Economically empowered Women SHG memebrs brought transformation at Bandwan Block, Purulia, West Bengal, India

Bandwan is located at a remote , inaccessible place of Purulia ,India, the one of the most back ward district in India and   once dominated by copycat insurgent groups. The overall life and livelihood status of the local community during that insurgent period, was really in a very bad shape which compelled the local community to suffer from absolute poverty and hunger. as because of the insurgent activities, the exposure of the local community towards livelihoods came to a halt, and they lost their " safety nets" for survival.No Government agencies were not allowed to work in that locality by those insurgent groups,  only few  reputed Voluntary agencies got the opportunity to work with the local tribal community .

Myself , on behalf of my NGO ( GVT) , made an attempt to convince  the local community to establish Orchards comprising Mango, Cashew and forest samplings around the fencing in a 1acre land( 100 cent) which were the waste lands, in the dense forest areas, and ultimately we were succeeded in enabling the 1000 local tribal community/Families to establish such Orchards ( 1000 acres) as a source of alternative livelihoods. This was possible due to active emancipation of the local Women SHGs in more than 20 villages initially,  under 4 Gram Panchayats, who played a proactive role in motivating, sensitizing the local farming community in establishing the Orchards. Simultaneously those Women SHGs were trained for farm  based  skill training programme like rope making, food processing, vermin ( earth worm)  composting, sal leaf plate making etc, under the aegis of SHGs, besides, soft skill trainings( viz, leadership, Gender, fund management, Group dynamics, Conflict management,peace reconciliation--)  were imparted based by involving the local Panchayat, Financial Institute , Training Agencies etc. This followed by imparting training on conflict management based on " Do No Harm"concept in order to restore the peace and confidence among the local SHG members.

Based on those vivacious SHGs , the Orchard program gradually got momentum and after 3.5 years of plantation of the First Batch of 300 Orchards, fruiting of Mangoes were started which were very tasty and and of good quality and they earned a remunerative returns by selling their Mangoes from those Orchards, apart from inter cropping done in the said Orchards, which stared creating spiral impact among the remaining 700 families  in establishing the Orchards in a similar manner. All requisite inputs, like Horticulture  plants, pesticides, irrigation facilitates , soil conservation works were provided by the NGO( GVT) under my guidance. The Women SHGs who were nurtured under my leadership ,played a pivotal role for not only enhancing their own Groups/individual  livelihoods ( through forest based Sal leaf plate making, rope making, vermicompost making etc) but also equally took the leadership in providing all sort of hand holding support to those 1000 orchard( of which SHG members were also the beneficiaries) and transformed  the undulated, waste,late rite  lands in to a productive land through judicious management of Natural resources( land, water etc) .

The base line study depicts that the family income of those community has increased by more than 70%( through selling of Mangoes, Cashew, Sal leaf plates, other produces, family income in their respective orchard)  between the base year and last year of program intervention( 2006-2012-13) . Now the Orchard development project  has been withdrawn but the Orchards are well maintained  by the respective farmers under the supervision of 30 Strong SHGs. The  SHGs themselves have now brought under the aegis of GoI flagship program of NRLM and received all sort of financial, no financial support from State Government, District, Block administration, local panchayat etc and steadily moves towards the path of sustained and improved livelihood through socioeconomic empowerment process.  This  transformation now ensure peace and development in that locality- once the home of copycat insurgent groups.