Kudumbashree Mission is all set to write yet another success story by conserving traditional rice seeds of Wayanad through Seed Bank. The project of Wayanad District Mission envisages to conserve and propagate seven vanishing indigenous rice seeds, which would be executed through Joint liability groups (JLGs) of the mission. As the traditional rice varieties are in the verge of extinction, hence Kudumbashree Wayanad District Mission came up with this initiative. The pilot project has been executed by the district mission through Kairali JLG under Poothadi CDS. Shri. I.C Balakrishnan MLA, inaugurated the seed bank on 2 October 2017. Five and half acres of fallow land at Kenichira under Poothadi grama panchayat has been utilized for this. The programme is implemented under Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP) programme.

The indigenous rice seeds include aromatic rice varities such as Gandhakasala and Jeerakasala; short-term rice seed Palthondi; medicinal rice varieties such as Chenellu and Rakthashali and long-term term rice seeds such as Veliyan and Adukkan. The harvested paddy will be preserved as seed and the cultivation will be extended across the district. Seed bank programme will be purely in organic method of cultivation.

Kudumbashree is also experimenting a new agricultural method ‘ Kainaatti’-the bioslurry pellet method to sow seeds to reduce the input cost. It is an innovative method of rice cultivation developed by Aji Kunnel, a progressive farmer in the district, which will save both time and money as there is no need to prepare a nursery for paddy plants. Organic fertiliser mixes are made in tablet format with seeds put inside and are left to germinate. Organic fertiliser for this is made using cow dung, various plant juices and panchagavya.

The mission is planning to expand the project on 300 acres next year. Wayanad District Mission will buy the seeds after harvest from the JLG group at a premium price and disburse it to 300 JLGs in the district next season to promote these indigenous seed varities.

Mechanised Coir producing units, which will create new job opportunities for Neighbourhood Group Women started working in the state. Its regarding the acceptance for the coir products in other countries and for improving the use of the same, that Kudumbashree Mission framed this programme. The programme was officially inaugurated by Dr. T.M Thomas Issac, Minister for Finance, Government of Kerala at Pariyaram, Kannur.

The new programme aims at extracting coconut fibre from raw coconut husks. The Coir Board will procure the fibre from the units. It is planned to start 30 units across the state in the first phase. The infrastructure for the programme will be met from the side of Local Self Government Department institutions, if they have any. The Kerala State Coir Manufacturing Company, Alappuzha will provide the defibering machine absolutely free to the women who are interested to start such units,which would enable them to extract fibre from raw coconut husks. For operating this machine for 8 hours, 8000 husks are needed per day.The procurement of these husks will be done by the units itself.The units may also find extra income by selling the coir pith, the byproduct of the fibre extracting process.

Preference will be given to those who wish to start micro enterprising units who an make high quality coir and value added products from this fibre. It is also planned to start units which would produce floor mats, door mats, aquarium filters and coir geotextiles.

The programme aims to secure job & income for Kudumbashree women and thereby strengthen the coir sector. The expert NHG women in this area therefore can make use of their freetime in a fruitful way and can find income out of it. The mechanised system will help to increase the production and it would increase the physical strain. The First phase activities had already been started in different panchayaths of Thrissur, Malappuram and Kazargod and soon will be started in Palakkad, Kozhikode, Kannur and Wayanad.This would attract more women to this sector and thereby maximum promotion would be given for coir products.

Kudumbashree is about to launch 'Sandesh' Mobile App for direct communication with the State-District Mission and Neighbourhood Groups. Kudumbashree Members who use smart phones may download it. The App will be inaugurated soon.

It's a notable that, by launching mobile app, the state-district officials will therefore be able to communicate the details of the new programmes and decisions to the NHG level directly.The NHG members may consult Kudumbashree officials for clearing their doubts regarding the programmes through the app. It is planned to make avail the services of the mobile app to 44 lakh member families. In the first phase of the project, 10 lakh families would get the services of the mobile app. The District Mission officials had already collected the mobile numbers of around 1000 chairpersons.

The complete development customisation and back end support is provided by Tata Consultancy services(TCS) as part of their CSR activities, making it completely free for Kudumbashree. The NHG members who need the mobile app may inform it to the concerned CDS. The mobile numbers collected through CDS will be send to District Mission Offices and then to State Mission. It is the responsibility of Management Information System of Kudumbashree Mission, to register those mobile numbers. Once the registration is complete, the NHG Members will receive the link to download the app. The app which is fully designed in Malayalam language represents a big step forward in the communication system of Kudumbashree Mission.

A state level review of urban programs, chaired by Mr Durga Shanker Mishra, IAS, Secretary to Govt of India, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation was conducted at Cochin on 03 October 2017.

Kudumbashree is the state nodal agency of Pradhan Manthri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM). Decision has been taken to expedite implementation of both schemes.

As per Pradhan Manthri Awas Yojana (PMAY) Programme, working under Central- State Ministries with the mission of achieving 'Housing for All' through Kudumbashree Mission secured the approval to build 7942 houses in Kerala. The Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee held on 27 September 2017 gave approval for the new projects. Rs 238.26 Crore is sanctioned for the same. Out of which, Rs 119.13 Crore will be met from the Central Government fund. The programme is executed in association with the Central- State Governments and Urban Local Bodies. Kudumbashree is the nodal agency of PMAY in Kerala.

Rs 1.69 Crore for renovating 96 houses also got approval. Kudumbashree checked the projects submitted by the urban local bodies in Kerala and presented it before the state level advisory committee. Finally, the approved ones were submitted before the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee. Approval is granted for building 36918 houses in Kerala altogether. Rs 1107.5 Crore is the estimated amount for building these houses. Construction of 12168 are ongoing and 229 had been completed .

The programme allows Three Lakh rupees for building houses. One and half lakh rupees will be met from the Central Government fund and the rest from State Government and local bodies fund. The programme is framed including the factors such as colony development, credit linked subsidy, affordable housing scheme and personal construction.

Nadariyan field trips are progressing in all districts. Through these field trips, balasabha members explored, researched, studied and thereby understood their culture and tradition. Specially trained Resource Persons directed them for the whole campaign.

Apart from the field trips to their own wards, 26 balasabha members from Kottayam made a field trip to Attapady which was indeed a new experience to the balasabha members of Attappady as well. They had interactions with each other, understood more about the traditional agricultural methods of tribals and danced together for Kammattiyaattam, tribal's traditional art form. They also contributed library books to the children of attappady.

In Wayanad, field trips are almost done and they are yet to publish the findings of the trip as a reference material for future. The balasabha members came up with some new information about the history which was unknown to others.

In all other districts, the campaign is in its full swing. Districts like Ernakulam, Pathanamthitta and Palakkad had already completed the field trips. Idukki, Kannur are in the final stage of the campaign. In all other districts campaign is progressing well gifting a new experience of exploration to the children.

The teams studied about the history of the evolution of the name of the places, about monuments, mansions, farming techniques, seed types, old farming tools, traditional art forms, folk arts, rural libraries, rural celebrations, mountains, valleys, rivers, eco system, transportation system, health system, old health treatment methods, health habits, history of all social protests, saving systems etc and made notes out of their findings.

A minimum of 5 students was selected from each Balasabhas of every wards in panchayaths.

Balasabha is a collective attempt to ensure the participation of children in the democratic space at the local Government level and in their community. Small Learning Groups for experimental and systematic learning, opportunities for understanding democratic process, participation in conserving environment, enabling children to unfold the intricacies of collectivization are the basic focal points of Balasabha. There are 43,000 Balsabhas in the state with 7 lakhs children as members.

Through this campaign Kudumbashree envisaged to make the students aware about the rich tradition and culture we possess and to make them able to retain those. Kudumbashree is blissful that we could ensure the active participation of balasabha members in this campaign and thereby help them to retain their roots.

Kudumbashree NRO activities will be extended to 5 more states in the country. The activities for introducing Kudumbashree model of poverty eradication is ongoing in Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

NRO's aim is to launch livelihood programmes and developmental activities by converging Panchayathi raj institutions and community based organisation structures. Such a convergence project will be started in Manipur by October 2017. Currently NRO supports Assam, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Tripura Odisha and Rajasthan in the Convergence project.

The project has been completed in the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra. In Odisha the project will be undertaken in six districts and in 40 Grama Panchayats.

NRO will conduct Startup Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Chattisgarh as part of livelihood programmes. The MoU regarding this will be signed soon. NRO activities had already been started in Chattisgarh. Presently NRO works in 11 states and 1 Union territory. NRO had received national award from Ministry of Rural Development for conducting poverty alleviation programmes in different states across the country as part of National Rural Livelihood Mission.

Kudumbashree bags the Award for Best Stall in Saras Fair held at Ahmedabad, Gujarat from 15-26 September 2017. Hasthakala unit from Kochi and Bapuji Unit from Kozhikode bagged the award for the best stall and highest sales.

On behalf of Kudumbashree Micro Enterprise units, Smt. Ambika Venu, Consultant, Micro Enterprises received the award from Shri A.K.Singh, Director, District Rural Development Agency, Ahmedabad.

Every year entrepreneurs from Kudumbashree take part in Saras Fairs organised by other states. This time members of Hasthakala unit (Ernakulam), Aavani Unit (Pathanamthitta), Bapuji Unit (Kozhikode) and 4 ME consultants took part in the fair. It is notable that they made a record sale of Rs 5 lakh within 10 days. Spices, ayurvedic products, herbal products, bamboo rice, chips, pickles, rice powder, arrowroot powder, eco friendly bags, honey and other products were available for sale in Kudumbashree stalls. Kudumbashree women consider this as an opportunity to sell their products outside our state. By taking part in saras fair outside Kerala, they are now able to find more market for their business. A marketing team was also set up in connection with saras fair for extending support for them. The products of entrepreneurs who were unable to attend the fair was also collected and displayed by the marketing team. Therefore entrepreneurs from different units could sell their products with the help of marketing team.

Kudumbashree will also take part in tge Saras fair to be held at Vijayawada from 27 September to 8 October 2017. They will also take part in the upcoming sars fairs to be held at Jaipur (Rajastan), Himanya Saras( Utharaghand), Dehradun, Goa in October, Kolkata in November and Bhilai( Chathisgarh) in December. By taking part in saras fairs across the country, entrepreneurs are getting more income and more market for their products.

New Guidelines were launched for making the audit of Kudumbashree three tier system more transparent and efficient. The guidelines was launched by Smt.S Nisha, Director, Kudumbashree Mission during the state level programme of Kudumbashree Accounts and Auditing Service Society (KAASS).

KAASS is the authorised auditing facility of Kudumbashree which include 2.7 lakh Neighborhood Groups, 19,854 Area Development Societies and 1073 Community Development Societies. 324 members of 43 groups are working in KAASS. They are working as the Micro Enterprises unit of Kudumbashree. It is for improving and making the present auditing system more efficient and transparent that new guidelines are launched. Executive Director had already given approval for the same.

It would be an achievement that KAASS auditing will therefore be in a centralized mode from now onwards. The directions for making the audit more accurate and substantial and the time limit for completing the audit as per the bylaw are also included in the guidelines.

Other than the Central-State projects worth crores, financial transactions like bank loan, micro enterprise programmes, government funds are also done through Kudumbashree three tier system. The guidelines will help in preparing a substantial audit report studying this financial transactions.

For making KAASS team more professional, training will be given to them regarding the central government's and other projects. New software will also be launched as part of making the transaction centralized. For ensuring more income to KAASS team, they will also be included in the accounts maintaining training programme of NHGs as trainers. ID cards will be issued and financial assistance will also be ensured.

Geriatric care has become a topic of high importance in Kerala's today's scenario. As per 2011 census, 13 % of the total population of Kerala are senior citizen. And it is estimated that it will become 20% by 2025. And most of them are women.Because of the notable interventions in healthcare sector, Kerala's average life expectancy is similar to that of developed countries. And as a result, the population of senior citizen in Kerala is also increasing accordingly. As per the NSS survey 2015, most of them above 65 years of age are suffering from health related issues. As the families of Kerala had confined to nuclear families, no one is left to take care of senior citizen. Hence, Kumbashree is to launch Care Giver for Senior Citizen to put an end to their isolated life devoid of fun and care.

Kudumbashree has always been concerned about the life of senior citizen of our society. Even though other programmes are there for Senior citizen, 'Care Giver for Senior Citizen' would ensure full time care for Senior citizen.

A team of physically fit men and women under 45 years of age will work in district level as care givers. Proper training will be provided to them by Kudumbashree. Beneficiaries may get their services round the clock through call centres. The facilities will include proper communication services like mobile phones and online services.

A pilot study regarding this will be conducted in Urban local bodies and panchayaths. The senior citizens who stay alone as their dear ones are abroad will be selected for this study. Bystander facility for those who lives lonely, Leisure trips, Day care facilities, assistance for pensioners will also be provided. Therefore through 'Care giver for Senior Citizen' programme Kudumbashree assures secured life for senior citizen. Kudumbashree is getting ready to gift a new life to the senior citizen.