The project undergoing in this regional station is: 

1. Socio Ecological Process for Sustainable Development in India

Socio-Ecological process for sustainable development in India is a five-year project funded by the Ford Foundation for development of Natural Resources on Sustainable basis in India.

The goal of initiating Socio Ecological Process in India is to induce social change in the community and the Panchayat functionaries on one hand and making bureaucratic process

in government organizations more effective on the other to set a common goal for forest conservation. The intervention includes action research, training, monitoring and documentation.

The learning of IBRAD through different experiments, trainings and studies combined with the knowledge and information from secondary sources has been used in building further concepts, methodologies and has helped forest departments in their strategic planning, organisational processes at one hand and community institutions, their need, aspiration on the other for setting a common goal toward NRM (Natural Resource Management).

The whole process has been designed by involving State Forest Departments with other line departments like the Andhra Pradesh Forest Department, Karnataka Forest Department, etc. The effort has produced tangible results at grass root level in the states. It is encouraging to note that besides institutional building, community have undertaken various activities like Participatory Vegetation Monitoring, Improvement of Microplan and Livelihood, Vermicomposting, Anduga Gum Tapping activity, Palash Leaf Plate Making, Aonla Collection and Value Addition, Lack Inoculation, Study tours and exposure visits.

The SEPI project aims at empowering people with special emphasis on women to emerge as leaders in natural resource management for sustainable development. It has been felt that the process of empowering the poor women through formation of SHGs under SGSY programme would contribute to the cause of the SEPI.

2. Right to Information: Developing Comunication Strategy to create awareness

A proposal on Implementation of Right to Information Act in One Pilot Block in Paschim Midnapur District was sent and in response to that a meeting was organized by the District Magistrate, Paschim Midnapur, West Bengal for implementation of  the Right to Information Act 2005. The objective of the project is to orient, sensitize and build capacity of bureaucrats and public servants at block level and below to the new regime of transparency so that the citizen are aware and they can have a secure access to that right.

II) IBRAD Field Office at Bishnupur, West Bengal

One of the field offices of IBRAD is located in Bishnupur. The two main projects which are going on this region are:

• Human Development
• SGSY – by the DRDC 

a) Action Research on assessment of Human Development with Intervention in one pilot Block and Municipality for it’s improvement in Bankura District, West Bengal 
The following three components while addressed together will have a synergic effect and lead towards the goal of human development. Development ensures enlargement of people’s choices in three central areas-

• Longevity that is ability of the people to lead a long and healthy life
• Enhancing the knowledge base which is not merely literacy rather problem solving ability of the people and
• Enlarging the resource base for sustainable livelihood

The three central areas of health, education and resource mobilization, if addressed separately in a sectoral manner will not yield desired result. The challenges before the development practitioners are to develop a strategic planning to integrate the three areas and develop operational plan for its implementation. To prepare such a strategic plan the base line data related to well being of the people is required first.
Keeping the above in mind an in-depth study on Assessment of Human Development and developing a strategic plan for it’s improvement in Bankura District, West Bengal has been proposed with the following objectives:

• To review the secondary information related to human development in the district
• To initiate action research and intervention in selected pilot block and one municipality to develop a model for Human Development
• To develop strategic plan for replication in the district
• To strengthen the District Planning Committee for preparation of District Plan to contribute towards Human Development
• To prepare case studies 

Location of the study: Sarenga Block and Bishnupur Municipality within Bankura  district for developing as a model.

Time Frame:  Nine months

The following changes are desired after the completion of project:

At the District level - There will be a clear understanding about the concept of Human Development at the district level and they will be able to design the implementation of the Human Development programmes.

At the Block Level - Block level functionaries will be able to design, develop and assesses effective implementation of Swastha, Siksha and Sanchay programmes at the G. P. level. 

At the G.P. Level - At the G.P. level Panchayat Pradhan and members will be able to effectively monitor the different programmes.

At the Village leve - In at least two villages in each of the G.P.(in  80% of the G.P.s where intervention would be made), community members will come forward and bring some visible changes voluntarily in the area of Swstha, Siksha and livelihood.

b) Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojona (SGSY)

III) IBRAD Field Office at Jalpaiguri, West Bengal
At the field station at Jalpaiguri, the SGSY project is going on. Despite efforts made over the past few decades, rural poverty in India continues to be significant. SGSY programme is designed with the objective to bring the assisted poor families (swarozgaris) above the poverty line, by providing them income generation, assist through a mix of bank credit and government subsidy. It would mean ensuring that the family has a monthly net income of at least Rs. 2000.
The District Rural Development cell, Jalpaiguri selected IBRAD to work with SGSY Project in two blocks, Maynaguri and Matiali in Jalpaiguri District to organize rural poor into SHGs, nurture those groups, build their capacity, provide them guidance, etc. IBRAD succeeded to form 234 groups, and trained them to build their institutions, start depositing money, open bank account, appear for the grading and start some income generation activities.


IV) Project at Barasat on Community Managed Health System at Barasat-I Block, North 24 Parganas

Introduction & Objective:

District level Workshop

SICO Activities:

Three days Residential TOT

Outcomes:

They have now developed linkages and networking with Panchayat and Health Assistants of their respective GPs. They have also succeeded to bring about a renewed attitudinal change amongst the villagers within a short time-span.

Pulse Polio Immunization Camp

With the help of IBRAD, they are organizing health camp once in a month in Kotra (at Kotra GP office) and Paschim Khilkapur GP (at Azad Hind Sporting Club), where more than 50 patients are treated and get necessary medicines.Most of the women  are suffering from acidity, anemia, malnutrition and in case of male, it is less in amount.

Working together for sanitary mart

Health Camp at Paschim Khilkapur

Future Plan
In future, they aim to reduce the number of death of pregnant women and children under the age of five, to make the villages free from the curse named illiteracy, to bring back all dropout children to their schools and to make all villagers economically independent, irrespective of gender.

Teaching dropouts by SICO

Vermicomposting training

• A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth,
• Knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate and the combined gross enrollment ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary schools but the significant role of education is measured in terms of problem solving ability which helps in Survival with Satisfactorily.
• A decent standard of living, as measured by GDP per capita in purchasing power parity

The outreach activities are required to take main basic components of HDI from ints existing position to some higher/better position. Moreover,

Embroidery as a livelihood option

Selection of places/centres:

To conduct any outreach activities, selects a centre from it they can continue the same for the benefit of the community. So the selection of the place/centre is essential. After selection organization have to keep in mind about the protocal of the centres.

Protocal :

First and formost, is one display board to state the outreach activity of the centre.
 As per example the design of the display borad may be like this:

Secondly, the sitting arangement of the participants and space for Outreach Activity.

Thirdly, some essential item like almira, displayboard/notice board proper lighting facilities etc. must be ensured within that centre. One exmple of display broard on different trades is as followes:

Need Assessment:
Prior to conduct any outreach activities of IBRAD conducts a baseline survey. On the basis of the finding of that survey the need assessment can be made. The type of the outreach must focus on the particular need, which may vary from one village/GP to another.

Selection of participants:
Initially the resource person will teach some basic tarining to all interested participants. Then that resource person will give them some works and on the basis of their performance the final selection of the participants will be made.

Three main basic areas on which the outreach activities will be conducted:

Health:
In health, one chart will be displayed within the outreach centre containing few facts related with different diseases, satus of the sanitation of that village, satus of drinking facilities, number of effected people effected by different diseaeses, number of pregnant women, satus RI, Tuberculosis, Malaria etc. some essential items like medicine for health camp.
Secondly one almira must be arranged where different medical instruments, medicines etc. can keep safely.

Education:
Regarding education some data of any particular GP/Village related with literacy status, number of schools, number of ICDS centres, number of drop-out students, number of SSA centre etc. must be displayed. Moreover, it must find out the weaker part of the norms of intervention under SSA so that anyone can advocate about the same. 

Third Month Progress Report of the Project
on
“Facilitating the Process of Implementation of Right to Information Act in One Pilot Block in North 24 Parganas, West Bengal”

Introduction

Right to Information (RTI) is a part of fundamental rights under Article 19(1) of the Constitution. The Central RTI Act extends to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir.  In West Bengal the act has become effective since 13th October 2005, but still there is lack of awareness, confusion and lack of orientation on the concepts of RTI. For ensuring the effective implementation of the act, a cultural change in government sector is needed, and on the other hand the citizens also need to be aware of their right such that they have the ability to exercise that. Thus proper orientation of the government officials and creation of awareness among the citizen of India are immediately required.
Keeping the situation in mind, Administrative Training Institute (ATI), Government of West Bengal, has assigned IBRAD a project for facilitating the process of implementation of Right to Information Act. The main objectives of the project are:

• To assess the proactive disclosures of the information by the government offices at District, Sub-division and Block level and mechanisms followed for the same
• To review the records of the information requests so far as has been asked by the public as well as the process followed by the government departments for providing feedback
• To develop a strategy to aware the citizen about their Right to Information and equip them to secure access to that right
• To organize “Mass awareness programme” involving government departments, Private organizations, Non Government Organizations and community at large

Barasat-I Block in the district of North 24 Parganas has been selected for developing as a model block within the time frame of four months.

Progress of Work

We have already completed orientation of staffs of IBRAD on the concept of RTI Act, Development of questionnaire in order to assess the status of proactive disclosures and that of the information request and short listing of the target departments to carry out the study were also completed in the first month.
One District level workshop with government functionaries, two SHG level workshops in Kotra and Pashchim Khilkapur Gram Panchayat and one School level workshop at Faldi High School under Kotra GP were conducted in the second month.
These details were furnished in the first & second interim reports which we have already submitted. The progress of work after that as per the proposal has been furnished below.

Activities completed in the third month are as follows:

• Three Sub-Division level workshops at Bangaon, Barasat Sadar and Barrackpore Sub-Divisions
• Three SHG level workshops at Duttapukur II, Kashimpur and Kadambagachhi gram Panchayat offices
• Four School level workshops at Nebadhai High School of Duttapukur I GP, Nilgunge Shikshyatan of Ichhapur Nilgunge GP, Kedarnath Adarsha Vidyapith at Jaypool of Duttapukur II GP and Kadambagachhi H K M C M High School of Kadambagachi GP.
  
  

Sub-Division level workshop at Bangaon

The first Sub-Division level workshop for “Facilitating the Process of Implementation of Right to Information Act, in one Pilot Block in North 24 Parganas” was conducted on 7th August 2007 at the Conference Hall of the Office of Sub Divisional Officer, Bangaon, North 24 Parganas.


27 officials from sub-division level offices of Office of the SDL & LRO, Office of AE (PWD), Office of the Asst. Labour Commissioner, Office of the Addl. Dist. Sub Registrar, Office of the SCF&S, Water Resources Development Directorate, Office of Agricultural Dev Officer, Office of the SDPO, Bangaon SD hospital and block level offices of land & Land Revenue attended the meeting.

The workshop was inaugurated by Mr. Sandip Paul, the representative from office of the SDO, Bangaon. He introduced the facilitators from IBRAD to the participants. The participants were then given the registration sheet to fill up.

Ms. Raktima Mukherjee, the Programme Director of IBRAD welcomed all the participants and later discussed the salient features of the ‘Right to Information Act, 2005’ with the help of a power point presentation prepared for that purpose. Discussion was also being made on the approach of IBRAD in generating awareness in community as well as the objective of the workshop as a whole.

During the presentation some of the queries/clarifications raised by the participants are as follows:

• Who will decide which particular information could be exempted from disclosure? 
• What will happen if conflicts arise regarding exemption of Information from disclosure?
• Many of the participants wanted clarification regarding exemption as according to them it is not very clear from the act and can cause a lot of conflict. Many find it a loop hole to help public body withhold much information.

After the presentation participants were divided into three groups and group discussion was held on constraints faced by them while implementing the RTI Act, opportunities that they foresee out of the Act and their suggestions for effective implementation of the Act.  After Group Discussion one member from each group came forward and gave their feedback on behalf of the group. The group discussion successfully brought forth various perceptions of the officials regarding opportunities and constrains in fruitful implementation of the act and their suggestions to improve the implementation process.

Findings of group discussion are as follows:
Group 1
Constrains:

• Certain sections of the act suffer from ambiguity because in most of the cases PIO may suppress most of the available information
• There is shortage of staffs and logistics.
• There is lack of awareness among common people also, which is evident from the fact that there has not been a single case of information request under RTI act in this sub-division during last two years after the enactment of RTI Act.

Opportunities:

• Even poor people can seek and avail information.

Suggestions:

• Sufficient staffs, logistics and fund for improvisation to be allotted in each and every office.
• Coordination among various departments has to be established or strengthened for fast and effective exchange of information.
• Liaison to be maintained with the department of information
• General awareness to be created among common people.

Group 2
Constrain:

• There is shortage of staffs and logistics.
• Coordination and liaison among various departments is also lacking.
• Lack of E-governance system and digital data maintenance is the main hindrance against effective implementation of the act.

Opportunities:

• The act will increase accountability and transparency in government departments.
• People will become aware of the govt. programmes and functions and they will be able to judge the efficiency and sincerity of the officials themselves.

Suggestions:

• Sufficient staffs, logistics and fund for improvisation to be allotted in each and every office.
• Process of data digitization and E-data storage system should be started immediately.
• A strong network system among all SPIOs in the state level should be established for better coordination. There should also have provision for district and state level conferences for SPIOs for exchanging views and ideas.

Group 3
Constrains:

• The biggest problem in effective implementation of the act is the poor record keeping system in govt. offices.
• There is shortage of staffs and logistics.

Opportunities:

• It will also minimize the misconceptions of people against govt. departments and might reduce the number of allegations if people get to know the actual situation.

Suggestions:

• Coordination among various departments has to be established or strengthened for fast and effective exchange of information.

Each participant was also given a four page questionnaire to fill up in order to find out the status of implementation of the RTI Act in respective offices and one Evaluation Form to express their views, ideas and suggestions regarding the workshop.

Mr. Subhendu Ghosh, the Sub-Divisional Officer of Bangaon delivered a concluding speech where he pointed out very meticulously various constrains to be faced in the implementation process of the act and gave some suggestions for betterment of the process of  implementation.

According to Mr Ghosh there are various constrains prevailing in our administrative system which might hinder effective implementation of the act at this moment. Few of them are mentioned below:

• Coordination and liaison among various departments is also lacking.
• Lack of E-governance system and digital data maintenance is the main hindrance against effective implementation of the act.

He has suggested few measures to improve the system and to make implementation process more efficient and effective as follows:

• Coordination among various departments has to be established or strengthened for fast and effective exchange of information.
• There should have been a monitoring system and also an action-reward system for motivation of staffs. Administrative system to be strengthened also.
• E-governance to be initiated and developed in the departments from top to bottom level.
• Staff strength has to be increased and officers should be appointed exclusively for digital data management.
• The filing system and digital data keeping system should be improvised.
• Logistics to be provided and fund for improvisation to be alloted in every office of each level.
• Most importantly the administrative system has to be strengthened.

At the end of the session Ms. Mukherjee gave her vote of thanks.