Centre For Poverty Reduction

Mission

To analyze and find solutions to the problem of poverty sensitize the government officials with the poverty related programmes, bring about qualitative change in the administrative machinery and improving the public services delivery system meant for the poor people in order to reduce poverty both in rural and urban areas.

Objectives

1. To analyze government policies and programmes and direct the government's attention and resources for solving the problem of poverty.
2. To help the rural and urban poor including scheduled castes and backward classes, get freedom from poverty through microfinancing, education, health services, skill development, economic ventures, awakening and self-help groups.
3. To enhance capabilities of the government personnels, agencies and NGOs through research and training for efficient delivery of services to the poor.
4. To prepare case studies and carry out evaluation of schemes implemented for the welfare of the poor and give feed back to government for improvement.
5. To identify and promote the role models among the poor for helping the poor, specially in setting up enterprises for livelihood.
6. To create a common platform for stakeholders, beneficiaries, elected representatives of local bodies, philanthropists and government officers for sharing their experiences for effective improvement in condition of the poor.

Activities carried out so far

1. A detailed study has been carried out to study the problems of the poor people in three blocks in districts Hoshiarpur, Roopnagar and Barnala. The study identified drawbacks/bottlenecks in the delivery system in three sectors, namely, bank Loans and subsidy, education and health.
2. Training Modules were developed for capacity building of officials in three sectors i.e. bank loan and subsidy, education and health and about 3400 persons were trained by holding 47 training programmes.
3. One-Day workshop to discuss problems of poor people with public representatives and officers of Departments (Welfare, Social Security, Education, Health, etc) were organized. The problems have been taken up with the concerned departments for taking necessary actions.
4. A critical analysis of implementation of Scheduled Castes Sub -Plan (SCSP) was done to find reasons for its poor performance and seek suggestions for improvement.

Recent Activities

Development of trainers in the department of Social Security, Women & Child Development
(January-February 2012)

The Centre for Poverty Reduction (CPR) team conducted a 'Training of Trainers (ToT)' for the personnel of Social Security, Women & Child Development Department for 3 days in the last week of November 2011 at the Regional Centre, Jalandhar.
This was designed as a vertical ToT programme for imparting training to the CDPOs, supervisors and anganwadi workers of the department. Shri N K Arora, Advisor, Regional Centre, Jalandhar, inaugurated the programme. He emphasized that women have a pivotal role to play in the making of a healthy and prosperous society.
The programme included domain specific sessions as well as sessions on soft skills like time management, team work, communication & listening and positive thinking. The programme also included sessions on Right to Services Act, 2011, welfare schemes for SCs and BCs, pension schemes and the importance of training, etc. Twenty five candidates participated in this programme.
The women participants, working for the poor at the grass root level, promised to take the training programme to the village level and further train others for reducing poverty.
The participants gave very positive feedback and assured that they will further train their colleagues and themselves start working with a new zeal and a positive attitude.
The sessions taken by the institute's faculty, Shri D R Paul, Shri Jang Singh Kundlas and Ms. Dolly Malla besides of course the external resource persons were highly appreciated.

Poverty Reduction: Capacity Building of the cutting edge level employees
(October 2011)

Centre for Poverty Reduction conducted a five-days training programme for "Capacity Building of Frontline Personnel of Line Departments" from September 19-23, 2011. This programme was designed for imparting training to the field officers/officers of Punjab Scheduled Castes Land Development and Finance Corporation (PSCFC) and Punjab Backward Classes Land Development & Finance Corporation(BACKFINCO), in consultation with Mrs. Indu Misra, PCS, Executive Director and Nodal Officers of these corporations.

The objective of the programme was to enhance the domain specific knowledge and improve delivery of services meant for the poor. The training programme was approved by the Department of Personnel & Training (Training Division) Government of India. Twenty-eight officers participated in this programme.

The programme covered a wide range of subjects like loan/recovery regulations and rules and instructions of BACKFINCO & SCFC, loaning pattern of both the Corporations, maintenance of Cash Book/Recovery Ledgers in field, offices, effective Recovery Management, domain specific revenue training, National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) – Role of NGOs/SHGs, administrative reforms, communication & listening skills, team building, time management, Punjab Right To Service Act, 2011 and different case studies on the subject,

The centre works to ensure better coordination among various organizations, financial institutions and government departments to improve the quality of service of health, education, sanitation, social security and welfare programmes for the poor. To further the aims of the Centre, it works to build the capacity of the people for poverty reduction. In pursuance of this, a pilot project for Capacity Building in Poverty Reduction was launched by the institute at Hosiharpur in the year 2009-10.

The participants appreciated the training programme and found it very useful for improving the service delivery to the poor thereby achieving the very objective of the programme.

Contact: Shri D.R.Paul, Senior Consultant, cpr@mgsipap.org