Chapter 17

Towards Sustainability: Stories from India 58 Breaking New Ground NGOs support sustainable development 17 th 26 January is India’s Republic Day. But the 26th of January 2001 had something different from the usual parades and celebrations in store for the people of Gujarat. At 8:46 a.m., Gujarat experienced one of the most devastating earthquakes in the history of natural disasters in India. Measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, the earthquake had its epicenter in Bhuj in the Kachchh district. A number of districts were badly affected. The earthquake is estimated to have taken a toll of around 13,000 lives. People lost their homes, their inventories stacked up for leaner times, work related tools, their means of livelihood. Children and adults were in trauma, having seen death and destruction around them. Within a few hours, civil society, NGOs, religious institutions and the Government machinery had pitched in to meet the crisis. Their involvement was not just in immediate rescue and relief, but towards long-term rehabilitation. Among the NGOs that got involved in rehabilitation was the Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan, a network of 14 grassroots NGOs that was founded as a response to the cyclone that hit Kachchh in May 1998 .They undertook relief work in close co- ordination with the district administration, funding agencies and the Janpath Citizen’s Initiative. A survey of 160 villages was carried out and various depots with relief material were set up almost immediately. The emphasis was on self- help, confidence building and allowing villagers to carry out their own assessment rather than merely provide relief, in keeping with the Abhiyan’s long-term objective of rehabilitation and reconstruction. Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), an all women’s trade union established in 1972 under the leadership of Mrs. Ela Bhatt was another NGO which got involved in earthquake rehabilitation SEWA decided to focus its rehabilitation work on poor, self- employed women: the embroiderers—Kachchh is well-known for its tradition of exquisite embriodery, construction and road building labourers etc.—in the earthquakes-affected areas. SEWA immediately swung into action by sending out a team of 50 organizers to study different villages in the districts. House-to-house assessment was carried out to find out details of the extent of damage to the houses; loss of work tools, livelihood options; extent of loss of household goods; extent of damage to water resources in the area, and extent of injuries suffered. Analysis of the information indicated that more important than temporary relief doles was the need to provide sustained incomes, and to rebuild the lost livelihoods of the thousands who had lost everything in the disaster. In the villages that SEWA visited, the members Rebuilding Hope

Citizen Action: Individual and Community Initiatives 59 asked for some sort of work. In response SEWA launched the Emergency Livelihood Programme. Within two weeks of the earthquake, from 9 Feb 2001 onwards, SEWA started distributing craft raw material for crafts to members in the region of Kachchh and Patan. This generated employment and gave the villagers a chance to be self-reliant. The craft items made by the villagers were then sold locally at fairs organized with the help of SEWA. NGOs in India are spread across the country and have close links with the communities. They are involved in the whole spectrum of development activities: from disaster management to sustainable livelihoods; from creating environmental awareness to undertaking watershed development; from joint forest management to giving inputs to policies. They range from clubs which encourage nature camping, to agencies which undertake research and monitoring. They work on issues from organic farming to renewable energy; from urban issues to hospital waste management. There are grassroot NGOs, NGO think tanks, and NGOs involved in policy advocacy. They may be as small as groups of two or three persons, or as large as organizations with memberships of 8000 or more. The spectrum includes groups which work closely with the government, to groups which challenge existing socio-political structures and development models. Increasingly, the government is seeing NGOs not only as agencies which will help them implement their programmes, but also as partners who will help shape policy and programmes. Several government schemes and programmes depend on NGOs as the vital link to achieve the widespread reach and penetration that is vital for their success. NGOs are represented on key policy-making committees and bodies like the Indian Board of Wildlife. Registered NGOs are eligible for support under various government schemes. India’s Five Year Plans have always stressed the significant contribution that NGOs and civil society provide in the overall developmental process. The First Five Year Plan (1951- 1956) stressed the role of public intervention and cooperation for implementation of programmes. The III Five Year Plan highlighted that ‘the concept of public cooperation is related to the much larger sphere of voluntary action in which the initiative and organizational responsibility rest completely with the people and their leaders, and does not rely on legal sanctions or the power of the State for achieving its aim. Properly organized voluntary effort may go towards augmenting the facilities available to the communities for helping the weakest to a somewhat better life. The wherewithal for this has to come from time, energy and other resources of millions of people for whom the Voluntary Organizations can find constructive channels suited to the varying conditions in the country.’ Subsequent Plans continued to emphasize the role of the voluntary sector and formulated relevant policies. The Approach Paper to the Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-2007) encourages Manchhabaa, an earthquake affected artisan says, “By giving us immediate work –you have not only provided relief to us but also dignity and recognition. Our skill has now been recognized. How long can we survive on relief supplies? It is work that helps us survive and rebuild our lives.� A Range of Activities Planned Partnerships

Towards Sustainability: Stories from India 60 voluntary sector participation in view of the continued importance of public action in the development process. The minimum agenda proposed in the Approach Paper has recognized civil society contribution by putting greater emphasis on Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and other people’s organizations as one of the items for the Tenth Plan. Recognizing the important contribution made by the voluntary sector and to facilitate its functioning, a Steering Committee on Voluntary Sector was constituted as part of the Tenth Plan process. Further, to create an enabling environment for the voluntary sector to collaborate with the government for development, in March 2000, the Government of India declared the Planning Commission as the nodal agency for the GO-NGO interface. Government support to the voluntary sector can be gauged from the large number of schemes being implemented through NGOs by the various Ministries and Departments. It is estimated that there are about 250 such schemes under progress, under 20 Ministries and Departments. The Planning Commission lists about 13,000 NGOs who have received grants from the Government. Different Strengths The World Wide Fund for Nature-India, established in 1969 is the country’s largest conservation NGO. Over the years, WWF-India has broadened the scope of its activities to include policy work, conservation of ecosystems, environmental law, and education. The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) founded in 1883 is recognized as one of the foremost conservation research organizations in the world. It has undertaken a wide range of projects in conjunction with both local and overseas counterpart organizations on birds, reptiles, mammals, natural history, and the impact of development programmes on wildlife. Development Alternatives is involved in appropriate technology research and dissemination. Their products include improved cookstoves, low-cost housing, and biomass and solar energy systems. Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development attempts to highlight the degradation of land resources and demonstrate means for arresting this. The Bombay Environmental Action Group has used environmental advocacy and public interest litigation to bring about a rethinking on siting of facilities, unplanned growth of cities, and pollution. The Voluntary Health Association of India focuses on building up a people’s health movement. Tata Energy Research Institute founded in 1974 has been working towards efficient utilization of energy including adoption of renewable energy technologies, sustainable use of natural resources, and reduction of all forms of waste. M S Swaminathan Research Foundation works with a pro-nature and pro-poor orientation for economic growth in rural areas through harnessing science and technology for environmentally sustainable development. The Institute for Rural Management, Anand supports sustainable development. These are just a few out of the approximately 1500 NGOs listed in the latest edition of the Directory of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Environment brought out by WWF-India, with support from the ENVIS programme of the Ministry of Environment and Forests.