Date: 30 Nov 2003 08:11:51 -0000 From: "Aid Orissa" Add to Address Book To: "Prasad Subramanian" CC: "Rajendra Marulkar" , "Anitha Sampath" , "Nigamanth Sridhar" , "'Gayatri Pradhan'" , "Dhanada Mishra" , dkmishra@satyam.net.in, "Shinjinee Chattopadhyay" , johnseed1@ozemail.com.au Subject: Re: Re: Regarding GanaChetana Hi all, spoke to Sunita of GC last night, she will be returning to village tonight(sunday) there is no mobile reception there... i will be visiting on 9/10 of this month with a block press... will let you know current status upon returning... Here as the answers 2 Q's... Hi Peter, We presented the Ganachetana project proposal in our CSH and here are few questions raised in the CSH ... These answers will help to take a vote on project proposal. Thanks for your reply as usual. Regards Rajendra 1) The focus of the project looks on the development of a few people (Volunteers 2) ) & development of NGO. ... People are looking for more details about how "community" will get involved & will get benefited in short term & in long term? [Note: People are not questioning the NGO's credibility] The community will be involved from the very beginning, the labour and builders will all be local,(currently there are 6 laborers and a local builder involved in the construction of the Ashram foundation) as the Ashram evolves the community will work with the GC team as hands on experience in the day to day running and experimenting with viable and alternative organic agricultural, pisiculture, and sustainable techniques appropriate for the area. As new techniques are developed, short workshops will be held to disseminate the techniques to the broader community. These workshops will run on a regular basis so as to cater to the villager’s time. The GC field staff will visit the villages to asses and advise the villagers on implementation of disseminated techniques. Villagers will also be able to avail organic seeds, planting material and loan tools etc. 2)How much do the villages earn on an average? How is poverty line defined in the proposal? In GC’s working area the average income per month is very low (less than US10.oo per month), GC will be paying US$0.80 per day for labour and US$ 1.50 per day to the builder) cash plays only a small part of their survival as they have very little opportunity to earn, this proposal plans to enhance the villager’s opportunity to earn income through the introduction of viable and sustainable techniques. These techniques will also assist in improving the health and well being of the community by availing nutritious organic foods and a chemical free environment for them to live in. it will also ensure that the wildlife of the area will improve as the food cycle recovers. 3) AID-Columbus funding is for 6 months .. What's the start date & end date ? When do they need next round of funding ? [2nd half of phase-I] Monsoon is just coming to it’s end so the civil work for the Ashram will commence, the live fencing is in progress and the fields are being prepared for their first crop. The first cheque had taken nearly 2 months to clear so it is important that the second phase is released in adequate time. We can say that the end period for this installment is Feb. 2004; if the second installment were to be released by Dec. 2003 it would ensure that the construction and activities flow. Delay would jeopardize the process as the community would avail other activities during the waiting period and may not be available when needed. 4) Has the work been started now as the funding has reached NGO? What activities are done till now? When can we get the intermediate report? As mentioned above work has now just commenced, we will be visiting GC in the near future and will submit an intermediate report upon returning. 5) Does NGO have any innovative techniques to be used in the Demo farm that the Villagers can benefit from? [Also a list of skill sets volunteers already have & skill set they will get trained in will be helpful] GC staffs have undergone a number of training programs that have been conducted by GoI. And NGO’s in order to enhance their knowledge of appropriate and viable techniques for their area, these include: local resource management (NTFP; nursery; sustainable maintenance), food processing (jams, squash, powders, pickles, sweets, and drying), organic agriculture (composting, mulching, vermi-composting, pisiculture,) 5) Can you give us some idea about the thought process went behind in deciding 6% contingency in budget? Some contingency component is necessary within such a project to cover unforeseen or added expenses incurred during construction. The norm is between 6 % to 10%; I had suggested that they keep as low as possible since they and the local villagers will be handling construction aspects and not relying on contractors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 Prasad Subramanian wrote : > > >Hi all, > >Here are Mohan Mahanta's contact phone numbers in Keonjhar: (I hope some >of you speak Oriya, that would make things easier) > >06766 236011 (as for Tarani Mahanta) >94 371 39616 > >Sorry for the delay in replying, and for the brevity of this e-mail! > > - Prasad. > >On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Shinjinee Chattopadhyay wrote: > > > Hi Prasad > > > > First of all, congratulations on your baby! I wish your family all the happiness. > > > > Rajendra and I spoke to Peter on the weekend, and it seems that the first phase funding check was cleared about 1 month ago. Also, he said they just about started the construction since monsoon just ended in Orissa. We will try to approve the second phase of funding asap, however we are waiting for a progress report from Mohanbhai or Peter after some work has been done on the garden or the ashram. Peter kindly said that he would try to work on one and get it to us when he has the chance. It would be nice if one of us at Austin could speak to Mohanbhai, to introduce ourselves. We were wondering whether there is any phone number which we could call Mohanbhai at? > > Thanks for emailing us. Do reply when you get a chance. > > More later > > > > Shinjinee > > > > Prasad Subramanian wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > Mohanbhai from Gana Chetana called me yesterday to ask about the next > > phase of funding. He said that AID's funding formally runs out in > > December..although, as usual, they can stretch things. More importantly, > > they are doing some construction work which definitely needs to be > > completed before the onset of the monsoon (roughly June). Given the > > inherent delays in our system, and the fact that the check takes a good 1 > > - 1.5 months to get encashed, I think that we should proceed fast. > > > > I recently became a father; we had a baby girl on Nov 8. So I'm rather > > busy with a lot of things, so please understand if I cannot attend to > > e-mails promptly. I'll do my best to expedite matters. Thanks, > > > > - Prasad. > > > > > >-- >Prasad Subramanian >IUCAA, P.O Bag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune - 411 007, India >Phone: (020) 569 1414, ext. 304; FAX: (020) 569 0760 >e-mail: psubrama@iucaa.ernet.in >http://www.iucaa.ernet.in/~psubrama > Pete AID Orissa 7 Apollo Vihar, Neelandri Vihar, Bhubaneswar, India 751 021 Ph: 9437185069