THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The conversion of 146 acres of fallow land at Perambra into cultivable land by reviving a feeder canal and irrigation facilities by the Kudumbashree women, described by Minister for Panchayats and Social Welfare M K Muneer, turned out to be an eyeopener for the a team from Maharashtra, which is in the state to learn about community enterprises, especially Kudumbashree. The 18member team from Maharashtra was given a brief lecture on Panchayats and Kudumbashree Opportunities for Convergence by the Minister.
Prior to this, Kudumbashree executive director Sarada Muraleedharan made a presentation on the ideology and concept of Kudumbashree, its evolution, training strategies, identification of experts for skill training, convergence with agriculture, health, employment guarantee schemes and social welfare. The members of the Maharashtra team, whose visit is to help in the implementation of the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) in Maharashtra, include three state core team members on NRLM, six chief executive officers of zilla parishads, project director of the District Rural Development Agency and additional chief executive officers of the zilla parishads. The team interacted with the Panchayat Minister and Kudumbashree director on the funding of Kudumbashree, its structure, selfhelp groups, account keeping, raising of funds, resource mobilisation, core differences between Kudumbashree and other such initiatives in other states such as Andhra Pradesh and the need for strong panchayats to implement such initiatives. The team, after the initial interaction, was divided into two and taken on field visits to Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram, where they would visit BUDS schools, apparel parks and places Kudumbashree had scripted success stories. The field visits will continue till June 8. It is not the first time that such exposure visits have been organised for Kudumbashree and Kerala model community development and women empowerment initiatives.
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