Social Security for Rural populations through sustainable and interdependent livelihoods
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Cultivating Innovation: Solutions for Rural Communities competition.
Project Street Address
158, SECTOR-1, SHAKTI NAGAR
Project City
BHOPAL
Project Province/State
MADHYA PRADESH
Project Postal/Zip Code
462024
Project Country
India
Country your work focuses on:
India
Website URL
YouTube Upload
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1-5 years
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
<$50
Name Your Project
Social Security for Rural populations through sustainable and interdependent livelihoods
Describe Your Idea
Describe your idea in fewer than 50 words.
Plagued by high cost of agri inputs, irregular weather patterns, failing crops and no social security, farmers are committing suicide to save themselves and their family from debts and bonded labor. My idea tries to create secondary livelihoods for them and integrate their primary livelihoods in a manner so as to provide sustainable living and social security to all.
What makes your idea unique?
The uniqueness of my idea lies in providing FREE SOCIAL SECURITY to all in the villages, while creating sustainable secondary livelihoods and binding all primary and secondary livelihoods through a common business model. The idea revolves around identifying rural needs, creating business solutions for rural markets and reorganizing livelihoods of the villagers to cater to the rural needs. The secondary livelihoods in groups ensure livelihood security for the Self Help Group (SHG) members (groups of economically deprived families). A consumption survey of villages in a cluster, analyses the consumption pattern, existing livelihoods, production capacities and needs of the villages. It matches the needs with available resources and decides secondary livelihood activities with the villagers. Infrastructure is setup in existing public utility structures and each activity is given to a SHG. Net Profits from such activities after paying salaries, overheads and reinvestment in working capital, is accumulated in a social security fund for the village. Every family in the villages gets a Social Security account in a Bank. Depending upon every family's transactions with these group livelihoods, the social security fund is apportioned into respective social security accounts. Group Insurances are taken for Life, Health, Accidental, Cattle, Crop and Weather, with premiums being paid out of individual social security accounts, and the balance accumulating for Old Age Pension.
What is your area of work? (Please check as many as apply.)
Children & Youth , Child labor , Education , Education reform , Youth development , Youth leadership , Development & Prosperity , Community development , Conscious consumerism , Economic development , Food security , Income generation , Poverty alleviation , Rural development , Social Enterprise , Sustainable development , Environment & Sustainability , Energy conservation , Renewable energy , Waste and recycling , Disability rights , Public Participation & Engagement , Citizen participation , Social work , Volunteerism .
What impact have you had?
The model is being implemented in 5 villages covering a population of over 8000 in 2 states of India. In 2 villages the social security fund has been accumulating for more than a year now. Being an expense based model, the social security fund accumulation in each account depends on each family's transactions with the SHG based group livelihoods, which in other terms relates to their purchase of products and services offered by the SHG groups. In MP, average social security fund accumulation has been around Rs 700 per family per annum, whereas in Maharashtra, it has been Rs 1250 per family per annum. Being the first year, the villagers have been purchasing only half of their monthly needs from the SHG shops as they still have outstanding credits with the moneylender-shopkeepers at the earlier marketplace. The villagers have started understanding the importance of economic protection through Insurances. They have also learnt how to assess various insurance products and negotiate with the Ins Cos for their benefit. They are really surprised to see how much they could save from their expenses. The families have been given the first set of Health and Life Insurances from these savings. Other schemes like Crop and Weather Insurances are being worked out with Ins Cos. Once a family receives a claim, the village population will have more faith on the Insurances. The social security accumulations are expected to increase after this.
Describe the primary problem(s) that your project is addressing.
In India, agriculture and related livelihoods are in a state of turmoil. With reducing land holdings per family and unpredictable weather patterns leading to crop failure, incidents of farmer suicides have increased over the years. High cost of agricultural inputs, dependency on chemicals, combined with decreasing yield are leaving no returns with the farmer to feed his family throughout the year. With no skills besides farming, increasing indebtedness is driving such farmers to take the extreme step. With no social security either, their families end up as bonded agricultural labour with moneylenders. Other Income Generation skills taught by agencies do not find enough marketability of the products in urban areas. Rural markets are ignored leaving villagers vulnerable to exploitation by shopkeepers and moneylenders. Govt's poor implementation of social security schemes leads nowhere.
Describe the steps that your organization is taking to make your project successful.
Any livelihood based model is sustainable, if marketability of its products/services is ensured. The integrated business model is designed in a way to ensure sustenance for all livelihoods associated with it through an ensured local consumer base. In every village, the SHG managed retail outlets cater to all needs of the villagers buying from the wholesale market and selling at the same price as the neighboring market place. Agriculture surplus in one village is purchased by the other village where need exists. Village women are trained to manufacture items that can be sold from the shop and given the first inputs to start production. Each group is allowed to manufacture only 1 item and sell it to the shop at the wholesale rate. Thus products manufactured by one group are consumed by the other. The entire village acts as a committed consumer base in return of free social security.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Success in Year 1:
Since crop and weather insurance is still at an experimental stage in India, premiums are high and paid claims are few. We need to build a comprehensive insurance package for the farmers to cover their regular crops from natural and man made threats. We need to also build coverage for agri inputs, cost of seeds, and economic protection for agricultural labour into the package who lose their livelihood during such crop failures.
Success in Year 2:
Successful claims in the first year might lead to large participation in the social security system. We require a sound data management and accounting software to manage the transactions and social security collections. Also we would need recording and computing instruments at every point of transaction so that every transaction is properly recorded and the social security component is deposited in the appropriate social security account.
Success in Year 3:
With social security collections from multiple locations, we would require a firmware for recording transactions at every point and transmitting them to a central location for apportioning into appropriate social security accounts. Similarly data sharing would be required with the Banks for online deposit of the collections. A lot of automation would be required at this stage to plug in the gaps and reduce human error.
Do you have a business plan or strategic plan? (yes/no)
Yes a complete business plan for the integrated livelihoods based model and a strategic plan exists.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization? STEP 1:
Establish a foolproof Insurance mechanism for giving economic protection to the agriculture dependent rural population, covering all probable areas of risk associated with their life and livelihood, so that they have faith in the social security system. The number and areas of risks covered need to be more, although the amount of risk cover may be just enough to save them from an economic disaster.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization? STEP 2:
Establish a foolproof paperless transaction recording and social security fund collection and apportioning mechanism to bring complete transparency into the system. This will help the villagers build faith on each other, as they themselves would be running and managing the system. A paperless and automated mechanism will help overcome hurdles arising out of poor literacy levels and linguistic barriers across different states and regions.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization? STEP 3:
Create a corpus for social innovations, that would involve identifying gaps in the social sector, designing social innovations, experimenting, developing models and then replication and scaling up.
Describe the expected results of these actions.
Using technology to make things simple and foolproof is the key to building transparent & sustainable solutions for illiterate population. A paperless & automatic transaction recording system will help in overcoming hurdles arising out of poor literacy rate in villages and also overcome the linguistic barriers. Enterprising but illiterate villagers can fearlessly participate in the integrated business model without worrying about inventory, accounting and recording transactions. The comprehensive Insurance mechanism will give them complete economic security and bring in them a sense of dignity and social respect. OASiS has been able to churn out 4 innovations in 6 years. In order to continue our search for gaps in the social sector and experimenting innovative solutions for the same, OASiS needs a corpus as funding organisations are reluctant to fund experiments at conceptual stage
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
As an information technology professional for 15 years, I was witness to the IT revolution in India. While my job took me around 12 countries, I was always perplexed by the difference in attitude of people in developed and developing countries. While in developed countries, people had no fear of the future & believed in spending all their savings, in developing countries, people always feared an insecure future & saved even from their spendings. The fearless attitude of the former was because of the mandatory social security systems in their country, whereas the latter did not have any. In developing countries, insurances were available only for the rich, the poor being considered non-insurable. Insurances were mostly sold as tax saving instruments rather than for social security. All social security systems were either tax or savings based, hence were not applicable for people who lived on less than a dollar a day. I often wondered how a nation could develop, when more than 50% of its population found it difficult to make two ends meet daily and had no time or energy to think forward & for the nation. Moving down the economic line I found that the % of expenses to income increased. Hence if I could develop an expense based social security system, it would benefit even those who had only expenses & no savings. Also if the model could provide short term alternate livelihoods to the unemployed rather than unemployment allowance. These moments & thoughts led to the innovation.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Born into a middle-class family, Pradeep grew up deeply appreciative of the security offered by family & community ties. Yet, from a young age he used to question the status quo, see how things could be done differently, & think outside the box. The opportunity to study the laws that make the world work and then see how he could apply these laws innovatively, drew him like a magnet to Physics. His other major was Statistics that taught him the magic of number analysis. Further he went on to do Masters in Computer Applications, Electronics & Telecommunications and Business Management (MBA).
In 1986 he took a Govt job where within the typical hidebound bureaucracy, he came up with a number of system-improving, cost-cutting innovations. 9 years later, despite the security the Govt job offered he quit the lethargic environment and took a job as Systems Manager with Japanese MNC Fujitsu. This took him to Japan occasionally, where he was deeply impressed with the discipline, professionalism & work ethics of the Japanese.
In 1998 he got his first professional exposure to development issues with a 2-year assignment with PLAN International. Although his brief was to set up the IT network for PLAN’s Asia operations, he pushed the boundaries of that brief, redefining the role of IT professionals from being mere techies or data processors to persons who can bring in fundamental changes in the social sector by transforming existing systems to make them more efficient.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
From Ashoka – Innovators for the Public.
This Entry is about (Issues)
What would prevent your project from being a success?
The transaction recording method (paper based) currently requires some literacy levels in the villagers (SHG members) running the shops. A combination of entrepreneurship and literacy is difficult to find in tribal villages, therefore not many families can be given such secondary livelihood where literacy is required. Also these members feel themselves indispensable and thus dominate other members in their groups. Until & unless the paper based method is replaced by a paperless & automated system, this constraint would restrict the success of the project.
Rural populations have very little faith in the Insurance system as they have been duped earlier by agents. We are trying to create a large group to make it a viable proposition for the insurance cos, and give the decision to choose the ins co in the hands of the villagers. But one wrong experience with an ins co will lead to a setback in the system.
Many villages in India have been loaded with freebies (fish) in the past. Teaching them how to fish is not accepted well in such villages, as they have to work to avail the benefits lifelong.
The system helps in bring socio-economic equality in the village. This might be considered as a threat by the upper caste people in the village. Attempts by them or politicians to de-stabilise the system for personal gains might restrict the success of the project.
Villages hosting common markets will take more time because of choices available around.
If yes, provide organization name.
ORGANISATION FOR AWARENESS OF INTEGRATED SOCIAL SECURITY (OASiS)
How long has this organization been operating? (i.e. less than a year; 1-5 years; more than 5 years)
OASiS has been operating for over 6 years now trying to identify gaps in the social sector and develop innovative solutions for the same. We have been able to churn out 4 innovations till now that are still functioning, and striving for more.
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes, we do have an Advisory Board and an Executive Body.
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs? (yes/no)
YES
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses? (yes/no)
YES
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government? (yes/no)
YES
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Nothing big can be achieved alone and no one organisation can have expertise in all areas. It is always wise to use and converge all available expertise for wholistic development. Our partnership with NGOs involve identification of villages and SHGs, doing consumption survey and making them aware about their social security. We partner with the Govt by getting the SHGs trained under their various Income generation schemes and also take administrative support for implementation. We partner with Businesses for infrastructure development in the villages. We take support from Funding organisations for working capital through grants or soft loans. Involvement of multiple agencies helps in more concentrated approach for implementation and also the success of the project. We allow all agencies involved to take credit of the project as it leads to wider acceptability of the model.
How many people will your project serve annually?
More than 10,000
What is the total number of employees and total number of volunteers at your organization?
8 employees and 50 volunteers
What is your organization's business classification?
Non-profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Have you received funding from any of the following groups? (Please check as many as apply.)
Ashoka .
 | Pradeep Ghosh said: Dear Fran,Many thanks for your encouraging comments.In any country there are a number of competing social security instruments ... about this idea. - 180 days ago read more > |
| Fran Holuba said: On July 10, 2009 the judges reviewed the entries for the Changemakers “Cultivating Innovations: Solutions for Rural ... about this idea. - 181 days ago read more > |
 | Amelia Forrest Kaye updated this idea. - 230 days ago. |
 | Social Security for Rural populations through sustainable and interdependent livelihoods has been chosen as a finalist in Cultivating Innovation: Solutions for Rural Communities. - 231 days ago |
| Pradeep Ghosh said: Hi, I would love to have your critical inputs and comments on this model, as it would help me in identifying the gaps and plugging ... about this idea. - 275 days ago read more > |
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