• Decentralisation and the Peoples’ Plan Campaign, which set the context.
• The recommendations of the three member Task Force, which proposed an engaging relationship between community organisations and PRIs without scope for subordination.
• The design of the community organisation, which foresaw the need for convergence, and the campaign mode of implementation through PRIs that the Kudumbashree Mission adopted for expansion of the community organisation network.

Kudumbashree was born in the context of decentralisation of powers to Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRI) and a State-wide campaign to formulate the Ninth Five Year Plan from below. While decentralisation meant transfer of substantial funds to PRIs and deployment of functionaries, the State-wide campaign popularly known as the People’s Plan Campaign (PPC) tried to mobilise people at an unprecedented scale to formulate development plans locally.

Following the 73^rd and 74^th Constitutional amendments, the government of Kerala had passed new Acts for panchayats and urban local governments in 1994. The government further approved the Rules for the implementation of the two Acts. State Finance Commission and State Election Commission were also set up. Elections were held to the three-tier panchayats and urban local governments in September 1995.

On 18^th September 1995, a government order was issued devolving functions to Gram Panchayats. This government order came into effect from the next Gandhi Jayanti Day - 2nd October 1995. A new government took over the State administration following the assembly elections in May 1996. The new government announced the devolution of a third of the State’s annual plan funds to the local governments. The government also launched the People’s Plan Campaign (PPC) for formulating the Ninth Plan from below.

It was in this context that the State government announced the formation of the State Poverty Eradication Mission (SPEM) in the State budget of 1997-98. Shri. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister of India launched Kudumbashree at Malappuram on 17^th May 1998.

Even though the Kudumbashree idea had emerged out of a series of events and experiences, it was the concrete context of decentralisation and the People’s Plan Campaign that placed it firmly within the framework of PRIs and bestowed upon it specific roles in the new development approach.

PRIs as they exist today in Kerala and the Kudumbashree community organisation in fact developed almost concurrently.

After the passing of the Panchayat Raj Act and the Municipalities Act in 1994 and the devolution of functions to Panchayats in 1995, the next Panchayat elections were held in 1995. The new government that took over the State administration in 1996 announced the devolution of funds and took steps to deploy functionaries to the local government institutions. The government also announced the Peoples’ Plan Campaign, the mass mobilisation programme to draw up the Ninth Plan from below.

Therefore, 1996-99 was a period of significant churning that led to the evolution of local government institutions in Kerala as they exist today. Kudumbashree was born in the midst of these events. Kudumbashree started gaining its ground and establishing itself as an important and unique agency with evolving roles at the local government level during this period.

One of the outstanding contributions of the Peoples’ Plan Campaign had been the placement of gender dimension as a key theme in development planning. The State Planning Board conducted special training programmes for PRIs on addressing women’s issues. The early training manuals that the State Planning Board had prepared for decentralised planning had separate chapters on women and development.

The State Planning Board took steps to ensure the integration of the gender dimension in every project prepared by the local government institutions. In the standard format in which the local governments were to prepare their projects, it was made mandatory to include a statement on how the project would impact women under the chapter of benefit cost analysis.

A Women Component Plan (WCP) was introduced for which Gram Panchayats were expected to earmark 10 percent of their annual plan funds. As part of Women Component Plan, several Gram Panchayats took up awareness projects in study of women’s status.

In 1998, the State Planning Board published a special training manual for working groups on Women Component Plan titled ‘Women Development’ (Planning Manual Volume 11). Following this, ‘People’s Planning and Women Empowerment’ was published as training manual for the state level training of the Working Groups on Women Component Plan in 1999. Two subsequent volumes that the State Planning Board brought out - ‘Equity in Development’ and ‘Study of Women’s Status’ – took forward the discourse on the gender dimension in development.

The Planning Board also consolidated the experiences of women elected representatives across the State and published it as a book. A handout titled ‘Women and Local Level Planning’ was published to provide further directions to the planning process at the local government level. Subsequently in 2000, Planning Board published a volume titled ‘Peoples’ Planning and Women’s Advancement’.

By insisting on a section on ‘impact on women’ in the benefit cost analysis of every project that the local government institutions prepared, and by including gender as a theme for the massive training programmes rolled out for the Peoples’ Planning exercise, the State Planning Board systematically brought in the gender dimension into the development discourse associated with the People’s Plan Campaign.

Ayalkkoottasangamam (Convention on Neighbourhood Groups)

The first two years of the Peoples’ Plan Campaign (1997-98 and 1998-99) brought out several innovative experiments by local governments from different parts of the State. Neighbourhood Groups of various forms were attempted by different local governments for purposes varying from mobilisation for gram sabha to planning and implementing community based water supply schemes and other development initiatives.

There was a growing realisation on the potential of Neighbourhood Groups in mass mobilisation for local level planning. There was a need to examine the different emerging models and gaining from them so that these groups are used as forums for local level planning across the State. It was in this context that a large convention of Gram Panchayats with experience in Neighbourhood Groups was organised in Thiruvananthapuram. The convention had two convenors – N. Jagajeevan and Dr. Joy Elamon, both persons associated with the People's Plan Campaign in different capacities.

Neighbourhood Groups existed in several parts of the State before the formation of Kudumbashree. These included groups formed in Alappuzha and Malappuram through the government-UNICEF initiative, Self-Help Groups (SHGs) formed by NGOs, groups promoted by Gandhian groups, and Neighbourhood Groups promoted by Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad in the Panchayats covered under the Kerala Research Project on Local Level Development (KRP-LLD). There were also groups formed by religious organisations and their outfits.

In preparation to the convention, five commissions were formed to examine the role of NHGs at the local governments across the State. The commissions were on governance, institutional finance, social work, women empowerment, and self-employment. These commissions were to study the models of NHG performance in these sectors and present their observations in the convention.

The convention was called Ayalkootta Sangamam and was held over three days in October 1999. More than 400 Gram Panchayats and 20 Municipalities were represented in the event; around 100 Gram Panchayats presented their NHG models and their experiences in working with them. The convention was organised in such a way that various types of experiences with NHGs across different sectors were presented and discussed thematically.

The way the convention discussed the various dimensions of NHGs and topics pertaining to the working of NHGs and PRIs shows the extent of awareness on convergence already in existence among the leaders of decentralisation.

At the end of the first day, the chairpersons of the panels summarized the discussions in their respective panels. On the second day, the five commissions presented their papers in five parallel sessions.

• Governance –T. Gangadharan
• Institutional finance – M.A. Aboobakkar
• Social work–Joy Elamon
• Women empowerment–T.N. Seema
• Self – Employment–K.N. Harilal

The discussion that followed brought out insights on the NHG experience till then and generated ideas on NHG structure and its promotion in the context of the State government’s setting up of Kudumbashree Mission. The ideas were discussed, compiled and presented at a plenary session attended by all the NHG families of Ulloor Gram Panchayat. T. M. Thomas Isaac, Member, State Planning Board made the presentation.

At present, relationship between the Kudumbashree Community Network and PRIs are through the following institutional systems.

• Ward member of Gram Panchayat or the ward Councillor of the Municipality or Municipal Corporation is the patron of Area Development Societies (ADS)
• Five women Ward Members of the Gram Panchayat or five women Councillors of the Municipality or Municipal Corporation are ex-officio members of the CDS General Body and Executive Committee.
• Member Secretary of the CDS is an official deputed by the local government. In the case of Gram Panchayats the Member Secretary is the Assistant Secretary of the Panchayat; in urban governments, Health Officer working as Project Officer of the UPA Cell of the Municipality or Municipal Corporation is the Member Secretary of the CDS.
• Welfare Standing Committee of the Gram Panchayat has a supportive and leadership role in all the economic and social empowerment programmes implemented by Kudumbashree as it is responsible for poverty eradication.
• There is an Evaluation Committee at the local government level chaired by the head of the local government; the CDS chairperson is the Member Secretary of the Evaluation Committee, the member secretary of the CDS is its convenor. The Secretary of the local government institution, chairpersons of Welfare and Development Standing Committees, all members of the Steering Committee of the local government, the women members/ Councillors nominated by the local government to the CDS, and all heads of departments and divisions under the local government are members of the Evaluation Committee.

During the early days of Kudumbashree, one day Mayors of the five city corporations walked into the office of the minister for local self-government. The Mayors told the Minister that the Kudumbashree CDSs were functioning as bodies parallel to the constitutionally elected committees of local government institutions. They demanded that the CDSs be brought under the control of the councils.

Paloli Mohammad Kutty, the then minister for local self-government spoke to the mayors in his characteristic patient style. He pointed out that the Kudumbashree community organisations were designed to work hand in hand with the local governments; and that they were not to be subordinated. He explained that the relationship between the community organisation and local government should be one of mutual respect. Community organisation would be accountable to the local government in cases where they used the local government’s funds.

Kudumbashree community network was visualised as an agency working closely with the PRIs. PRIs had a leadership role in the expansion of the Kudumbashree network too. However, as the comments by the former minister indicates, there had been problems in the relationship between the community network and the PRIs. CDS was subjugated to the Gram Panchayats; presidents of the Gram Panchayats would even chair CDS meetings. Nomination to the post of CDS chairperson kept the upper hand of the political dispensation ruling the local government intact in the relationship between the community network and the PRIs.

A Landmark Event: Introduction of Common Bylaws in 2008

The relationship between the Kudumbashree community network and local governments as we see them today has clearly been the result of the common bylaws and the subsequent elections to the CDS introduced in 2008. Introduction of the bylaws led to the elimination of many gray areas in the relationship between the two entities. The churning that happened following the decision to have elected leadership for CDS led to a re-organisation of forces and eventually to institutionalised relationship between the community network and the local governments.

The new initiative addressed a few critical problems at the interface between the CDS and the PRIs.

First of all, there were problems relating to the lack of a uniform set of bylaws across local governments. The bylaws that were in existence in many places were in fact contrary to the very spirit of Kudumbashree as a women's agency. For instance, there were bylaws that bestowed the powers to dissolve a CDS up on the secretary of the Gram Panchayat or the Charge Officer. There were bylaws that offered the CDS committee a permanent nature. Bylaws were mostly unclear on the roles of sub committees and their members. There were bylaws without any clause on punitive actions in case of financial irregularities; there were bylaws that did not have any mention on audit at all.

Second, there was a problem with the very design of ADS. The number of members at the CDS coming up from the ADS level was restricted to nine. This meant that all ADS could not be represented at the CDS. There was also no one-to-one correspondence between a ward and ADS.

Third, may bylaws lacked any provision of reservation for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe members in the committees.

It had been pointed out that the very name 'Charge Officer' had a connotation of a powerful position above that of the members of the CDS (even though the early documents of Kudumbashree did mention 'Member Secretary' as an alternative and interchangeable term to 'Charge Officer". The nomination system gave local governments powers to dictate terms to the CDS of the day.

With the introduction of the common bylaws and elections in 2008, the relationship between CDS and PRI entered a new era.

Uniform bylaws were formulated and introduced through a campaign programme that facilitated organisational learning across the community network. Bylaws were made uniform for rural and urban community networks. Representation was ensured at every level; the system of nine-member committee was done away with in the case of CDS. All ADS were to get representation in CDS. Provisions were made for reservation of Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) members in the committees.

Membership conditions were redefined to make Kudumbashree a network of all the women who aspire to be its members. Roles of sub committees and members were defined. Accounting guidelines and audit processes were put in place. 'Member Secretary' replaced 'Charge Officer'. Bylaws also made provisions for enabling CDS to function as micro finance institutions and to work in collaboration with cooperative institutions. The bylaws allowed CDS to buy shares of cooperatives.

With clear norms for elections prescribed in the bylaws, CDS started evolving into an agency independent of the local government.

The new bylaws that came into force on 8th August 2008 was prepared by a sub committee appointed for the purpose by the Kudumbashree Governing Body. The committee members were the following.

• Dr T.N. Seema
• Ms Baby Balakrishnan, President, Kanhangad Block Panchayat
• Prof R. Bindu, Mayor, Corporation of Thrissur
• Ms Beena Sunny, President, Puzhakkattiry Grama Panchayat and Vice President, Gram Panchayat Association
• Adv Suresh Babu, Chairman, Punalur Municipality

Thus the context was set for convergence by the People's Plan Movement, the recommendations of the three-member task force, and the design and campaign mode of expansion of the community organisation network adopted by the mission. The three factors that contributed to the institutionalisation of convergence came up from the State government as well as from the Kudumbashree’s State Mission. The three factors were the following.

• The State government’s recognition of Kudumbashree’s role in local level planning through Plan Guidelines
• Kudumbashree Mission’s attempts in strengthening convergence.
• Kudumbashree role in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM).

Towards the last years of the Ninth Five Year Plan (1997-2002), the Kudumbashree community network had been expanded to cover the whole of the State. The focus during the first two years of the Tenth Plan (2002-03 and 2003-04) was on the shift from a campaign mode in local level planning to institutionalisation. With the State facing fiscal stress during the third year, the State government came up with revised guidelines for the Tenth Plan in 2004.

Two objectives of the Tenth Plan provided space to Kudumbashree community network in local level planning.

• Promoting local economic development by increasing production and productivity of agriculture and allied sectors and the traditional and small-scale industries with focus on employment generation and poverty reduction.
• Move towards greater social justice and reduction in gender disparities.

Tenth Plan introduced Anti-Poverty Sub Plan as a mandatory component for local governments.

Anti-Poverty Sub-Plan was an attempt to break away from the nature of conventional poverty eradication programmes. The State government guidelines necessitated the preparation of the Anti-Poverty Sub-Plans based on problems identified by the poor and solutions proposed by them.

The plan guidelines envisaged the following roles for the Kudumbashree community organisation in formulation of Anti-Poverty Sub-Plans.

• Identification of grass-root level problems and formulation of micro-plans by Neighbourhood Groups; Neighbourhood Groups were to handle this role in their capacity as the local level organisation of the poor.
• Consolidation of micro plans prepared by all the Neighbourhood Groups in a ward and formulation of ward level plans by ADS.
• Consolidation of ward level plans and preparation of CDS level plan by CDS.

Once the local governments approved the CDS level plans, they became their Anti-Poverty Sub-Plan.

Guidelines for the Tenth Five Year Plan and further the revised guidelines issued in 2004 reinforced Kudumbashree’s role in local level planning and their relationship with the local self-government institutions. Provisions in guidelines meant the following roles and space for Kudumbashree community organisation in working in convergence with the PRIs.

• Planning agency: The community organisation supports the PRIs in planning, through participation in Working Groups and formulation of plans. (In the case of Anti-Poverty Sub-Plan, the entire three tier structure involves in plan formulation at the neighbourhood, ward, and local government levels).
• Credit channelizing agency: The community organisation system has been accepted as a credit channelizing agency for development programmes.
• Implementing agency: The community organisation as implementing agency for PRIs; this role could be either in the form of direct implementation or of supportive nature. In addition, the community organisation has also been designated as an agency for community contracting.
• Agency for community mobilisation: Community organisation system to play a role in mobilising communities to make Gram Sabha meetings more effective. Guidelines suggested mobilisation through NHGs.

The following table provides a summary of Kudumbashree roles and spaces for strategic collaboration and convergence with PRIs.

Guidelines for preparation of Anti-Poverty Sub Plan provided in Annexure 1 of the revised guidelines for the Tenth Plan specified roles for Kudumbashree community organisation in detail.

The guidelines for the Eleventh Five Year Plan followed the Tenth Plan in letter and spirit in terms of Kudumbashree role and convergence with PRIs. Certain additional roles and responsibilities mentioned further reinforced Kudumbashree community organisation’s position within the local governance framework. An important addition in the guidelines for Eleventh Plan was the insistence on procurement of nutritional supplement under ICDS from Kudumbashree units.

With the increased emphasis on productive sector, Gram Panchayats found themselves in an unenviable situation. Many of them were unable to make significant expenditure in productive sector. This was the time when Kudumbashree pushed its collective farming forward. It also started a campaign on local economic development and conducted three regional workshops. These workshops were used as platforms for initiating exploration of local opportunities for local economic development.

In 2008, when Kudumbashree Mission accepted standardised bylaws for the community organisations, Evaluation Committees were formed at the PRI level on the lines of that existed in urban local government institutions.

The Evaluation Committee has the following members; the size of the committee is 25 for rural and 40 for urban local governments.

1. Secretary of the local government
2. CDS chairperson(s)
3. The women ward members/ councillors nominated to the CDS by the local government
4. Department heads and programme heads under the local government
5. Two former CDS office bearers who are ex-officio members of the CDS
6. The three volunteers of the CDS (income generation, health and education, infrastructure)
7. Representatives of financial institutions
8. Chairpersons of Welfare Standing Committee and Development Standing Committee of the local government
9. All the members of the local government Steering Committee (the committee consisting of the chairpersons of all the Standing Committees), and convenors of the five sub committees of the CDS (Thrift and Credit, Micro Enterprises, Social Development, Infrastructure, Employment Guarantee Scheme).

The Evaluation Committee serves as a platform for convergence in the implementation of development activities in the local governments. It approves the CDS Action Plan and ensures that the activities proposed in the action plan finds place in the allocative plans of the LSG, transferred institutions and credit plans of financial institutions.

An outcome of the process relating to the new bylaws has been the importance that ADS gained as the mid-layer in the community structure. ADS has been there since the early concept of the Kudumbashree community organisation. However, it had continued as an entity without clearly defined roles and a space in the community structure. The new bylaws aligned ADS with the wards. The new bylaws and the election process brought in ADS into assuming roles as important as those of the other two layers.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) added to the strengthening of ADS. ADS representatives were to be the ‘Mates’ for scheme implementation. Close to two lakh women were trained to work as ‘Mates’ in MGNREGS. This started emerging as a cadre developing knowledge on identification and estimation of works, and in work supervision. MGNREGS and its link with collective farming lead to the rejuvenation of the entire structure, and it benefited ADS the most.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (NREGA) guarantees 100 days of employment in a financial year to any rural household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work.

NREGA stands out as a landmark legislation in India’s history for various reasons.

• The Act was formulated through wide range of consultations with people’s organisations.
• The Act addresses working people and their fundamental right to life with dignity.
• The Act makes employment a right; people are not at the mercy of anyone to access work.
• The Act empowers ordinary people to play active roles in implementation.

Objective of the Act

The basic objective of the Act is to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. This work guarantee can also serve other objectives such as generating productive assets, protecting the environment, empowering rural women, reducing rural-urban migration, and fostering social equity, among others.

India had rural wage employment programmes for several decades; but these were not really effective and had been fraught with several problems including corruption in implementation. What NREGA did was to transform the wage employment programme into a rights-based scheme, where people can demand work. It was the first ever attempt to help the rural poor access public employment through legislation.

NREGA was enacted in 2005, and the scheme was subsequently named ‘Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

Basic Implementation Principles

• Collaborative partnership and public accountability: The Act envisages a collaborative partnership between the central government, the State governments, the panchayats and the local community. Broadly, the main implementation activities are at the Village and Block levels; coordination is at the Block and District levels. Planning, supervision, and monitoring take place at all levels (Village, Block, District, and State). At each level, the Act sees the concerned authorities to be accountable to the community.
• Community participation: The Gram Sabha is the statutorily mandated institutional mechanism for community participation. In addition, other methods of community participation could be evolved: local vigilance and monitoring committees, workers’ associations, local beneficiary committees, self-help groups, user groups and other grass-root structures. Active community participation is particularly important for ensuring transparency and public accountability.
• Role of Panchayats: The panchayats at each level will be the principal authorities for planning and implementation of the schemes under the Act.
• District Programme Coordinator and Programme Officer: The overall responsibility for ensuring that the scheme is implemented according to the Act belongs to the district programme coordinator at the district level and programme officer at the block level.
• Coordination among agencies: Panchayats at different levels will need to coordinate with each other for the effective implementation of the Act. Similarly, Panchayats and District / Block administration will have to work together.
• Resource support: The central and State governments will facilitate the implementation of the Act through timely and adequate resource support.

MGNREGS implementation was sequenced in three phases; starting with the 200 most backward districts in 2006, another set of 130 districts were covered during 2007-08, and the whole nation was covered in the third phase beginning 1^st April 2008.

Highlights

• Implementation of the Act laid emphasis on institutions of local government, the PRIs.
• It followed a three-tier governance structure involving planning at the Village, Block and District levels.
• Act had ‘promoting sustainable development of rural economy through the generation of productive assets.
• Panchayats were authorised to plan, design, and execute the projects.
• Panchayats were to allocate the expenditure of material and labour in a 40:60 ration, thus keeping the emphasis on labour.
• The State governments were required to meet payments for one-fourth of the material cost, including the wages of skilled and semi-skilled workers.
• Central government was to meet the remaining expenditure on materials and the whole expenditure on wage payment to unskilled workers.
• The Act required the State government to pay unemployment allowance in case it failed to fulfil the legal guarantee within 15 days of application.
• The Act insisted on at least one-third of the persons who have registered and sought work to be women.
• The Act made restricted the use of machines and contractors, along with providing the medical and accidental benefits to the MGNREGS workers.

In order to encourage female participation, the Act made provision for crèche for children along with other facilities of shade, water, and first-aid.

The Act had certain built in mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability.

• The Act authorised Gram Sabhas within panchayats to conduct regular social audit of the projects taken up.
• In order to ensure transparency in wage payments, it engaged Banks / Post Offices.
• The Act provided for grievance redressal through the institution of Ombudsman at the district level (this is yet to be implemented).

Kudumbashree and MGNREGS

When MGNREGS was implemented in Kerala in 2005-06, Kudumbashree emerged as a major player in the implementation process within the Panchayat Raj framework.

At the time of introduction of MGNREGS, there was scepticism on its feasibility given the relatively higher levels of wages existed in the state.

Community Network’s Role in MGNREGS

Community Network’s Role through Stages

ADS nominating the mate for MGNREGS has been cited as a factor that contributed to the quality of the programme in Kerala, especially when compared with some of the states where mates have been contractors, and invariably, men.

Role of the MGNREGS Mate

• Supervision of work sites
• Daily attendance and muster roll
• Facilitating applications for job cards
• Submission of filled muster rolls
• Facilitating participatory identification of works in the Panchayat