While PACS Programme CSO Nidan won two prizes, including the competition’s first prize, for its micro-insurance initiative and work among street vendors, Centre for Promotion of Sustainable Livelihoods (CPSL), a programme RO, won fifth prize for its ‘non-deterministic’ approach to loan disbursements by self-help groups (SHGs).

Another PACS Programme CSO, Gramin Evam Nagar Vikash Parishad (GENVP), was among the 25 organisations shortlisted for the award.

The prizes were given away by Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi, at a two-day event organised on September 28 and 29, 2007, at the Tara Mandal auditorium, Patna.

An independent society under the Department of Finance, Government of Bihar, BRLPS aims to improve rural livelihood options and work towards the social and economic empowerment of rural poor and women in Bihar.

BRLPS set up BIF to support innovations aimed at improving rural livelihoods by various institutions, entrepreneurs, and non-government organisations. BIF aims to showcase and support various innovations that have potential for scaling up in Bihar. The forum hopes to working along the lines of a “development marketplace”.

Towards this end, BIF plans to hold a two-day event every year to showcase selected innovations before a wide audience, and recognise exceptional achievements with awards.

For the 2007 awards, innovations were identified in two stages. In the first stage, nominations accompanied by concept notes and photographs were invited through newspaper advertisements. After they were shortlisted, requests were sent for additional information.

In the second stage, 25 innovations were selected on the basis of indicators such as applicability, replicability, scalability, impact and sustainability. Sub-indicators of these indicators were defined, as also means of verification; field validation of claims was also carried out.

Four innovative practices undertaken by three organisations under the PACS Programme were among 25 of the 160 nominations selected after this rigorous screening process.

The 25 selected innovations were then judged by a panel of national and international experts who used a specially developed rating tool.

The panel selected Nidan for the first prize, which carried a cash reward of Rs 3 lakh, for its its rights-based initiative among street vendors. The CSO also bagged fourth prize, carrying a cash reward of Rs 75,000, for its micro-insurance initiative. Both projects are supported by the PACS Programme.

Nidan’s work among street vendors includes organising and mobilising them for advocacy and demand of legal rights, encouraging savings, promoting group enterprises and promoting low-cost insurance policies.

Nidan’s insurance scheme, operational in seven out of the 38 districts in Bihar, covers hospital expenses, death and asset loss suffered by people belonging to the poorest communities. To read a story on the insurance scheme, click here.

According to the CSO’s chief functionary, Arvind Singh, sensitisation and orientation of officials and grassroots workers is the key to Nidan’s success in the field of micro-insurance. “While the poor need insurance more than the rich, promotion of the concept requires extreme sensitivity,” he explains. “Many poor people are superstitious and ignorant of the ways of the modern world and often a single statement can make a poor person apprehensive.”

CPSL bagged fifth prize for demonstrating that SHGs that are free to take their own decisions on saving and lending have greater viability and livelihood-generation potential than those that are forced to work under the dictates of CSOs or finance institutions, even when the former decide on extremely low savings requirements, such as 50 paise per member, per week. To read more about CPSL’s approach, which has been successfully adopted in some PACS Programme areas, click here.

Sunil Chowdhury, chief functionary of CPSL, said after the award function: “I am happy not only because I got the award but also because the deputy chief minister recognised the importance of a loan of Rs 2 given to SHG members.”

Through a social inclusion project under the PACS Programme, GENVP, one of the 25 selected nominees, has nurtured a community-based organisation called Dalit Sangharsh Morcha that fights for the rights and entitlements of dalits and other marginalised communities.

Working in 60 villages of Chandi block, Nalanda district, the Morcha is a block-level federation with around 4,000 members, including 2,800 women. In the 2006 Bihar panchayat elections, around 62 candidates supported by the Dalit Sangharsh Morcha were elected. To read an earlier story on the Dalit Sangharsh Morcha, click here.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who inaugurated the function and gave away the prizes, remarked that while women had got political empowerment through 50% reservation of seats in panchayat bodies, they could gain economic empowerment through SHGs. He made special mention of PACS Programme initiatives that had bagged three of the five top BIF prizes.

Among the dignitaries present on the occasion were Bihar Development Commissioner R J M Pillai, BRLPS Chief Executive Officer Arvind Kumar Chowdhury, and Parmesh Shah, Senior Rural Development Specialist ( South Asia), World Bank.