Kohima, August 10 (MExN): A 3-day Training of Trainers (ToT) on the Village Poverty Reduction Plan (VPRP) began on Wednesday at Hotel Ura, Kohima, under the Nagaland State Rural Livelihoods Mission (NSRLM).
Participants from the Directorate of Rural Development, State Institute for Rural Development and assistant district programme managers, district functional specialists (livelihoods), thematic managers from the NSRLM will be trained on the VPRP which is a comprehensive demand plan prepared by the Self Help Group (SHG) networks and their federations for projecting their demands and local area development which would be integrated with the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP).
According to a press release, the VPRP, as an exercise began during FY 2019-2020, and is a platform for community to present their aspirations and needs to be incorporated into the overall development plan of the village.
Resource persons are from Kudumbashree National Resource Organization and TRIF Delhi. A key highlight of the ToT will be focused on digitalization of VPRP to be integrated to different ministries and departments. The mobile-based App will be managed by the community cadres after receiving training on the App and its usages, the release stated.
On the occasion, Joint Secretary, MoRD, Nita Kejrewal joined the inaugural session online wherein she addressed the participants on importance of understanding concepts, components and processes of VPRP and understanding roles of stakeholders both within the SRLM and in convergence with other line departments. The JS emphasized on providing support in training, preparation and integration of plans while informing that advisories were issued by MoRD and MoPR in 2018 about the preparation of VPRP plans by the SHG network and a joint advisory was shared subsequently. She further highlighted that 30 SRLMs have undertaken the exercise and submitted VPRPs in 1.2 lakh GPs in 2021-22.
Meanwhile, Joint Secretary and Mission Director, NSRLM Imtimenla stated that the demands and plans in the VPRP can benefit the individual households and the community as it covers the entitlement demands, livelihoods demand and plans and also the public goods and services which will lead to social development. She stressed that the exercise has met with a series of challenges and underscored the need to ensure all plans are realized with the convergence efforts provided by the departments, the village councils and the SHG Federation. She further impressed upon the participants that livelihoods plans being a major component under VPRP, the Cluster or Block Level Federations will be anchoring and supporting the livelihoods plans by providing credit, inputs, trainings and other support services to the members.
She also expressed hope that with the introduction of the new App for VPRP, tracking and monitoring of the field level activities and plans will be more effectively managed, while remarking that more proactive roles need to be carried out to make integration of the VPRP into GPDP more realistic with support from the nodal and line departments to ensure the grassroots village level plans brings about real development in the rural villages.
As per the release, during the training, resource persons will be taking the participants through intensive sessions on concept seeding and relevance of VPRP; comprehensive livelihood planning; introduction to an App specifically for VPRP with practice sessions; roles of community institutions; roles and responsibilities of stakeholders among others.
