Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

A breakthrough in poverty alleviation

Thiruvananthapuram: “Samridhi,” “Suvidha,” “Subicsha” are all positive words in Malayalam that connote hope, plenitude and prosperity. These words have acquired a new meaning in poverty alleviation programmes now being implemented in the State. These are programmes that have taken a cue from micro-financing concepts, but have redefined poverty alleviation programmes to focus on production and marketing of products made from raw materials available to specific locations in Kerala.

Subicsha (Sustainable Business Development of Innovative Coconut Based Micro Enterprises for Holistic Growth and Poverty Alleviation), now being implemented in Perambra block in Kozhikode district, received the best project award from the Union Ministry of Agriculture this year. The Subicsha project is an innovative initiative managed by 700 women Self-Help Groups (SHGs) with 7,000 members belonging to households below the poverty line with 41 products based on coconut and coconut tree as raw material.

According to V. Mukunda Das, Dean, Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, who conceived the project along with four others to be implemented in various parts of the State, the main aim of Subicsha, with a total outlay of Rs.14.01 crore, is to help below poverty line (BPL) families to utilise information technology and other state-of-the-art high-end processing technologies for the production and marketing of quality products. The products are made from raw materials abundantly available in Kerala such as coconut, cassava, pineapple and fish, he said.

There are several hundred such products that could be produced in an organised manner, provided managerial and technology inputs are made available to these SHGs. The success of Subicsha has prompted several other development blocks to initiate similar programmes suiting their respective territories utilising funds available under the Centrally sponsored Swarnajayanthi Gram Swarozgar Yojana. Subicsha is being implemented as a special project under the Central scheme.

Pampady and Madapally blocks in Kottayam district have submitted another proposal Samagra (Sustainable Livelihood Generation and Socio-Economic Advancement through Self-Help Group Based Activities), modelled after Subicsha. The project, developed specifically for these two blocks keeping in mind their unique features, is to be implemented by 431 women SHGs with 4,310 members, focusing on producing and marketing of value-added products from honey.

Piravom Block in Ernakulam district is planning to focus on certain innovative products and marketing them through clusters. Samridhi-Piravam (Sustainable Economic Upliftment and Empowerment of Women through Micro Enterprises with Value-Added Products and Services in a Holistic Perspective) is managed by 425 SHGs with 4,250 members. Under Samridhi, the clusters would focus on coconut, pineapple and meat. The block is looking at the possibilities of vermi-composting and organic farming with strong inbuilt backward and forward linkages.

Vypeen block of Ernakulam district has developed Samridhi - Vypin to suit the needs of this coastal belt. The project has 223 women SHGs with 2,230 members belonging to BPL households. The focus here is on the coastal block’s unique features based on fish production and related processing activities such as cage fish culture, ornamental fish culture, mussel farming, crab fattening and seaweed farming.

Suvidha (Sustainable Economic Upliftment and Livelihood Generation through Holistic set of Activities) has been designed for tsunami affected areas in Karunagapally block. The project proposes to mobilise 2,000 members spread over 200 women SHG, with emphasis on novel convenience products such as snacks made from cassava / tapioca, tender coconut water, virgin coconut oil, desiccated coconut, jam and jelly, fruit squash, pickles and osmo air-dried jack fruit.

The managers of Suvidha have plans to break into the BPO sector with specially designed computer training centres that would help vertical mobility of the youth from poorer sections.

Poverty alleviation programmes in Kerala should in future focus on knowledge-based and technology-based interventions that can give a radical shift in the living pattern of poor people, Prof. Mukunda Das said.

“A time has come for us to reorient the poor with skills and managerial approaches which make them succeed in development activities. This means the present approaches loaded with public administration formats will not help, he said.

The numerous technoparks that have come up could design the appropriate micro-enterprises helping the poor and the weaker sections find economic opportunities.

Prof. Mukunda Das, who was chairman of the Poverty Alleviation Committee of Kozhikode Corporation, said the Corporation, as part of its attempts to become a zero slum city, had included novel activities for addressing issues related to uplift of the poor.

The proposal included an employment exchange exclusively for slum dwellers, employment planning for persons below the poverty line for the next 15 years, an information kiosk for all slum areas to provide them with information on all aspects relating to improvement of their standards of living, nutrition, health and education.

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