Innovative livelihood techniques being used at Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojna(RGMVP)

RGMVP's Livelihood Enhancement initiative is built on the Micro Credit Planning (MCP) process through which each rural household can plan its finances through a participatory method based on the following principles:
1. Income must increase
2. Expenditure should decrease
3. Employment must increase
4. Risks should decrease
An important aspect of MCP is to ensure that every household has two or three sources of income to build financial and social security of the poor. The Livelihood Enhancement initiative facilitates and supports the poor's acquisition of one or more sources of livelihoods through a comprehensive and holistic approach through the following:

Dairy Programme
One of the focal aspects of the Livelihood Enhancement Programme is the fostering and promotion of dairy activity amongst the SHG women on a large scale. Dairy is an activity that most rural households are already familiar with. RGMVP's endeavour is to use this basic experience of dairy and to build upon it by teaching SHG women the best practices of dairy, and motivating them to increase the milk yields of their cattle through these best practices. While RGMVP provides extension services by creating an enabling environment for the poor to adopt dairy as an income generating activity, it has formed partnerships with the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to provide the marketing infrastructure for the milk produced through SHG dairy activity and with BAIF Development Research Foundation to provide expertise on areas such as artificial insemination to increase the milk yield of the cattle. In fact, RGMVP is facilitating backward and forward linkages with NDDB to make dairy one of the important verticals of development for the poor. NDDB's 95 bulk milk coolers spread across the project area buy milk from 20,000 dairy families (over 1,00,000 poor), thus providing them with a viable means of alternative livelihood through average earning of Rs 2,000 per family per month. The future potential for dairy activity is projected at 500,000 households.

In addition, RGMVP provides intensive training to proactive SHG women, known as Dairy CRPs, who in turn disseminate these learnings to every SHG, VO and BO. Training on sustainable dairy practices is also provided at the Training Centre for Sustainable Agriculture and Dairy, set up in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin, where experts from the University impart training to Dairy CRPs.
Management of Livetsock
This aspect of the Livelihood Enhancement initiative is focused on facilitating supplementary livelihoods such as goatry, bee-keeping and poultry. Access to sources for these activities and training in best practices is facilitated by RGMVP.
Non Farming sector
RGMVP also encourages poor women and girls to explore opportunities in the non-farm sector by providing training in such income-generating activities such as stitching and embroidery, food preservation, cane furniture making, mechanised knitting, leather work, pottery making, detergent making, etc.

This article is posted by Press Brief.