Report on Routes to Livelihoods and Livelihoods

Diversification

A Report Submitted to

Dr. Abhijeet

In partial fulfilment of the requirements of the course

ISPE

By

Soumyajyoti Mitra - 1911255

Section C

On

28-02-2020
Our group had been assigned to the village ‘Kiyawaton Ka Phala’. The village is located in
Girwa Tehsil in the district of Udaipur, Rajasthan. It stands at a distance of 46km from the
Girwa, the sub-district headquarter and Udaipur, the district headquarter. The gram panchayat
for the village is Bemla. The village is encompassed in area of approximately 2.19 sq. km.

The village has a total population of approximately 502 people and the number of households
settles down to around 101 in numbers. A large proportion of people are from Scheduled
Tribe (around 90 %) category especially Meenas with the rest being from the Rajput families.

Rural men and women engage in diverse set of activities to mitigate their risk, maximize their
income and thus improve their livelihood in the due process. The activities can broadly be
divided into farming and non-farming activities. The effectiveness of the different activities
in attaining superior livelihood depends on various socio-economic, environmental and
political factors surrounding the rural space. Thus there is a need for sustainable improvement
in the livelihoods of the poor people and this could be obtained by engaging the rural people
in the macro level development of the economy.

The majority of the households interviewed by our group on an average had 2-3 bighas of
land. The main cultivated crop in the village was that of maize and wheat. Maize being a rain
fed kharif crop is usually sown just before the arrival of monsoon and harvested post the
retreat and so was the case in our village. On the hand, wheat being a rabi crop was sown in
the period between October and December and harvested between February and May. As the
cultivated land is very less, the households were not left with excess harvested crop to sell it
in the market and were just enough to sustain their livelihood. The only source of water for
irrigation was wells and through natural monsoon. There were no other source of water like
canals.

Elderly people in the villages above the age of 60 received pensions from the government of
INR 700 per month. They were also engaged in the agriculture. These were usually the
people who had no or very minimal education. They did not usually look out for jobs outside
the village and managed with the returns from agriculture.

The people who were in the middle aged group had education up to class 8/9 on an average
and apart from working in agriculture looked for other means of livelihood. They usually
worked as contractual labors in and outside the village. This gave them a monthly
remuneration of INR 7000-8000 per month. However, very few or close to none of the
villagers were employed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee
Act (MNREGRA).

Young people in the village also worked as contractual labors and simultaneously on the
family cultivated land. They usually worked as laborers at construction sites and other similar
unskilled activities. Some also used to travel to the cities on a regular basis seeking better
opportunities.

Some of the villagers also worked as daily wage workers in the phosphate mines and factory
shops near the Udaipur city.

The women in the house worked on the agricultural fields along with the men and were
engaged in the household activities. Some also worked as contractual part time laborers or as
household help outside the village.

Apart from working as contractual labors and agricultural work some people were also
engaged in their own business in the market nearby. They owned shops and sold variety of
items as per the requirement of the people in the vicinity. The majority of the product they
used to procure from the city on a weekly basis.

As the majority of the households had agricultural land ranging from 2-3 hectares there were
no instances of hiring agricultural labors. There were neither instances of people working on
other’s land as laborers.

The penetration of government jobs in the village were near to none. None of the villagers
were employed under the MNREGA scheme and the people were left on their own to find
means of livelihood. Moreover, when interrogated it showed that the people over there were
not much informed about the government schemes that could help come out of the financial
distress they are currently in. Overall, it shows that the village being not that far from the city
of Udaipur has minimal outreach in terms of employment opportunities and the help from the
government in uplifting the population can be termed as negligible. The government needs to
take a step ahead and make sure its schemes penetrate the untapped villages like the ones
audited by our group and offer the people more than just means of livelihood. The people
needs to be made more aware of the various opportunities that could help them earn better
than what they usually are able to and new programs and schemes needs to be implemented at
the individual, household and community level and the rural people should be made part of
the macro level development process.