Grassroot Empowerment – Scaling-up Efforts:
A case study in Khali Village, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

In any scaling up and empowerment effort, three critical factors assume significance and they relate to social, human and physical capitalisation processes.

How these three factors played a key role has been illustrated in a case study presented below:

Shree Chamunda Self Help Group (SHG) in Khali of Sidhpur Taluka in Patan district :
Khali, a small sleepy village adjacent to Gujarat State highway no.41, comes under Sidhpur taluka of Patan district in North Gujarat, India.

Shree Chamunda Self Help Group is quite well-known for its work in the village. The SHG is led by Ms. Chetnaben Goswami, who belongs to Below Poverty Line (BPL) and Other Backward Class (OBC) community. The chronic sickness of her husband compelled her to look after her three sons and only source of sustenance, the daily wage labour work. She had hardly any interest in her life and got exhausted in fighting the drudgery of survival with all sorts of hindrances faced by any poor and lower caste women.

With persistent follow-up from Lokvikas (an NGO located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat), the Shree Chamunda Self-Help Group  was estabished in Khali village in the month of February 2002 and gradually opened its bank account in March 2002 with State Bank of Saurashtra, (SBS) Sidhpur branch.

Human Capital :
Ms. Chetnaben Goswami, President of the SHG, gradually got trained through a series of capacity building sessions, conducted by Lokvikas and NABARD on SHGs and took it in her stride. The members of Shree Chamunda Self Help Group belong to various caste fabrics and they come above the shackles of caste barriers.

They got initiated to take part in village developmental programmes, like:

• Water savings at household level in that arid region
• Recycling of water in that drought affected area
• Medicinal knowledge rejuvenation
• Local medicinal plant base identification
• Medicinal plant cultivation

Social Capital:
Observing their progress, the women members of both Hindu and Muslim community in Khali village are highly energised and now a total of more than 7 SHGs are springing up in the area. The male members also took active part in SHG formation activities and now 5 Male SHGs have also come up. The SHG women members got together and presented their need of Land Rights to the Principal Secretary, Revenue, Government of Gujarat.

Physical Capital:
Besides human and social capital, the physical capital formation among the group is quite high. Current Savings with the bank is Rs.13200/-. The internal lending is about Rs.9500/-. Total number of members, who availed loans are 6. The loans are utilised to meet the following:

• Economic needs - supplement for income generation
• Asset procurement for income generation activities (Tailoring machines, other articles such as Hand cart articles, etc.
• Health care
• Group activity for agricultural inputs e.g. seeds and fertilizers, etc.

The group members played a key role in those backward areas and negotiated with the Government and gradually they got support from Asian Development Bank to implement a project for livelihood restoration. The convergence programme extended livelihood support to 5 families and other members availed loans through internal lending for their own livelihood and betterment. The group members are now earning Rs.800-1000 per capita per month, which is 500% increase in their income in a span of one year.

Linkage :
With this base, Lokvikas facilitated the Group to join in a Water Conservation Programme in the village. And thus, the group is steering the whole village development programme.