Livelihood Augmentation in Rainfed Areas - Development Support ...

Other support
PRADAN also trains and prepares Munshis for maintaining group records of savings,
meetings and inter-loaning. Munshis are educated members of the community or CIG
members, interested in learning accounts and record-keeping. The services of those
Munshis, who are not CIG members, are paid for by the groups.
A Computer Munshi, located in the Sarmathura office of PRADAN, compiles all the
data related to the SHGs/CIGs using a computer programme called Regular Meeting
Generation Set (RMGS). The SHG/CIG members visit the office once every 15 days
and submit all SHGs details of meetings, savings and inter-loaning in a prescribed
format.
What Has Changed for CIG members?
All the groups in the goat cluster are women’s groups. Field interactions with CIG
members reveal that coming together as members of a federated body has given the
members a sense of group identity. The women members meet regularly and have
been able to tide over household contingencies through savings and inter-loaning. The
earnings from goat rearing have improved their economic status. The experience of
Asha devi (Box 1) shows what this improved economic status can mean to a typical
household of the region. The mobility of women has also increased and women
members articulated that they go to the bank themselves for various transactions.
Some cluster leaders have also gone out of their district/state to attend workshops.
Women have learnt to sign their names. One of the CIG presidents has also received
training as a Mahila Munshi.
Some of the other issues that Saheli Sangathan is trying to address are:
• Enrollment of girls in schools
• Unequal gender relations
• Access and control over income earned by women
• Reproductive health
• Violence against women
Conclusion
The cluster development in Sarmathura region is a way of setting up a governing
structure to provide institutional linkage and support to the SHGs or CIGs formed
by PRADAN. This structure provides a strong support to the activity of goat rearing
through backward and forward linkages.
210 Livelihood Augmentation in Rainfed Areas: Volume I