Organisational Understanding

By

Arpit Shah (30006)

Burra Naga Trinadh (30021)

Submitted to

Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP)

Organisational Traineeship Segment

PRM 2009-2011

Faculty Guide: Prof. Anand Venkatesh

July, 2010

INSTITUTE OR RURAL MANAGEMENT ANAND

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We wish to thank SERP (Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty) for giving us this

opportunity to work with them and for providing us all the needed support. We would like to

thank Mr. B. Rajsekhar, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for this.

We would like to mention the efforts of my reporting officer, Mrs. B. Seshu Kumari

who was always there to lend a helping hand, was open to all suggestions, and provided

valuable guidance and useful insights which helped us in the preparation of the report.

We take this opportunity to convey our sincere thanks to all SERP staff. Our special

thanks to Mr. T. Aravind and Mr. Sandeepan Paul for guiding us throughout the study and

provided their invaluable support and inputs in the project. Their support made our stay a

memorable and educative one. Also extend our gratitude to the SERP staff during the field

visits and villagers for their warm reception and help they provided us in making

understanding of present dynamics and identify shortcomings in the study. We also thank the

various respondents who spared their valuable time and contributed to survey.

The Organization Traineeship Segment of IRMA was a great learning experience for

us. Last but not the least; We are grateful to faculty guide Prof. Anand Venkatesh and OTS

Co-ordinator Prof. Ashokan for giving this opportunity. We also thank all the faculty

members who provided encouragement and support in this venture.

ARPIT SHAH(30006)

BURRA NAGA TRINADH(30021)

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I. Title: Organisation UnderstandingII. Organization: Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

III. Reporting Officer: Mrs. B. Seshukumari, RPD EducationIV. Faculty Guide: Prof. Anand VenkatesanV. Student’s Name: Arpit H. Shah, Naga Trinadh B., Sindhura A.

Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) is an autonomous society of the Department of Rural Development, Government of Andhra Pradesh. SERP is registered under the Societies (Telangana) Act, chaired by the Chief Minister as the ex-officio Chairman of the General Body (GB). SERP is implementing Indira Kranthi Patham (IKP) in all the 22 rural districts of A.P. There are 1,06,75,321 members in 9,49,066 SHGs exclusively for women.  A total of 36,391 Village Organizations (VOs), 1099 Mandal Samakhyas (MSs) and 22 Zilla Samakhyas have come into existence in 22 districts. The objective of this report was to understand the dynamics of SERP as a multi faceted organization active in various functional areas like education, health & nutrition, land, marketing, finance, dairy, disability, gender, insurance, disability etc.; its structure, functioning of activities, its strategies, its relevance and relationship with stakeholders, clients, external influences, strengths, weaknesses and achievements.

Methodology: A multi step approach had been taken by us as the methodology to understand the organization. At first we had tried to understand the various work processes in the organization to gather facts about the operations. We also had interacted with the employees, VO, MS & ZS members and various other beneficiaries of SERP schemes to gather information about the functioning of the organization. We also visited the Self help groups (SHG’s) of SERP to get a ground reality of the organization. Then we had compiled the data using various frameworks and structures to bring about a clear understanding of the organization. Both primary and secondary sources were used to obtain information.

Limitations: The large organisation with activities in as many as 18 diverse fields, different management, different functioning and different dynamics of all the fields made the study a highly insurmountable task. Short tenure of project as well as the complexities in the working of organisation which was spread right from the office at Hyderabad up to majority of villages of Andhra Pradesh, posed many difficulties in study of the organisation.

Major Findings: SERP had a very low level of documentation and no clear-cut policies on Human Resources and related matters and had a relatively flat organizational structure with diverse functional departments and multiple roles played by single individual resulted in clash of roles and responsibilities between various departments as well as within department. Many employees were unclear of their roles in the organization.

Recommendations: SERP would have to go for an in depth study of their organization and improve the formalization. The roles of all the employees’ right from the Head office to the district offices, ZS, MS, VO and other field staff should be clarified and standardized.

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Contents1. Introduction...................................................................................................................................1

2. Objective of the study...................................................................................................................1

3. Methodology.................................................................................................................................2

4. Organisation..................................................................................................................................2

5. SERP Structure...............................................................................................................................4

6. SERP activities:...............................................................................................................................7

6.1. Institution Building:...............................................................................................................7

6.1.1. Self Help Groups (SHGs).....................................................................................................7

6.1.2. Village Organizations (VOs)................................................................................................9

6.1.3. Mandal Samakhyas (MSs)................................................................................................10

6.1.4. Zilla samikya.....................................................................................................................11

6.2. Sustainable Agriculture:.......................................................................................................14

6.3. Dairy:...................................................................................................................................14

6.4. Marketing:...........................................................................................................................14

6.5. Creating jobs for youth:.......................................................................................................15

6.6. Land:....................................................................................................................................16

6.7. Health and Nutrition:...........................................................................................................16

6.8. Gender:................................................................................................................................16

7. Education.....................................................................................................................................17

7.1. Impacts- Qualitative and Quantitative:.....................................................................................18

7.2. Leveraging Resources:..............................................................................................................20

7.1. Scaling up:............................................................................................................................20

7.2. Performance Indicators:......................................................................................................21

7.3. ECE Centres:.........................................................................................................................22

7.4. Mainstream school dropout:...............................................................................................23

7.5. Higher education:................................................................................................................24

7.6. Corporate education:...........................................................................................................25

8. HR Unit in SPMU..........................................................................................................................26

9. Convergence with Key Line Departments....................................................................................27

10. Reflections...............................................................................................................................28

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1. Introduction

Every organization, like a living organism is a living entity. It gets born, struggles to walk,

experiments, moves through several ups and down, matures and finally dies. However they

are dominant components of the contemporary society and pervade all aspects of

contemporary life-society as whole, the economy, and even our personal lives. A clear

understanding about the importance of the organizations would help us to experience the

pragmatic reality of an organization. We headed to our OTS organization, Society for

Elimination of Rural Poverty (hereafter referred to as SERP) keeping this in mind.

SERP is more like a time bound autonomous programme launched by the Ministy of Rural

Development, Government of Andhra Pradesh. Due to its vast stature, activity in more than

18 functional fields, spread over the remotest districts and mandals and villages of Andhra

Pradesh; organisation study of SERP was a herculean task. This study helped us to

understand the applications of various functions like Finance, Human Resources, Marketing,

and Economics in a real organization especially when diverse stakeholders including

government, public and private are intricately involved. It also enabled us to prepare

ourselves to face the real life challenges when we join an organization.

2. Objective of the study

The study on the organization was mainly focused on getting an insight about the

organization and analyzes its different dimensions on various aspects. Following are the

major points we emphasized while conducting the study –

To have a rational understanding of what an organization is all about.

To understand the dynamics that comes into play at various levels in the organization.

To know its activities, its strengths and weaknesses.

To understand how an organization comes into existence, how it grows, adapts and

absorbs changes and sustains itself.

To understand the interface between the organization and its external environment.

To understand the perspectives and ethos of individuals as it exists in the

organization.

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3. Methodology

We started collecting data for Organization Understanding (OU) after we had developed

operational linkages with all major departments and sections of the organization. For this, we

first developed a good relation with our reporting officer (RPD, Education of SERP) who

introduced us to the various aspects of the organization and its functioning. She also

introduced us to various departments of the organization. We also visited block offices and

the Self Help Groups of the organization to gain a better knowledge about its operations. Our

main source of understanding was the 5 day immersion programme that they sent us at the

beginning of OTS. This helped us to get acquainted with the entire structure and functioning

of SERP.

From our talks with the CEO and other strategic level employees like RPD’s of various

departments, we got an idea about the challenges the organization normally has to deal with

regarding its operations. After we had developed sufficiently good rapport with the

employees, we started to gain more insights of the organization through unstructured

interviews and informal discussions.

We resorted to silent observations to assess the working conditions, attitude towards work,

group behavior and on-the job behavior of employees and to assess various parameters for

understanding organization culture. We also had focused group discussions with the

employees to triangulate information given by employees from different locations and also to

understand aspects like culture in depth. We also collected information from the

organizational documents like annual reports, Audit reports, Project reports and also internet.

As our OAC mainly dealt with Education, we have made an in depth analysis of Education

department at SERP.

4. Organisation

Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) is implementing Indira Kranthi Patham

(IKP) in all the 22 rural districts of A.P.

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Vision: The disadvantaged communities shall be empowered to overcome all social,

economic, cultural and psychological barriers through self-managed organizations. They will

attain higher productivity with improved skills and asset base and utilize resources to full

potential and gainful access to services.

Mission: Our missions is to enable the disadvantaged communities perceive possibilities for

change and bring about desired change by exercising informed choices through collective

action.

The main objective of Indira Kranthi Patham(IKP) is to enable all the rural poor families in

22 rural districts of Andhra Pradesh to improve their livelihoods and quality of life. All

households below the poverty line, starting from the poorest of the poor are the target group

of IKP. At present the focus of the project on the poorest and more vulnerable members of

rural communities (e.g., disabled people, landless poor). Convergence of Land, CMSA,

Dairy, Health, Education, Nutrition are designed to overcome poverty. Project emphasis is on

livelihood issues of the poor, poorest of the poor, with a focus on sustainable rainfed farming

systems, value addition to agriculture produce, job creation and non-farm employment

opportunities, and to reduce the risks faced by the poor through social safety nets and

entitlements.

The Govt. of Andhra Pradesh is implementing two large community demand driven poverty

reduction projects – the A. P. District Poverty Initiatives Project (A.P.D.P.I.P) and the A. P.

Rural Poverty Reduction Project (A.P.R.P.R.P). The main objective of the twin projects is to

enable the rural poor in the state, particularly the poorest of the poor, to improve their

livelihoods and quality of life. The two projects cover all the districts and focus on rural poor

families in the State. The A.P.D.P.I.P covering 316 mandals in 6 districts was launched on

June 14, 2000. The project duration was up to December 2006. The A.P.R.P.R.P project that

commenced on June 1, 2002 was to cover 548 backward mandals in 16 districts of the State

and was estimated to cover 20,00,000 families. In the year 2005 the state government decided

to extend the same approach to all the rural areas of the state and leverage the programme

with funds from ongoing programmes. Thus for the entire state, there is now a single

programme, called “Indira Kranthi Patham (IKP)”, based on social mobilization and

empowerment of rural poor. This programme subsumes all activities under the twin projects

and the state government funding for women’s groups.

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Every effort is being made to make the institutions of the poor, promoted by the project,

financially and managerially self sustainable. The institutions at the grassroots are Self Help

Groups (SHGs) of poor women varying between 10 and 15. These groups are federated at

village level called Village Organization (VO).The VOs are federated at mandal level called

Mandal Samakhya (MS) and similarly the MSs are federated at the district level called Zilla

Samakhya (ZS).

5. SERP Structure

Executive Council: 5 members, M-RD as President, other members: Secy, RD,

Commissioner, RD, Commissioner – TW, CEO-S.E.R.P (Member-Secretary)

State Project Management Unit: C.E.O, Addl.C.E.O, subject specialists – institution building,

tribal development, microfinance, insurance, pensions, sustainable agriculture, dairying, jobs,

non-farm livelihoods, construction, gender, health and nutrition, disability, and education.

District Project Management : Headed by P.D, DRDA, Addl.P.Ds and Subject specialists ( 12

– 15).

Area Coordinators – 10 – 12 per district – each responsible for 5 - 6 mandals. Supported by 3

master trainers in accounting

Mandal Coordinators – 1 per mandal ( 50 in a district), supported by 2 master trainers for

accounting

In addition subject specialists in agriculture, dairying, health, disability, agriculture

marketing, etc in programme mandals

P.D, DRDA is on deputation to S.E.R.P. He has no other responsibility other than women

empowerment. Separate officers for NREGA, Watersheds, Rural Housing, and, Drinking

water

In A.P, no other department organises S.H.Gs. It is the exclusive responsibility of RD

Department.

All departments collaborate with RD department in linking their programmes to the S.H.G

members.

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5

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6. SERP activities:

6.1. Institution Building:The principal objective of SERP is to promote Self Managed Institutions of the Poor through

Self Help Group across the state of Andhra Pradesh. The key functions of the CBOs

promoted by SERP are financial intermediation, social intermediation and community

development through sustainable livelihoods promotion. SERP strongly believes in the

assumption that the poor have the potential to come out of poverty, provided that timely

facilitation is ensured by the Government. In order to harness the potential, the poor are

organized to form Community Based Organizations from village level to district level. The

process of institution building has it that at village level all the poor women are formed into

SHGs, all the SHGs are incorporated under Andhra Pradesh Mutually Aided Cooperative

Societies Act 1995 as ―Village Organizations (VO), all the Village Organizations are

federated under the same Act as Mandal Samakhyas (MS) at Mandal (Block) level and all the

Mandal Samakhya are further confederated at District level as Zilla Samakhyas (ZS). Village

Organizations are the front line self-managed CBOs for the economic and social betterment

of the community. All the development activities of SERP are carried out in and around the

CBOs.

Institution Building component is the building block of the project. To strengthen the four

tier structure viz., SHGs, VOs, MSs and ZSs, SERP has adopted various strategies viz.,

capacity building of CBOs through CRPs, transferring funds and delegation of powers to

CBOs for designing and implementation of various activities, Registration of CBOs,

development of Community Auditors and Total Financial Inclusion etc. As a part of the POP

(Poorest of the Poor) strategy the goal that was set in the department of IB is that: By the end

2012 all Mandal Samakhyas and Village Organizations that are promoted by the project will

become self-reliant and self-managed institutions and provide a wide range of micro-finance

products and social developmental services effectively to their members on a timely basis for

securing sustainable livelihoods and improving their quality of life.

6.1.1. Self Help Groups (SHGs)

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It is here, at the SHG level, much of the action that happens has direct impact on the member.

SHGs are the grassroots institutions of the poor performing similar roles to that of a rural

bank branch in providing opportunities for their members in saving regularly, utilizing these

savings for internal lending, borrowing from local banks and Village organizations for on-

lending to their members, recovering their loans and repayment to lenders and recording

these transactions on an ongoing basis. For all practical purposes it is a mini bank for its

members. Quite often, these financial services are available to members only once in a month

when SHG convenes a meeting. However, in order to make these services available to

members more frequently and also for strengthening these institutions, it is being

recommended weekly meetings. Quite a few SHGs have voluntarily switched over to weekly

meetings.

Pancha Sutras (5 cardinal principles):SHGs across the state are adapting to the following

five principles apart from many other best practices: Regular weekly meetings,

Regular weekly savings, Regular Internal lending, Regular repayments, Proper bookkeeping

through trained bookkeeper. Pancha sutras are strictly followed in the villages where CRPs

are positioned. This also has a tremendous demonstration effect on neighbouring villages.

Microcredit Planning (MCP): All SHGs are encouraged to prepare MCPs for accessing

credit from banks and their VOs. MCP at SHG level is the list of activities that members

would like to take up and the cost of implementing these activities. It is an integral part of the

financial management process of SHG. Members do self assessment of their SHG based on

regularity in savings and internal lending of funds, book keeping, and regular meetings before

further planning. As such it is an active microfinance process that seeks to seamlessly

integrate social mobilization / institution building processes with that of livelihood

enhancement at individual or community levels. Quite a few CRPs are exclusively trained in

the preparation of MCPs in all the districts. Also, all CRPs are imparted with these skills.

MCP is a seven step process involving: Household Investment Plan, Understanding the socio-

economic status and needs by members, Appraisal of socio-economic status and wealth

ranking by members, Appraisal of Needs by members, Consolidation of needs and setting

priorities, Financing the investments and Evolving terms of Partnership.

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Community Resource Persons (CRPs): CRPs are being effectively utilised for

implementation of Pancha Sutras and internalize the process of MCP among CBOs. The CRP

strategy is a community to community driven learning approach. A major skill that is

required for the mobilization of the poor and revival of defunct groups is conflict resolution

and tact, and it is realized by the project that this is best done by peers rather than an outsider.

To facilitate such process it is proposed that active members from the SHGs, Village

Organizations (VOs) and Mandal Samakhyas (MSs) should be selected, trained and deployed

so that the impact would be high when women of the same background shared their

experiences. (Refer CRP Manual)

6.1.2. Village Organizations (VOs)

VOs have switched over to fortnightly meetings from monthly meetings. Guidelines on

meeting process have been issued and ensured that they are followed across the state. Various

functional committees are constituted for ensuring bank linkages, recovery, social audit,

marketing and food security. Majority of the VOs are registered as societies under MACS act.

SERP has developed bylaws to ensure proper representation of the poor and marginalized

sections of the society. VOs are getting masanivedikas (monthly reports) from their member

SHGs. VOs are getting loans from their MSs for on-lending to SHGs and for implementing

food security and marketing initiatives. This has facilitated VOs in making part payments

towards their staff costs. VOs are getting audited every year by external auditors. Auditors in

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all the districts are positioned.

6.1.3. Mandal Samakhyas (MSs)

MSs have switched over to fortnightly meetings from monthly meetings. Guidelines on

meeting process have been issued and ensured that they are followed across the state. Various

functional committees are constituted for ensuring bank linkages, recovery, social audit,

marketing and food security. Majority of the MSs are registered as societies under MACS act.

SERP has developed bylaws to ensure proper representation of the poor and marginalized

sections of the society. MSs are getting masanivedikas (monthly reports) from their member

VOs. MS accountants are positioned in all the MSs and are trained. AWFP is prepared with

active involvement of MSs. Prior to the AWFP, MSs have collected the information about all

the SHGs and VOs in the mandal and as well as MS itself in the specially designed

comprehensive format. This information has been used to diagnose the gaps and to take steps

to address these gaps. Community Based Recovery Mechanism (CBRM) is being very

effective in all the Mandals. Most of the CIF and the SGSY funds are getting capitalized at

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Structure Of Village Organization

VO Executive Committee

POP & SHG

Monitoring

Committee

Abhayahastha

m & Bank

Linkage Commit

tee

Cif & Audit

committee

Land,CMSA,Marketing, EGS

& Dairy

Committee

President SecretaryTreasure

r

Non-farm

Activities

committee

VO General Body

Social Developme

nt Com

mittee

Functional Committees

Legal Frame work:

Village Organisations - registered as Primary Cooperatives under APMACs Act-1995

VO Bookkeepe

r

MS level, which are being used for lending to VOs for their on-lending to SHGs, marketing

and food security initiatives. Majority of the MSs are lending to VOs @ 6% Per Annum and

the interest so earned has helped in achieving Financial Self Sustainability of MSs ranging

between 25% and 125%. All the MSs are getting audited by external auditors annually. In

addition to this a few MSs have started monthly concurrent audits. All the MSs have been

instructed to transact their business through cheques only. They have been advised to stop

cash transaction as far as possible. Senior CRP strategy is being worked out to enhance the

managerial capacity of the MSs. The piloting done to find the effectiveness of this strategy is

found to be extremely good.

6.1.4. Zilla samikyaZS will be registered as a confederation of Mandal samikya’s under APMAC’s Act 1995. All

the mandals in the particular district come together in the ZS.The structure of ZS is similar to

that of MS. It has a general body and ZS executive committee. For the Executive committee,

two people from each mandal would be represented. Functional committees act in the same

manner as in MS.The various functional committees in ZS are for MS monitoring, Bank

linkage, asset verification, dealing with social issues and NREGS monitoring. As the ZS

forms the head organization at the district level, all the monitoring and verification tasks are

performed here.

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Structure of Mandal Samakhya

MS Executive Committee

VO Monitori

ng Committe

e

Bank Linkage

Committee

Monitoring the

issues of POP

committee

Asset Verificat

ion Committ

ee

President Vice President

SecretaryJoint

SecretaryTreasurerSocial

Issues Committ

ee

MS General Body

NREGS Monito

ring Commi

ttee

Functional Committees

Community Facilitators

Mandal Accountants

Legal frame work

MSs are registered as federation of VOs under APMACs Act - 1995

Key Achievements in Institution Building as on March 2009

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Structure of Zilla Samakhya

ZS Executive Committee

Ms Monitori

ng Committ

ee

Bank Linkage Committ

ee

Monitoring the

issues of POP

committee

Asset Verificat

ion Committ

ee

President Vice President

SecretaryJoint

SecretaryTreasurerSocial

Issues Committ

ee

ZS General Body

NREGS Monito

ring Commi

ttee

Functional Committees

ZS Manager

ZS Accountants

Computer Operators

Legal frame work

ZSs will be registered as confederation of MSs under APMACs Act - 1995

S.No. Particulars Number1 No. of members in women SHGs 101821812 No. of SHGs formed 8,50,6713 No. of VOs formed 35,5255 No. of MSs formed 10997 No. of Registration CRPs trained 4508 No. of VOs trained on APMACSs Act 7039 No. of MSs trained on APMACSs Act 878

10 No. of ZSs trained on APMACSs Act 2211 No. of Community Auditing CRPs trained 10412 No. of mandals covered under Community Auditing CRPs strategy 13513 No. of Villages covered under TFI CRP strategy 475814 No. of TOT CRPs trained 7615 No. of Bank Mithras trained 3323

6.2. Sustainable Agriculture:

The ecological alternatives in agriculture which make best use of local resources have proven

to shift the tide in favor of farmers. One such experience is the Non- Pesticidal Management

(NPM) of insect pests. Considering the serious problems associated with use of chemical

pesticides and also the huge investment costs for small and marginal farmers, Society for

Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), Indira Kranti Padam, (IKP) decided to upscale the

NPM into wider regions through the Federation of Women Self Help groups (Mandal

Samakhyas).The experiences of involving women SHGs, Mandal Samakhyas has been

proven successful. During 2008-09, the project covered about 13.81 lakh acres with 3.18 lakh

farmers across 3171 villages in 18 districts of Andhra Pradesh. Currently the project is

expanded to 21 districts , covering about 20 lakh acres. 

6.3. Dairy:Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) has initiated Dairy Development activity in 2006-07 by

Piloting in 2 mandals. Experiences learnt through Pilot are being mainstreamed from 2007-08 in

convergence with APDDCF Ltd. Activity started with Milk Procurement initiative at village level from

where milk is transported to Bulk Milk Cooling Unit (BMCU) located at mandal level. Once

Samakhyas gained experience in milk procurement and they started taking initiatives for

establishment and improvement of backward linkages such as fodder, feed, animal health services,

etc. SERP, in convergence with APDDCF has taken forward the activity to 158 mandals in the State

covering 2806 villages.

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6.4. Marketing:

The Marketing Strategy of the Project is to enable the rural poor to identify all available possible

livelihoods and tap the available resources i.e Forest produce, Agricultural Commodities and all

traditional livelihoods practiced in the villages with an objective to increase incomes of the Pop

families & improve the quality of life. Pass on remunerative prices to the small and marginal farmers

and NTFP collectors at their door step. The goal of the marketing division is as: “Every VO should

work as a Mini Market Yard and every farmer and NTFP collector should receive remunerative prices

to their produce at their door steps & not to carry their produce beyond 5 Kms.” With this

objective the project commenced its marketing activity by identifying one commodity viz.,

Neem, one mandal viz., Kosigi, Mahabubnagar district during the year 2001-2002. By seeing

the encouraging response from the community and need to expand marketing activities in all

the districts, special efforts have been made to identify the commodities, opening the more

and more procurement centres, imparted training to the VO members, Field / Project staff,

Book keepers provided required infrastructure to all the procurement centres. During the past

9 years the important commodities like Paddy, Maize, Redgram, Soybean, Lac, Neem fruit,

Castor, Groundnut, Mohwa flower, Tamarind, Nelavemu and other commodities have been

handled by VOs in bulk.During 2009-10 a detailed tentative action plan has been prepared for

procurement of over 95, 37,892 quintals of different commodities valued around Rs.924

Crores.

6.5. Creating jobs for youth:

The Jobs Mission was set up to address the needs of the next generation of the large network of

SHGs created and nurtured by IKP. Employment Generation and Marketing Mission (EGMM),

Department of Rural Development, Govt. of AP works in a focused manner to provide employment/

employability for the rural youth. These are the economically and socially underprivileged rural poor

from remote areas. The executive committee of the mission consists of Hon’ble Minister, Rural

Development , senior government officers and the private sector . EGMM is driven by a

private sector cell, which evolves strategy with an eye on the market. Implementation of the

program is done with the large government machinery headed by Collectors, Project

Directors, District Rural Development Agency (DRDAs) and PO, Integrated Tribal

Development Agency (ITDAs) in all 22 districts. The EGMM works in scale in public-

private partnership mode with the main stakeholders being the government, private sector,

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and the women self help groups. The entire approach is a bottom-up approach, tailored to

move the rural poor from the unorganized to the organized labour market.

6.6. Land:

Land represents a fundamental asset to the rural families in our country which comprise a

substantial majority of the population. It is a primary source of income, security, and status. Land is

one asset which almost every rural man or woman relates to. In the rural areas all the socio-

economic privileges and deprivations revolve round land.Recognizing land as a critical resource

for the poor during the formulation of Andhra Pradesh Rural Poverty Reduction Project, the

Land Component in Indira Kranthi Patham was sanctioned with an outlay of Rs.52.6 crore

rupees.The Land Component of IKP has been working in two directions. One is Land

Purchase i.e. securing the poor access to productive lands through facilitating purchase of

good quality irrigated lands and the other is Land Access- facilitating the poor, in

convergence with the Revenue Department, to have control over their lands in terms of

having secure title, handling their lands locked in courts/disputes, awareness as to the

measures taken by the Government to protect the interests of the poor manifested in the form

of pro-poor enactments etc. The activities in land are Land inventory,Land access, Land

purchase and Land development.

6.7.Health and Nutrition:

In order to target the poor health status among the rural community, community driven health

care interventions were established in AP as part of Indira Kranthi Patham (IKP) project.

Health and Nutrition interventions (HN) is being implemented in 63 pilot Mandals across all

of 22 districts in AP. The HN package of interventions targets health and nutritional status at

each phase of the life cycle approach. Indira Kranthi Patham (IKP) is the largest community-

based rural poverty reduction project in Southeast Asia, involving 9,646,000 self-help group

(SHG) women throughout the state of Andhra Pradesh, India federated at village as Village

Organizations (VO), Mandal as Mandal Mahila Samakhya (MMS) and district as Zilla

Samakhya (ZS). IKP targets multi-dimensional causes of Poverty through programs in

Microfinance, Education, Gender, Land Purchase and Sustainable Agriculture, Insurance and

Marketing among others.

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6.8. Gender:

Gender is one of the components included in the programme, Indira Kranthi Patham. Gender

strategy helps SHG women to monitor their social empowerment agenda along with financial

agenda, increase their capacities in decision making at different levels, free mobility, having a

say in local governance and building a safe environment. Women in groups ensure that basic

rights of all SHG women are not violated and that they create support systems like Social

Action Committees in every village and Community Managed Family Counseling Centres at

every mandal to help themselves. The objective of this component is to address gender issues

in an integrated manner as a means to reduce poverty. There is a need to integrate the

economic empowerment with other aspects of empowerment such as social, political &

cultural aspects. Violence emerged as a major issue and is understood as violating women

rights to life and livelihood and hence this component offers support to women and

strengthens their rights within family and society by providing livelihood, health and legal

literacy. Gender Section is helping for building our overall perspective on the issue of

domestic violence, problems faced in getting legal aid, motivated government to follow

women to women approach in solving the problems. Gender group is working closely with

Government officials at district level and working to resolve issues of cases of the Domestic

violence at the village, mandal and district level.

7. Education

Education wing of SERP supports community interventions in improving quality of

education at various levels. They are as follows:

i. Pre Primary Education: Various studies have shown that the kind of nurturing a child

receives during the ages of 2 – 5 plays a very significant role in determining a child‘s

ability in the long run. The ECE centres play an instrumental role in laying a proper

foundation for Primary Education. Keeping this in view, SERP has extended support

in establishment of 229 ECE centres in four tribal mandals of Aliabad district and 128

centres in tribal mandals of Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Warangal, Srikakulam

and Khammam districts under the Community‘s supervision and governance. The

project is now extended to 16 tribal mandals across the state. More than 8000 children

between the age group of 3 – 5 years are enrolled in these centres. The children in age

group of 3-5 years are provided with Early Childhood Education in these centres.

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ii. Primary and Secondary Education: Children's rights are protected with a total

abolition of child labour and all children enjoy their right to education. Improvement

in quality of education at schools through community participation through women

groups, gram panchayats, teachers and youth. This is being implemented in 3 tribal

mandals in the ITDA Bhadrachalam area of Khammam district. It is being envisaged

to scale up this model in all the mandals where ECE centres have been established.

iii. Higher Education: Good quality education at +2 level, coupled with expert coaching

to face admission tests for professional courses is felt imperative by all the parents in

general. Financial deprivation has impeded the meritorious children from accessing

good teaching and expert coaching being offered in institutes of repute.

To address this gap, SERP has facilitated the admission of 16,000 meritorious poor

candidates in private / corporate junior colleges of repute for two year intermediate course

integrated with focused coaching for IIT – JEE / AIEEE / EAMCET. This is being seen as an

inter-generational poverty alleviation strategy. To address the issues of affordability of the

target group on the one hand and the financial constraints of the government to subsidise the

programme for long on the other, a viable model needs to be evolved. Microfinance seems to

be a possible alternative.

7.1. Impacts- Qualitative and Quantitative:

Education has been identified as a long term poverty alleviation strategy by the women

groups. The activities are still in nascent stage and it would take few years before the impact

of the activities of education wing is realized. Early results are already seen in case of

community managed ECE centres. Outcomes from the activities of education wing are listed

below:

i. ECE: Significant improvement in physical, mental and cognitive development of

children between the age group of 3 -5 years has been observed in the villages where

ECE centres have been established. The impact has been observed at the primary

schools to which these children graduate. The teachers in the primary schools in the

project area are focusing on activity based learning. Community is also supporting the

schools by engaging instructors who ensure that the activity based learning continues

in the primary schools also. The teacher presents a Public Report to the parents and

the village community once every month. Children of the school demonstrate and

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exhibit their learning attained during the preceding month during this presentation.

The salary is paid to the instructor by the community only after they are satisfied with

the month‘s learning outcome achieved by the teacher. Monthly public reporting is a

significant step towards strengthening the accountability process and also foster closer

association with the community. This is one of the significant achievements of this

intervention.

ii. Vidya Jyothi (VJ): It was observed that English was a major impediment in

successfully completing their schooling for the students from the tribal areas, and that

they required an intensive teaching support to help them overcome this barrier. 18

candidates have been trained to serve as English Language Teachers in 50 Govt.

Schools in the two tribal mandals of Warangal district. These candidates act as

supplement to the already existing English faculty in these schools.

iii. Child rights protection and Community monitoring of quality: 1143 children have

been identified as out of school children. They have been enrolled in Residential

Bridge Schools and would be mainstreamed. Community has been given training to

monitor the quality of education in schools. Currently they are monitoring basic

things like attendance of teachers and children, quality of mid day meal provided and

basic infrastructural facilities in schools etc. Child Rights Protection Forums have

been established in every village for protecting the rights of children.

iv. Corporate Education for weaker sections: 16,000 children from the weaker sections

have been admitted in private / corporate junior colleges of repute for two year

intermediate course integrated with focused coaching for IIT – JEE / AIEEE /

EAMCET. There is an increased demand for continuation of the scheme and it has

also been observed that the students belonging to weaker sections have put in extra

effort to secure more marks in SSC exams with the hope of being in the race for

corporate education. Performance of 7,592 children in the first year examinations is

as follows:

Grades Secured No. of Candidates Percentage (%)

A + Grade 254 3 %

A Grade 3098 41 %

B Grade 2632 35 %

C Grade 530 7%

D Grade 1078 14 %

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v. Vidya Nidhi: Women Groups in certain districts have created corpus for education

and are facilitating education loans. Direct marketing of the agricultural produce by

the SHGs in Karimnagar district has yielded 1.5% commission per quintal. 25% of

this amount is allocated by the ZS as Vidya & Kalyana Nidhi (for Education and

marriage loans). Women groups are also saving for education and this amount is also

added to the corpus. Within one year the women groups mobilized Rs. 4.00 crores as

Education / marriage Fund. is earmarked are facilitated by the ZS. Women groups in

Chandragiri Mandal are operating a revolving fund of Rs. 28 lakhs for Higher

education. Women groups in Prakasham district have also initiated education savings.

The women groups are open to the idea of availing interest free bank loans for +2 and

higher education in case there is no funding from the government.

7.2. Leveraging Resources:

Proposals are in place for convergence with the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) for

leveraging certain financial and human resources from the mission for setting up of ECE

centres and Child Rights and Community monitoring of quality in schools. SSA has already

sanctioned financial support for establishment and running of RBCs by the Mandal

Samakhyas. SSA has also given orders for enabling the SHG women to inspect the

functioning of RBCs. SSA has also issued orders for formation of Academic Monitoring

Committees consisting of community members which would be responsible for monitoring

the performance of students in the schools. Education wing of SERP has facilitated

convergence between the departments of Social Welfare, Tribal Welfare, BC Welfare and

Minorities Welfare for implementation of the scheme ―Corporate Education for Weaker

Sections‖. SERP acts only as a facilitator in this scheme whereas the required financial

resources are acquired from the welfare departments. Women groups in certain district are

saving for education and education loans are being availed. Steps will be taken to

institutionalize these pilots and extension of micro finance facility for +2 and higher

education.

7.1. Scaling up:

2100 ECE centres will be established in next five years in 40 mandals where the Health and

Nutrition intervention of SERP is taken up in a big way. In these 40 mandals focus shall be

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on community managed ECE centres, community monitoring of quality in state run primary

and upper primary schools. Secondary schools in these mandals shall also get a support

through SERP in the form of community engaging subject teachers as per requirement,

provision of after school support to the children and interest free loans for higher education.

Quality improvement in schools through community participation will be taken up in all the

mandals over a period of five years in partnership with M.V.Foundation. Capacities of VO

members and Gram Panchayats would be built to monitor the quality of education in schools.

The following activities would be taken up under this project:

Facilitate proper functioning of school and to improve the quality of education in the

local government schools and make the schools proper learning centres.

Facilitate institutional planning in schools by making an assessment of the need gap in

the schools.

Ensure increased participation of the community, Gram Panchayats, women groups

and teachers in improving the overall functioning in the schools.

Observing and documenting best practices to be followed in the schools to make them

better learning centres.

Government of India is recasting the National Literacy Mission as National Mission for

Literacy of Women. Government of Andhra Proposes to leverage the CBO structure of IKP.

Their overarching plan includes identifying each SHG as a learning centre and reaching out

to all the rural women. The mission also proposes to provide continuing education to SHG

women through Open Schools.

7.2. Performance Indicators:

I. Early Childhood Education

No. of Children enrolled in the ECE centres

Average number of children enrolled per centre

Percentage of children enrolled in center with respect to the children present in

the village.

II. Higher Education:

Number and percentage of children securing admission in professional

courses

Performance in final examination of the +2 course.

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Number of students enabled to pursue an alternate but a rewarding career

through career counseling.

III. Quality improvement in schools through community participation

Attendance of teachers and children in the schools

Improved performance of the students in government schools.

Reduction of dropout rate in the schools

Number of children securing first class marks in the 10th examination

Percentage pass out in the schools

IV. Literacy Mission and Open Schooling

No. of SHG members enrolled in the literacy centres.

No. of SHG members enrolled in the continuing education centres.

No. of SHG members enrolled in open schools.

No. of SHG members passing the X class examination conducted by AP

open school society.

V. Vidya Nidhi:

Amount of corpus in the Nidhi

No. of SHG women availing loan for the education of their children.

The major activities into which SERP in education sector are ECE centres, Quality

improvement,Mainstream school drop outs, Higer education and corporate education.

7.3. ECE Centres:

Early Childhood Education involves the total development of children physical, motor, cognitive,

language, emotional, social and moral. ECE is considered a significant input to compensate for early

environmental deprivations at home by providing a stimulating environment to children. Early

Childhood Care and Education remains a privilege for many young children in India. Only 32% of the

pre-primary age children are enrolled in education structures at this level. With increase in women

participation in the work force across the country among all socio-economic groups, there has been

a sea change in social structures and practices in the last few decades. A significant indicator of this

change has been the emergence of the nuclear family, a change which has converted child

upbringing from what was traditionally a shared responsibility into the sole responsibility of the

young parents. This responsibility is often further delegated. While in the higher income brackets

children are often left with paid surrogate care takers, in the lower socio-economic communities the

22

responsibility of care giving get loaded on to the older sisters, thus keeping them often out of school

and robbing them of their childhood. As a result, given the constant pressures and challenges of day

to day existence in todays complex society, the possibilities of informal early care and education for

the young child at home is becoming less of a reality. It was this changing social context, over the

years, which laid the seeds for the introduction of the concept of ECE.In the year 2008-09, 185 ECE

centres (128in Adilabad district, 20 in Visakhapatnam district and 37 in Warangal district) have been

set up under the Community's supervision and governance.

The children in age group of 3 to 5 years are provided with Early Childhood Education in these

centres. Community governed, community managed ECE centres have shown significant

improvement in physical, mental and cognitive development of children between the age group of 3-

5 years in the project area. Quality training is provided to all the instructors at Sodhana Resource

Centre, Cheepurupally.The hallmark of the centres in this district is a public reporting system that

has been put in place, according to which a school festival (Badi Panduga) is celebrated on the last

Saturday of every month. The instructors submit their monthly report and the children will

demonstrate their learning during that month. The remuneration for the instructors is paid by the

VO on the school festival day. The remuneration for the cluster and mandal coordinators is paid by

the MMS in their monthly RGB meeting after reviewing the progress of the schools.

7.4.Mainstream school dropout:

SERP is supporting the Mandala Mahila Samakhyas of Chintoor, mandal of Khammam district,

Kothaguda Mandal of Warangal District and Sirpur (U) mandal of Adilabad district to enable drop-out

Tribal youth to appear as Private Candidates for SSC Public Examinations and thereby improve their

life skills. SERP has been supporting the Project in partnership with an NGO Koyathore Bata for the

last four years i.e. 2005 -06 to 2008 -09. 

A survey was taken up by Koyathore Bata to identify ST school dropout youth between the age

group of 18-28 years. RBCs under Rajiv Vidya Mission (RVM) facilitate entry of school dropouts up to

the age of 14 years only. Hence support is extended as a special dispensation to encourage the tribal

youth to acquire minimum Educational qualification of SSC and to motivate them to pursue higher

Education. The school drop-out Tribal youth are given intensive coaching for SSC Public

Examinations. This intervention has reached more than 2500 tribal youth in the last 4 years

belonging to primitive tribes like Koya, Kondareddy and Naikpod communities. 

During 2008 -09, 525 youth were given intensive coaching in these camps. Nearly 40% of the tribal

youth enrolled in RBCs have passed SSC examinations since 2005 -06 to 2008 -09. The organization

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also proposes to add value to the project by incorporating some services like perspective building,

Life Skill Training and Livelihood training.

7.5. Higher education:

The Orvakal Mandal Mahila Samakhya is one of the oldest Samakhyas and received support under

UNDP project. It is one of the identified SAPAP mandals under UNDP project. Besides addressing the

issues of livelihood, the MMS has long before planned for education and started motivating the SHG

women to save for their childrens education. For the last 10 years the Samakhya has been

championing the cause of Child labour by running Bhavitha Child Labour Bridge School through

which many child labour boys and girls have been mainstreamed into regular Educational

Institutions. The Samakhya has continued their support to the cause of education for the poor

children in general and rescued child labourers in particular around the mandal. The women

members of the Samakhya are now a reserve of trained Community Resource Persons (CRPs) who

are travelling across the nation to sensitize women in different states on their success in moving out

of poverty through various poverty alleviation strategies.

All the women members have collectively worked towards strengthening their MMS in more senses

than one. Each member as a part of their contribution provided physical labour in construction of

buildings for schools. The senior CRPs have contributed a part of their resource fee to the Samakhya

with the help of which buildings have been constructed to run a high school and a Junior college in

the premises of the Samakhya. The resource fee contribution of the members is to the tune of over

Rs. 1.0 Crore over a period of five years.

With the passage of time, the institutions have grown and the recurring expenditure on the school

has increased enormously. Undeterred by the odds, the women members continue their efforts to

build institutions for their childrens education. The long term investment of MMS members on

school and college testifies to the great vision of the women who could perceive that anything spent

on education is not expenditure but a sound investment. Their perception of Education as the surest

way out of poverty is now yielding good results. 

As many as 1000 Child labour withdrawn from work have had an opportunity to access good

education and a sound footing in jobs like Staff Nurses, Computer Operators, Security guards etc:

The brighter students, especially girls have now come to the stage of +2 and are willing to continue

their education. To meet the aspirations of such students, a Junior College was started by the

Samakhya in 2007-08. Since provision of quality education at High school and Junior college level is

fraught with heavy expenditure on faculty, infrastructure, the women members are apprehensive of

the viability of the school and college. They are in need of financial assistance to bridge the viability

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gap and to make the community owned educational institutions sustainable. In consideration of the

relentless efforts of the members of MMS, Orvakal in furtherance of the cause of Education from

primary level to +2 levels, SERP is providing Education Resource Support. 

7.6.Corporate education:

Good quality education at +2 level, coupled with expert coaching to face admission tests for

professional courses is felt imperative by all the parents in general. Financial deprivation has

impeded the meritorious children from accessing good teaching and expert coaching being offered

in institutes of repute. To address this gap, SERP has facilitated the admission of 8,000 meritorious

poor candidates in private / corporate junior colleges of repute, during 2008-09, for two year

intermediate course integrated with focused coaching for IIT JEE / AIEEE / EAMCET. This is being

seen as an inter-generational poverty alleviation strategy.

There is an increased demand for continuation of the scheme and it has also been observed that the

students belonging to weaker sections have put in extra effort to secure more marks in SSC, 2009

exams with the hope of being in the race for corporate education. The scheme is continued in 2009-

10, in convergence with the Welfare departments and 8009 students are being admitted in institutes

of repute. 

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8. HR Unit in SPMU

1. Success of implementation of schemes adopted by SERP mainly depends on the

employees working in the organization who are instrumental in implementing the

same. The HR unit of SPMU SERP Hyderabad mainly deals with the matters of

around 6700 Fixed Tenure Employees working in IKP throughout the state of Andhra

Pradesh. H.R unit is mainly guided by the HR policy adopted by the Executive

Council of the SERP in terms of Bye-law no 10(X1) of the Society.

2. Prior to adoption of HR policy the appointment of staff, their service conditions were

unorganized. The HR unit of SPMU, SERP has prepared the HR Policy applicable to

all the employees working in IKP, which was approved by the Executive Council. As

per the HR policy the employees of IKP were classified in to various levels i.e. L1 to

L6 levels duly assigning various designations to them.

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3. In furtherance of HR Policy, the HR unit has prepared and issued the Terms and

Conditions of Employment of SERP Employees, 2009 which deals with creation and

classification of posts, appointment and tenure of employment, pay structure, leave

rules, code of conduct and discipline etc., of all IKP employees, as approved by the

Executive Council of the Society.

4. As per the said Terms and Conditions all eligible employees have been given letter of

appointments as Fixed Tenure Employees on contract basis for an initial period of 5

years at a stretch, renewable for further period till they attain the age of 58 years,

subject to need to the organization and their satisfactory performance.

5. Since the employees of IKP play a pivotal role in effective implementation of

schemes of SERP as already mentioned above, career advancement opportunities

were given to encourage them.

6. The Human Resource Monitoring system has been developed and placed in Web site,

which covers all the particulars of employees, level wise and district wise.

7. A comprehensive system has been developed for on line payment of monthly

remuneration to the staff of IKP to ensure prompt and timely payment as per their

eligibility.

8. Expansion of activities to new areas like Abahyahastam, Education, Dairy, etc, and

intensification of existing activities like IB,CIF, Marketing, NPM etc, necessitated

rationalization and reorganization of staff. Accordingly staffs have been reorganized

and positions are indicated at different levels i.e. District/Cluster/Mandal levels.

Counselling has been conducted to position the employees of various levels as per

reorganization of staff.

9. HR Unit of SERP is working to facilitate optimum utilization of available Human

Resources for effective implementation of the programmes taken up by the SERP and

also to provide better working conditions and career growth of its employees by

adopting various polices from time to time.

9. Convergence with Key Line DepartmentsSERP beautifully does convergence between different line departments. Some of the

departments are:

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Rural development

SERP carries out convergence between SGSY, Old age pensions and MGREGS for carrying

out integrated rural development.

Tribal welfare

Health and family Welfare – SERP carried out AIDS awareness campaign at different

parts of rural Andhra Pradesh

Civil supplies

Streamlining PDS

M.S.P through V.Os- SERP provides minimum support prices for various Agricultural

produce through Village Organizations.

Revenue – SERP helps in maintaining land purchase and land access of government.

Police and Judiciary – SERP runs Family counseling centres and Family Planning centres

at various places in the state with the help of its Institution structure.

Women & Child welfare: SERP runs Nutrition centres for pregnant women, lactating

mothers and infants till 6 months after birth wherein healthy and nutritious food is

provided to them.

PRIs- better participation and voice of poor in Gram sabhas and Gram panchayats

Animal Husbandry – SERP has entered in to a partnership with A.P.D.D.C.F to improve

the possibility of Dairy as an alternate source of income.

Agriculture – Non Pesticide Management programme run by SERP is the largest

intervention fo this sort in the country

Forestry – NTFP collection and marketing for improving lives of tribals

Urban development – SERP helps enhance rural – urban linkages

10. ReflectionsSERP is an organization carrying out time bound programme. With annual budget of over

800 crores, it is the largest poverty alleviation programme in the world. SERP has included

over 1 crore women in the fold of its SHG’s, thus making it the largest women empowerment

programme in the world. The strategy of SERP is target based. This gives a clear picture for

the implementers regarding the focus of the interventions. SERP focuses on PoP (Poorest of

Poor), vulnerable women and disabled persons. This helps to have an inclusion of all the

28

stakeholders of society, and in turn a balanced growth in society. SERP beautifully

exemplifies how its leverages its core USP, the power of scale to bring all the poor in

the state in to a single social network and then have an all round growth. SERP achieves

scaling up of its projects with the help of the Community Resource Persons. They ensure that

the programme is uniformly implemented. SERP uses social issues to carry out large scale

collective action in the state.

SERP has a huge structure ranging right from the Office at Hyderabad to all districts of

Andhra Pradesh reaching out to almost all the villages of the state. The institutional network

of SERP has over a crore members in SHG’s, along with government departments, state

administrative machinery, district administrative machinery, various NGO’s, corporate,

citizens etc. Besides that, the administrative structure of SERP has as diverse as 18 functional

departments, with each department being an organization on its own having different

cultures, hierarchy, structure etc. This made it highly difficult to apply any theoretical

frameworks to our study.

In fact, there are many instances of duplication of roles, one person carrying out many

functions or many people carrying out same function. The role clarity in almost all

departments is very low at all levels of SERP structure. Hence, we proposed that SERP needs

to undergo an in depth study of its organization which needs to be carried out by experts in

the field. This study will help in drastically improving the efficiency of SERP.

The documentation efforts at SERP is very minimal. The SHG Federation structure needs to

be more widely documented along with all the activities. The management of SERP is very

complex expecially due to involvement of state machinery. The accountability levels at all

levels in SERP are low. But, CEO is making keen efforts to improve the accountability. The

attendance system which was virtually absent has started to be enforced, all employees at

Head Office is made payments of the salaries only after evaluation of their monthly job done

report. The teachers at ECE centres are paid salary by the community at the monthly

meetings wherein students display what they learned during the month, and parents, if

satisfied with the efforts of teacher, approves the payment of salaries. An interesting mode of

ensuring accountability is the regular communication between field and office. CEO carries

out regular video conferencing from the Secretariat with all the ZS heads of all the states of

Andhra Pradesh. Online monitoring of all the departments is done. All the departments at all

the places have to periodically upload the status reports at the organization website available

29

in public domain. Hence, it becomes easy to monitor. The entire web site is maintained by

Tata Consultancy Services.

CEO is the Head with all the executive powers vested with him. This helps in streamlining all

the programs. On the other hand, all the programs run by SERP depend largely on CEO.

Hence, a change in CEO results in changing the orientation of SERP interventions. SERP has

a good mix of both young and aged population. It has led to the right mix of experience of

situations handling and bringing innovations and fresh ideas into the organization. There are

people from institutes such as IIMs, IRMA, TISS etc who bring in the professionalism into

the organization to a greater extent. Also, SERP welcomes various domestic and international

trainees to have out of the box solutions to their existing problems.

SERP provides encouragement for good programmes eg. CMSA, NPM in Land, ECE in

education etc. Good programs in any part of state or country are taken up as pilot in some

districts. If the results are good, it is implemented in the entire state.

An appreciative aspect of SERP Institution is that, all the members at SHG level, VO, MS

and ZS levels have regular monthly meetings to discuss their agendas. Times for all meetings

are kept. Agendas are fixed beforehand. The salaries of all the office bearers are sanctioned

after careful evaluation of monthly job done reports in the presence of all the members. Apart

from this, SERP also carries out regular training programs for all its members to ensure

optimum efficiency and professionalism.

Overall, SERP has impacted many lives, and managed to bring the Poorest of poor to the

level of poor, and poor out of poverty and sustain those levels.

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