AwF-ST. XAVIER'S BISHRAMGANJ PROJECT

SECOND PHASE - CONTINUATION AND EXPANSION

TITLE OF THE PROJECT : 

“Integration of aquaculture in Watershed Management Programmes to benefit the poor People of Tripura, India”.

NAME AND ADDRESS OF THE APPLICANT:

Fr. Joseph Kizhakkechennadu sdb

Director

St. Xavier’s Bishramganj

      C/o Don Bosco Centre

Bishramganj 799103, Tripura, INDIA

NAME AND ADDRESS OF THE LEGAL HOLDER:

The Chief Functionary

St. Xavier’s Bishramganj

C/o Don Bosco Centre

Bishramganj   799 103

Tripura  - INDIA

FCRA NUMBER:      2 0 6 1 5 0 0 1 6

INTRODUCTION:  St. Xavier’s Bishramganj (SXB) is a social work organization and development wing of the Salesians of Don Bosco working in Tripura towards integrated development for all irrespective of cast, ethnic groups, and religion, with special focus on poor and marginalized, in the spirit of love and service.  It is a non-profitable, non-political, voluntary organization registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860, and is committed to the uplift of the marginalized.  Our vision is a self-sustaining, just and peaceful society based on the gospel values of empowerment, love and justice.  We commit ourselves to the empowerment of the poor and the marginalized through development strategies that release the powers of the rural poor to transform their lives. The institute works with the people, rather than for them. SXB’s strategy recognizes that the poor face multiple problems: lack of education, inadequate income opportunities, lack of scientific yet affordable know-how, ill health, a degraded environment, political oppression. SXB uses bottom-up, participatory, integrated strategies to address this interlocking nature of rural poverty. It is carrying out various Training programmes on different vocational trades, health, hygiene and environment and also to create employment opportunity for the poor people through giving them skilled training in different vocational and handloom aspects.

The St. Xavier’s Bishramganj is supporting 30 poor families with the financial help of Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF), UK by way of giving technical guidance and financial support for fish cultivation. We would like to extend this project to benefit more people and families.  In the second phase of the project we would like to select 20 more poor farmers and continue the back up support to the present group of 30 farmers.

SITUATION IN TRIPURA: Specific Problems and Needs

There are 19 major tribes who form 30% of the total population of the State.  The remaining 70% are Bengalis and Manipuris.  The history of the tribal and the non-tribal living together in the State of Tripura, has been a story of repeated outbursts of intolerance and distrust.  Of late, such violent incidents have been on the increase and fear looms in the minds of people that the entire State is on the brink of a widespread communal riot. These and other factors, historical and geographical, have combined to make Northeastern region of India one of the poorest in the Country. Besides poor communication facilities, large-scale presence of armed militancy is another factor that drives away potential investors from this region. Violence has already brought to a grinding halt the system of education and healthcare especially in the tribal dominated rural areas.   While most systems of development have ceased to function effectively, ethnic strife continues unabated claiming more and more innocent lives. The root cause of violence is poverty of the people especially the tribals. They are turned to violence and terrorism. Tripura is politically disturbed at the moment.  As there is ethnic tension between Tribal and non-tribal, the developmental process is curtailed.  The fear that exists hampers the day-to-day functioning of the community.   Since a couple of years the people, by and large are in a survival mode of mind set in a social environment of extremism and violence which is not in anyway helpful for planned progress in any field.  Besides, illiteracy, poverty, under development and unemployment tie down these people especially women and children to a miserable state of human existence.

So, the only way to bring back these people is wholesome employment. As employment in government sector is very limited and the only way is self-employment through vocational training either in mechanical, skill and agricultural including aquaculture sectors.

BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT:

This project will help integrate Aquaculture within watershed management programs to help the very poor to marginal farmers. It is necessary to educate the people about the new opportunities available and create responsibility for the protection, preservation and responsible management of all the available resources. The people to be involved in this project belong to the major tribal groups Debbarmma, Riangs, Jamatia, Tripuri, Notia and Garos, along with other sub tribes and  Muslim and Hindu families. They mainly perform agriculture and labouring work cultivating rice, vegetables, potatoes and pineapples. Other sources of livelihood are fisheries, forestry and rearing pigs, goats and poultry.  This project will assist with the integration of aquaculture to improve their income, family nutrition and create employment opportunities.

The state of Tripura is divided into four civil districts namely, Dhalai, North, South and West Tripura. It spreads over an area of 10,846 Sq K. M and  the population is around 30 Lakhs. The tribal economy is based on the principle of self-sufficiency mainly centred around the hills and forests.

St. Xavier’s Bishramganj (NGO) and Fishery College, Lembucherra have identified the needs for the developing training modules for poor tribals engaged in their livelihood on natural resources and enable them to improve their livelihood through aquaculture. This project does not envisage training as an end itself, but aims to strengthen watershed management programmes through aquaculture. This envisages imparting of comprehensive training in watershed management and upgrading the technical skills op people o  aquaculture and providing them with equipments and financial support to set their own fishery for family consumption, self-employment and income generation .

As a first step, this project is directed to approximately 20 poor families who are ready to learn and enable a living through self-employment by getting training in aquaculture. The proposal will extend existing AwF and St. Xavier’s Bishramganj activities in the area.

It is also our hope that the beneficiaries of our project will successfully go through their course of training and later become successful fish cultivators, with the technical help forthcoming from the specialists. They will become agents of peace and communal harmony in a place that is in constant disturbance. We feel that long-term objectives of this venture are peace and human dignity through self-sufficiency.

AIM OF THE PROJECT:

To improve the quality of the eco-system and meet the livelihood needs of the people, which will contribute to improve the socio-economic-nutrition-health status of people and ecological condition of the environment.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT:

1.      To utilize unused or underused land and water resources.

2.      To promote aquaculture and increase consumption of fish.

3.      To improve the socio-economic condition of the poor people through improving the productivity of the farming systems practiced by farmers with focus on aquaculture

LOCATION OF THE PROJECT:

This proposed project is located in Bishalgargh Block of West Tripura district. The project area is located around 25 K. M from district head quarter and around 35 km from the state capital Agartala. The project area consists of ten villages namely Laltilla, Masterpara, Chikancherra, Bastoli, Bangshibari, Gulirai, Amtali, Sutarmura, Luntangcherra and Padmanagr.

METHODOLOGY:

20 new farmers chosen to work on second phase this project will be trained by using the family approach wherein both husband and wife will be trained on fish culture through scheduled lessons at village level as well as bringing them to training centres as appropriate.  These trained farmers will utilizes their knowledge to renovate their own ponds, which are currently used for water storage, wild fish capture and in some cases stocking of cultivate variety of fish, but without resorting to proper aquaculture practices. Popular carp species along with few of the self-recruiting species will be introduced to ensure sustainability to the activity. Farmers will be encouraged to use the resources available for use as pond input. Integration of fishponds with other agricultural activities will be encouraged.

Support will be provided to improve the productivity of agricultural crops, horticulture, animal husbandry and aquaculture based on the felt necessity of farmers. Indian Council of Agricultural Research technical staff with expertise in various disciplines will be used to provide the required technical assistance to farmers. However, the project focus will remain on aquaculture and farmers will be assured of technical support in aquaculture; support for other activities will be facilitated and coordinated to the extent possible. In order to make this coordination and technical support to farmers possible on regular basis, it is planned to appoint a field extension worker on part time basis.

A project monitoring committee will be formed consisting of elected 4-5 members from community including the technical advisors from Central Agricultural University (Fishery College, Lembucherra) and Indian Council for agriculture Research (ICAR). On site training necessary for the farmers will be provided based on the monitoring results. Base line benchmark information will be recorded to track the changes through the project. Participatory approaches coupled with the traditional scientific methods as appropriate will be used to capture the impact of the intervention. To create confidence among the people and gain trust, the society will conduct initial training programmes and village level meetings with the technical support of experts.

The follow up support and monitoring will be done by representatives of the society and technical help will be given by the technical advisors. As we are closely associated with the developmental work carried out by Prof: M. C Nandeesha (Fishery College, Lembucherra and Dr. Santhosh, Scientist of ICAR, Regional Office, Tripura, we are confident of implementing this project successfully. From ICAR, we expect the support of technical experts belonging to other disciplines like horticulture, agriculture and animal husbandry. We request the support of Prof: Nandeesha in his capacity as AwF volunteer to provide all the necessary help and coordinate the technical component of the project

EXPECTED BENEFIT OF THE PROJECT:

The implementation of the project will benefit poor people by enabling them to better utilize the resources available within their reach through aquaculture. This project will help to increase fish consumption through the introduction of this new activity scientifically. It will also create employment opportunity. Improved watershed management will help in recharging the ground water resources, reduce soil erosion, decrease run off speed and increase agriculture productivity. In this second phase, we expect a further 20 families to derive benefits from this activity, while continuing support to the 30 families selected during the first year.

PROJECT DURATION:

The duration of the above project will be for one culture cycle covering a period of about one year .

REPORTING:

We will submit half yearly and final reports about the progress of the project to AwF. Also, on regular basis, we will bring to your notice any interesting developments and problems encountered.

PROJECT COST:

The project aims at providing technical support and minimal support essential for the people to initiate the activity to enable them to experience the benefit of the programme. While part of the project activity will be covered through local contribution, an amount of Rs: 225,000 is requested from AwF. The local contribution will be in the form of labour and other farm inputs by farmers and the support by the Training Centre to cover part of the expenses involved in monitoring, organizing regular trainings, etc.

Note:    1 million = 10 lakhs

FINANCIAL ESTIMATE OF THE ST. XAVIER’S BISHRAMGANJ-INDIA AwF  PROJECT (SECOND PHASE)

Explanation to the budget requested:

1.      Depending on the poverty level of the family, payment for the work carried by the family members for renovating their pond including hired labour will be compensated by paying the wages at the Government rate.

2.      Part of the training and follow up support expenses will be covered with the budget indicated.

3.      It is planned to restrict support to each family to a maximum of Rs: 6000/-. Families will be encouraged to make best possible decision on the utility of this support to increase production from aquaculture on a sustainable basis.

Information for transfer of funds

Name of the bank Central Bank of India, Agartala Branch

Name of the account: St. Xavier’s Bishramganj

Account No: 6963  

BANK SWIFT CODE: CBININBICAL