The MANTHAN Award - 2013

Unnathi- PoP Strategy was awarded with the prestigious MANTHAN Award South Asia and Asia Pacific 2013 under e-Governance category in December, 2013. Out of total 84 nominations for e-Governance, only 9 were finalized and among the 9 finalists, Unnathi - SERP was declared winner.

Unnathi unit

The objective of Unnathi is to enable every poorest of poor family in the state to come out of poverty with increased and sustainable livelihood opportunities established with the aid of an intensive handholding support. The same has to be done in a focused and phased manner starting with organizing them, strengthening their institutions, increasing their asset base, mitigating risks, expanding the livelihoods and increasing their incomes. In concise, enhancing the income of POP family to an annual income of Rs One lakh over a period and a significant improvement in human development aspects are considered the twin mandates of the proposed strategy.

The Ultrapoor

SERP has facilitated each of its Village organisations to identify the bottom most 5 families within their VO purview. This survey was mainly carried out to sensitize the Community based organisations towards embracing these Ultrapoor families with a more human touch. Though the Ultrapoor survey was done alongwith the SCSP/TSP baseline survey meant for SC & ST families, it cut across the communities. Preliminary analysis revealed that SC & ST families together constitute more than 50% of the total identified Ultrapoor households.

Livelihoods to the Poor..!!

The SC/ST households in a Village Organization, based on their Assets, Vulnerability score, employment, incomes were prioritized based on the score. The families top ranked were the most vulnerable (Ultrapoor HHs) having less assets and income. The priority list is made available to all staff and CBO members. The Household Livelihood Plan for the prioritized SC/ST household is made and uploaded in the Website. As per the HLPs, the loan request is sent as IVRS Requests or in the Web Application given in the Mandal Logins. After approval of the loan requests, the loan is sanctioned on the name of the SHG member and disbursed from Stree Nidhi to Village Organizations.

Entitlements to the poor...!!

In the baseline survey of the 22.1lakh SC/ST families, the data shows that still 24% of the PoP households have not come under the SHG fold, 44% do not have Job Cards, 11% do not have ration cards etc. This basically backs up the premise that the PoP households are still behind in accessing their entitlements and benefits from various programmes. Special strategy has been adopted for accessing of the basic entitlements to the Poorest of the poor households. The data has been already shared with the district officials for providing entitlements to the PoP Families.

Targeting the vulnerable...!!

The baseline survey of the 22.1lakh SC/ST families have covered the existing vulnerabilities like Joginies/Devadasis, Beggars, Bonded Labour, Practising Safai Karmacharis (Manual Scavengers), Sex Workers and PWD. Apart from these, the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, Single Women, Chronic illness members, drop out children etc. has been extracted from the survey and added to the vulnerable group. This data has been taken in order to have a special focus on providing livelihood to them, so that these families comes out the vulnerable conditions.