Monitoring and evaluation visit CORD Thamraipakkam (25th 30th March 2012)

Evaluation team 1. Dr. Kshama Metre ,National director 2. Smt. Seema Devi, Community Development Worker (Sr.) and field work evaluator 3. Sh. Onkar Saini, Community Development Worker (Sr.) and field work evaluator 4. Sh. Vijay Singh, Accountant Day wise activity log
25th March 2012: Arrival at CORD Thampraipakkam at around 8.45 am. Started meeting with CORD Thamraipakkam team at around 12.00pm. The following team members were present in the meeting: 1. Sh. PN Kananji, 2. Sh. Val Murugan 3. Ms. Lalitha 4. Sh. Silambarshan (joined late 12 noon or 12.30pm) 5. Mr. Murugashan 6. Mr. Praveen (intern from SP Jain Institute) 7. Mr. Swayam (intern from SP Jain Institute) The resource, monitoring and evaluation team from CORD Training Centre Sidhbari, H.P, comprising Smt. Seema Thakur, Sh. Vijay Singh and Sh. Onkar Singh were also present in the meeting. The meeting was started with a prayer. After the initial introductions, discussions were held with the team on the progress of the work. Various issues were discussed during this meeting from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm. An activity was carried out to list out the CBOs that the workers have created and grading them on a scale of A to C. The activity also included identification of CBO for field visits according to the given grades. Kalpet and Malandur CBOs (Mahila Mandal and Youth Club) were selected for the field visits. Malandur Panchayat had been chosen as the focus area for future work by the CORD Thampraipakkam team. After lunch the team visited Malandoor Panchayat and interacted with the president of the panchayat to gain some insights regarding the area. There are approximately 500 families in the panchayats and the major source of employment is embroidery in which about 200 families were employed. They receive orders from middlemen in Chennai for their embroidery products. None of the families owned any agricultural land and worked as labourers in farms in other panchayats. The panchayats did not have any transportation facilities and educational facilities (for secondary education). Students of the panchayats have to travel over 7 km to Vengal panchyat for secondary education. 25 SHGs have been formed under VKT. However, they are not currently functional and according to the survey by interns from SP Jain it came to light that every household has taken loans on which they have been defaulting. Due to this reason banks have been reluctant to extend any further loans.

The team then interacted with fifteen members of a Youth Club, formed in the previous month by the CORD Thampraipakkam team. The Youth Club members were very enthusiastic and active. During the interaction they shared their action plan, with the team, which involved activities for the development of their village. The team then visited Kalpet panchayat and interacted with members of the Mahila Mandal (Thendrel Mahila Mandal), which was formed in the previous month. There were two SHGs under the Mahila Mandal which were formed under VKT. The concept of Mahila Mandal was not yet clear to the members. Their meetings are conducted in the evenings from 9:00 to 10:00 PM. It is not clear how CRD Thampraipakkam workers are able to attend these meetings as their timings are from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM. On enquiring on this matter the team was not able to satisfactorily answer the questions. Therefore the observation of the monitoring team has been that it is necessary to fix dates and timings of the Mahila Mandal meetings. Observations of the team: From previous experience it has been noted that working in areas falling under VKT project (like Thampraipakkam) has led to expulsion of NGOs from carrying out overlapping activities. Due to this reason working on SHGs, expending time and resources, in this region would be wasteful and so the need to identify a non-VKT panchayat. The Youth club members are very enthusiastic and should be nurtured carefully with proper guidance. In the future there is potential for them to be role models for other youth clubs. As we are not going to choose this as a focus panchayats we could invite one or two leaders from this group as a volunteer, who can be trained to continue the good work. Field feedback from Sh. Onkar and Smt. Seemaji: 26th March 2012: Sh. Onkar Singh visited Edamedu village with Mr. Murgashan and Mr. Parveen to follow up the progress of Youth club and Farmer club. This Youth Club was formed and facilitated by CORD Thampraipakkam during the course of Chinmaya Samaj Sevak Course. This youth Club has been observed to be very active during the last monitoring visit in December 2010. An attractive hoarding had been fixed by the members of the club at the entrance of the village. The members of Youth Club had been taking part in environment cleanliness drives; they had installed three garbage pits for waste material collection from their own monthly contributions. But due to poor follow up and lack of proper guidance by CORD team members this youth club is now not functional. When the team interacted with the villagers they came to know that the president of the youth club has moved out of the village for higher studies and no other leader has came forward to continue the activity of this youth club. Our team members also have not tried to encourage new leadership and new members. The team members have also been lax in promoting taking up of new issues from time to time in a planned manner. Post lunch Sh. Onkar Saini interacted with the members of Chinmaya Shakti Farmer club at Edamedu village along with Mr. Murugesan and Mr. Praveen. All the members of this club are women farmers. The members of this farmer Club are very active. They have been conducting regular meeting every month & their record keeping of the proceedings is very good. Now this Club is registered with NABARD and has received Rs. 3000 as grant in aid to continue their activity. During the evaluation visit the members of farmer club have complained that no one staff member from CORD ever attended their meeting after Mr. Ghanjendhran left. When we inquired with Mr. Murgheshan about this complaint he told us that Mr. Ellangoo was in charge of this village but had never visited the village. Mr. Murgheshan has taken over as the in charge of the village in the previous month, but could not visit the village due to

some official work. Further enquires in the field revealed that CORD Thampraipakkam staff visited the field on very few occasions in the morning and as all the meeting of CBO held in evening time the villagers were not aware of the CORD worker in charge of their village. Status of Vermi Compost demonstration done during CSSC training The structures for Vermi compost, constructed during the CSSC training in different wards of the Thampraipakkam Panchyat, are not maintained properly and are not used by the beneficiaries expect for the one at Tamil colony. It was decided during the construction of the structures that the sheds will be made on each demonstration unit with available material. It was not taken seriously by the team members, especially CDO, and the team had no knowledge about the progress of Vermi compost pits. It was observed by the team that the lone functional vermin compost pit was owned by a CORD worker and the pit was located close to the CORD office. The work on these pits is thus a big question mark on the mobilization capacity and sustainability of the work undertaken by team members as people are not using the Vermi compost units constructed with the financial help of CORD. It is the responsibility of our team members to regularly follow-up on each of the activities and to try and encourage beneficiaries. Only then will people be motivated to adopt and practice it. Dated 26th 2012: Post Lunch Meeting with Staff National Director joined the monitoring team post lunch on 26th March, 2012. After the initial introductions she reviewed the overall activities of CORD Tamrepakkam. Then she conducted a detailed exercise with Anusya (Field worker) who had been posted since three months in Tharaimpakkam Panchayat after Mr. Gajendharan and Ms. Gaythri had left. During the exercise it was found that the planning and strategy for work was very poor and out of 22 SHGs only 2 SHGs at Koot Road and one woman Farmer Club in Edamedu village are functional and ready to work under CORD Tharaimpakkam. Rests of the SHGs were overlapping by VKT and did not want to wort under CORD Tamrapakkam. She had plenty of time in field, but was not able to convince the beneficiaries to join CBOs such as Mahila Mandals of CORD Tamrappakam. She was also not able to come up with any collaboration with VKT. It was also observed that the visits were made to the same groups and a lot of time was wasted in the process. Sh. Kananji and CDO, Mr. VelMurugan has to look into this seriously and similarly help other team members to plan their time much better and become more organized and accountable. As per our findings, Ms. Lalitha is looking after 6 Panchyats, Ms. Anusya was looking after 1 Panchyat and Mr.Murghshan was looking after 8 Panchyats. In a majority of the cases the focus has been on SHGs only and very few new Mahila Mandals, Yuvati Samuhs or Balvihars have been started. All the workers are involved in all the blocks and CORD THAMPRAIPAKKAM has not allotted one block for each worker. They are still struggling with CBO formation and other aspects of integrated development are very poor or still in their inception phase. This needs serious reflection and planning from all team members with site incharge and CDO. During the general discussion with the team we found that whole Ellapuram Block is covered by VKT project and that they dont allowed any SHG under them to join other organizations or NGO activities. Out of the 48 SHGs under CORD Tamrapakkam only 30 SHGs are in non VKT regions and the rest are under VKT. This is leading to wastage of workers time in these SHGs under VKT. It was decided by Dr. Didi that we would be leaving these SHGs under VKT if they are disinterested. We are now trying to focus on areas where VKT is currently not operating.

Worker wise CBO handling details: Name worker of Number of Panchyat Lalitha 6 Murgheshan 8 Anusya 1 Silambrsan 2 number of Village 9 11 8 3 Women Groups (M.M.) 5 2 0 0 SHG Adolescent Group 4 0 2 0 Farmer Club 1 0 1 0 Tuition Centre 2 0 2 1 youth Club 0 7 1 1

16 10 22 3

It was found during the interaction that team members at CORD Tampraipakkam are paid much beyond their work outputs which need serious attention from the CDO, Sh. ValMurugan by helping them to produce results and introducing many other aspects of comprehensive integrated rural development programme.

27th March, 2012 National Director along with the monitoring team visited Vathatoor panchayat to gain insights into the region as it was selected as a possible focus panchayat. We then interacted with the panchayat president, the farmers and other village members (anganwadi workers, school teachers etc.). This panchayat has 6 wards and a majority of the families are involved in agriculture over their own lands. We collected the approximate ward wide details of the panchayats such as the households, name of the villages, ward wise elected representatives and natural resources. Demographic details and resource maps of Vathatoor Panchya have to be taken by the CORD Tampraipakkam team. We tried to motivate villagers to form farmer clubs, mahila mandals and other CBOs. After working out details of these Panchyats we decided to visit the panchayats again in a couple of days. 29th March, 2012 The Mr. Onkar Saini and Smt. Seema Devi, along with CORD Tamrepakkam staff, visited Vathatoor panchayats and further interacted with the villagers for the formation of farmer clubs and mahila mandals in different villages. They also collected data related to other NGOs regarding SHGs etc. After lunch the team again visited this panchayat. The team formed one farmer club in Vathatoor in Ward no. 1. The president, secretary and treasurer were then selected. Villagers from other wards were also present in this meeting. They were interested in forming farmer clubs in their respective wards but could not do so as all the members of their ward were not present in the meeting on that day. They promised to form farmer clubs in their wards in the coming days after consulting their ward members. Thus there is a possibility f two more farmer clubs being formed in this panchayat. Responsibility was given to Mr. Velumurugan to form these clubs in the coming weeks.

Fraud report by Team member During the exercise with Mr. Murugeshan about the field activity under his operational area. According his field report he has been looking after 2 Mahila Mandals, 10 SHGs, and 7 youth Groups. According to his last monthly report on 2nd March, 2012 he went to Annapurani SHG at

Vallur Panchyat to verify and maintain the cash and resolution register. But the field check by by Mr. Duraiee, it was found that that Mr. Murugeshan had not visited this SHG (Annapurani SHG) for the previous three to four months and he submitted a fraudulent report to the CORD office. Similar feedback was reported in other SHGs under his supervision leading to his dismissal. 30th March, 2012 National Director held a meeting with all the staff members of CORD Tamrepakkam to brief them about the feedback received and to convey the decisions taken based on this feedback. The following were the major points that came up during this meeting:
CDO, Mr. Velumurugan needs to learn more about the formation of CBOs, government schemes related to agricultural activities. He needs to cross check the field reports and visit the fields more often to prevent further acts of fraud. During the field visits it came out that he does not visit the fields and so has very less knowledge of the ground reality. CDO, Mr. Velumurugan has been posted in Vadhatoor panchayat as the overall in charge and is responsible for all CBO related activities in the panchayat. Here forth, he will be visiting CORD office only on center days and will be in the field (Vadhatoor panchayat) during other days. CDO, Mr. Velumurugan was instructed by the National Director to prepare his monthly schedules which are to be submitted to the CORD office. CDO, Mr. Velumurugan was instructed by the National Director to report to Sh. Onkar Singh on a weekly basis regarding the progress and the work done in the week. Ms. Lalitha wanted to discontinue working for CORD due to her health issues. Also, she is not able to attend the CBO meetings during the evenings as her house was located far away. National Director decided to relieve Ms. Lalitha from 31st May, 2012. National Directed instructed Mr. Chelladurai to choose some village resource person to take up the area currently looked after by Ms. Lalitha and to train them. These new members will be paid an honorarium according to the work done by them (Rs. 100 per month per SHG). These resource persons are to submit their reports to the CDO on the 29th of every month and they would be paid their salary on the same day. Mr. Silmbrasan (CDW Jr., part time) has been doing a good job. He has formed some youth clubs and is running tuition in his village. He has also formed 2 SHGs and has worked with 26 disabled persons in his own panchayats. National Director instructed Mr. Swayam Rath to visit his village and to help him in his tuition center and to report the work done to her. Mr. Praveen is to help Mr. Velmurugan in CBO formation in Vadathoor panchayat.

Conclusion The field visits by the monitoring team revealed that the work done by the CORD team in Tamrepakkam has been unsatisfactory. The suggestions from the previous monitoring visit have not been taken seriously and have not been implemented. It is mandatory for all the team members to go through the suggestions of the monitoring team and to implement the same. We found that in the previous monitoring report we sent, they were asked to collect some information regarding Vadathoor panchayats. The data is still not available and the team workers were not even aware of the request for the data. We hope that this is not repeated in the future and hope to find substantial improvement in the work done in the next monitoring

visit. We hope that CORD Tamrepakkam would act as a role model for others to emulate in the future. This requires hard work and commitment from all the team members.