till June 2018. The work will revolve around the following:

1. Training and capacity building
   1. Intensive training to the CRPs about NRLM, Institution Building, Micro Credit Planning, Grading and Micro Enterprise Development
   2. Training and Capability building of the various Cadres
   3. Exposure visit of one member of each panchayat from the selected blocks to Kerala to understand the Institution building process and Convergence opportunities
2. Developing community cadre for the following
   1. Livelihood Cadre
   2. MCP Cadre
   3. IB/CB Cadre
   4. Auditors Cadre
   5. MIS Cadre
3. Providing intensive capacity building for the various community cadres
4. Providing Technical Support for drafting policies for community cadre
5. Incremental training to SHG and its federations on accounting, auditing, functional literacy, internal monitoring, social audit 
6. Setting up of Café Units at all the intensive block: Formation, training, handholding and support in marketing