: Rest of India has much to learn from the Kudumbasree experiment, S.M. Vijayanand, Secretary, Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj, has said.
Kudumbasree should formulate projects to suit people’s needs, he said, after inaugurating a plenary session organised on Day 2 of an international conference on ‘Poverty eradication, women empowerment and local self-government’ organised by Kudumbasree at Kovalam here on Friday.
Later in the day, inaugurating the valedictory of the conference, P. Sainath, journalist, said Kudumbasree had led to big gains in farm productivity in the State. Even as other self-help groups focussed on small-scale ventures, Kudumbasree’s initiatives in the farm sector had garnered attention. It was able to increase food crop production and transform land lying idle into farmland. Kudumbasree also brought women more acceptance in society.
Kudumbasree community development society chairperson from Pandalam Ambili shared her experience with the gathering.
Kudumbasree Executive Director K.B. Valsalakumari, Commissioner for Rural Development K.V. Mohan Kumar, Kudumbasree director P.R. Sreekumar spoke. Earlier in the day, UNDP Country Director Jaco Cilliers said all development activities should be aimed at preserving the environment, and women were central to all development. Kerala had the responsibility to document and share with the rest of the world the participatory approaches adopted by it to preserve the good things from the past, Robert Chambers, development practitioner with the Institute of Development Studies, United Kingdom, said.
He was speaking during a presentation on sanitation, poverty alleviation and women’s empowerment. Prof. Chambers spoke at length about blind spots where sanitation was concerned. He said it was not enough to ensure availability and access to food for children. The problem of faecally transmitted infections owing to open defecation should be addressed.
He said the number of people defecating in the open was rising. So, infections in children would increase, offsetting everything done through feeding programmes.
Though the situation in Kerala was different, Kudumbasree’s challenge was to take the lead in this aspect and have a transformative effect on the whole of India, he said.
C.P. John, member, Kerala State Planning Board, said Kerala needed to top its success in sanitation with new steps, he said. He also spoke about environment fiscal reforms and poverty management. Environment fiscal reforms, he said, referred to taxes which could raise revenue while furthering environmental goals. These could include taxes on natural resources, their exploitation, and pollution. These should be discussed by local governments, he said.
