Armed with skills, these villagers dont head for cities

Nalajhiri (Madhya Pradesh), Oct 1 - We have read it in books and seen it in movies so many times - the scene of a simple village boy packing his bags to leave for the city in search of a better life. But in some parts of Madhya Pradesh, that is not quite the story.

The District Poverty Initiatives Project (DPIP) has given renewed hope to youth in 14 backward districts of this central Indian state and brought down the migration rate by nearly 20 percent in six years.

Run by the state government and funded by the World Bank, the project provides a means of livelihood to people living in interior villages. Six years after its implementation, the results have started showing an impact. One of the more prominent achievements, perhaps, is that the migration rate has come down.

'Earlier one didn't have much of a choice if one decided to stay back in the village. Farming was what most usually had to resort to. But since youths wanted to achieve more, earn more, they usually went the city way.

'But after this project started about two years ago, there are a lot more choices... One can learn the skills of almost anything of their choice, be it carpentry, bicycle and rickshaw repairing, operating a rice and flour mill and making carpets and shoes, besides others, and use these to earn his living,' said Ram Kailash, one of the farmers of Nalajhiri village.

Biswajeet Sen of the World Bank, who looks after the DPIP programme in Madhya Pradesh, said the project is not supply-based, but demand-based.

'The project is demand-based, not supply- based. For instance, we won't give cattle to a person and ask him to start dairy farming if he is not interested and feels that he won't benefit from it.

'We help people through a number of community interest groups (CIGs) involved in different skills, both in the farm and non-farm sector, depending on their interest,' Sen told IANS.

A survey in 2,902 villages in the 14 districts where DPIP has been implemented since 2002 revealed that there has been a 65 percent increase in the family income of all CIG households.

'The figures are excellent. In agriculture, for instance, after we intervened and helped them set up more wells and tube wells for better irrigation purposes, there has been a 15 percent increase in the total irrigated land in the state.

'This has resulted in a 93 percent increase in the value of agricultural production in terms of rupee per acre. In terms of income, there has been an increase of 66 percent in CIG households,' Sen said.

In animal husbandry, the CIG households have seen an increase of 158 percent in income, in poultry and pig and goat rearing there is an increase of 19 percent and in non-farm sector four percent.

(c) Indo-Asian News Service

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