The Kudumbashree Mission, joining hands with National Rural Livelihood Mission, has begun work on implementing Gramakam, a village-level poverty reduction programme, on mission mode over the next four years.
The programme involves 2.45 lakh neighbourhood groups and 15,985 Area Development Societies (ADSs) under the Kudumbashree Mission in 914 panchayats in the State, said an official on Monday.
The mission begins with the identification and consolidation of grass-roots level needs of a village. They include both entitlements like pension, employment guarantee card, insurance cover, etc. and livelihood needs of people for which enterprises, ranging from dairy farming to agricultural activities, can be identified.
The requirements are identified at the ward level and consolidated with Area Development Societies and Community Development Societies (CDSs) acting as the bridge between various State government departments and the village for planning and implementation of plans at the panchayat level.
Kudumbashree entities will consolidate the requirements of the village and submit them to the panchayat so that the requirements can be addressed during panchayat-level planning.
Besides livelihood issues and problems of entitlements, there are other areas like environmental protection, pollution, which need to be addressed and will figure prominently in the planning process along with building common assets like schools, reading rooms and libraries, roads, irrigation, drinking water, street lights, public spaces and playgrounds.
The planning process is expected to be complete by the end of this month, said the official who also pointed out that more than 89,000 volunteers had been trained at CDS and ADS levels across Kerala for the mission-mode programme.
They will be involved directly in the plan preparation at the grass-roots self-help group level. The consolidated programme of action is to be readied by January 26 in all the panchayats.
The Kudumbashree mission has also developed a software to record the community-level planning. Based on the software data, a follow-up on the plan implementation will be done by the Kudumbashree Mission.
