People’s Grain Bank in Thuamul Rampur, third most under developed block of Orissa, again thanks to Antodaya & OTELP

Contributed By: Shri Dillip Kumar Das

Chairman ANTODAYA

Grain Bank to face the distress –ANTODAYA experience

 Traditionally the tribals and other weaker sections of the tribal dominated pockets of Orissa face food stress during rainy season every year. In Thuamul Rampur the situation is even worse than the other areas of the state. It is third most under developed block of Orissa as stated in the report of Planning and coordination department.

In this backdrop ANTODAYA had a study during 1997 and found the following

To face the distress condition people go for loan from the money lenders and fall prey to their trap and get exploited.

The system of loan and repayment
For the loan of just five to six months the money lender charges the above rate of interest and if the loan is not repaid in the first year then cumulative interest / compound interest charged over both principal as well as on the interest. Their plight does not end here. During the rainy days people were not getting Rice neither from the PDS shop nor from the open market as the area gets cutoff due to flood in the streams and rivers around them.

SEASONAL FOOD AVAILABILTY IN THUAMUL RAMPUR AREA

Traditional Coping Mechanism

DUDI

• Existence of crop diversity

• Forest based economy
• Kutumb Panty (Traditional village Grain Bank)

Types of Grain Banks:

Kutumb Panthi:
It was the traditional Grain Bank exist in the villages and was the symbol of Inter dependency among villagers. But it was controlled by the traditional leaders and time and again needs revival which is difficult

Grain Banks established after NGO intervention:
Initially it started working with participation from the community and after some years due to lack of matching assistance and clear vision get defunct for some times. Need regular motivation.

Grain Banks with support from ITDA (Government of Orissa)
Matching support in terms of Grain & storage facilities made the grain banks functional in most of the cases and running comparatively well as the monitoring part lies with the NGOs. But the repayment mechanism needs some more attention as well as reformation to suit the needs of the target community.

The grains in these grain banks are not monetised and it can not attract bank linkage facilities. It also targets only the tribal households in a village

In the year 2003 ANTODAYA started grain Banks in 16 villages of Nakrundi and Kerpai GP with support from NABARD in an innovative way. Those 16 villages except Dandpadar village are now included in three MWS (Sikerguda, Maltipadar & Kandulguda) and they run the grain banks to face the distress situation.

After the intervention with support from OTELP the villagers of those villages though have more access to wage employment and food grain they still continue to maintain the grain banks. They use to store the grains in their traditional DUDI made out of Bamboo. The grains saved by the community helps them during stress period and emergencies. This learning helped us in initiating the grain banks in other OTELP target villages.

During one of the JRM visits Mr. C.K Ramachandran cited the example of SILO storage bins which are safer than the Bamboo made DUDI. Though the grain Banks initiated by ITDA in past days had the metal bins those were too small and supplied only to those villages where grain banks were established by ITDA. Those bins were not capable to store a big amount of grains by which the villagers can supply loan to the entire village at time of need. The JRM also recommended in their report to promote SILO bins.

On the recommendations of the JRM ANTODAYA had facilitated the community to make provisions in their AWPB – 2009-10 for purchase of SILO bins. In the village meetings it was also decided to have more decentralised grain banks (at the SHG level) and accordingly it was calculated to take 8-12 family as one unit. To meet the need of these families one grain bank must have atleast 300 KG grains stored to meet the stress period of one family for one month till they get their next PDS stock. Accordingly the bins were ordered with Orissa Consumer Cooperative Federation Ltd. Jeypur branch.

To minimise the cost the storage bins were prepared at the Mohangiri village (in the field itself) and one SILO is made for 8-12 families having capacity to store 300-320 KGs of rice /grain. The cost of one SILO came to Rs. 2300/- which is met out of DIF component of OTELP. Now the bins are supplied to the individual SHGs and the grain Banks are managed by them.

Repayment

The rate of interest is fixed by the community themselves and it is 25% on an average. The repayment is also flexible. If one loanee from the grain bank is unable to repay the grain he/she had taken from the grain bank can repay other available grain or NTFP item calculating the cost of the grain taken as loan.

Learning

We have learnt a valid lesson. At the time of making the SILO we only considered the cost factor and to minimise the cost we tried to make big / optimum size bins. But we did not took the point of housing pattern of the target community into consideration and now in almost all the villages the community is unable to take the bins inside their houses as their doors are smaller than the diameter of the SILO. Now they are taking out the doors, pushing the SILO into the house and then again re-fixing the doors of the house.

Here we would suggest, in future if any organisation want to introduce SILO among the community then they have to make it keeping the housing pattern of the community in mind.