across different levels. Licensing, NOCs, house related services and other such systems were to be integrated with the online model.
These guidelines, if implemented effectively, could largely improve the efficacy of PRIs and align them with their long-term objectives.
WORKS BY UNICEF IN CHANDRAPUR
UNICEF is a non-government organization under United Nations established for the upliftment and development of children. UNICEF works on the global level in collaboration with various political and nonpolitical decision-makers, and with the help of a multitude of partners at grassroots level, turns the most innovative ideas related to child health and benefits into reality.
UNICEF India has been operational since 1949 and is the largest UN organization in the country. The target set by UNICEF is that each and every child in the country should get the best start in life, to develop his or her full potential. The role of UNICEF is that of an enabler as it plans and runs several pilot programs for social development. It then hands over the responsibility of the further full-scale implementation to the government agencies. It carries out extensive training to the government officials as well as NGOs so that the program can be effectively sustained.
The overall standard of living of the people in the region is low even though a few of the villages are quite prosperous. Some of the villages have better administration and have managed to take advantage of the government schemes by showing good results, and thus growing prosperous. However, people in many other villages of this region are quite poor, most of who do not have sustainable means of livelihood. As per current records the percentage of people below poverty line is around 39 %. Many people are under the influence of alcohol and while away their resources. There is a general sense of depravity among the citizens of the place and a general lack of ambition seen among the youth.
UNICEF does significant work here to uplift the living standards of the people. The UNICEF employees are respected and listened to, as a result of this respect towards the organization. Chandrapur district sees a lot of activities by UNICEF.( See Exhibit 1 for an overview of the programs carried out by UNICEF in the region) All these programs are under guidance and supervision of Ms. Anuradha Nair, Social Policy, Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation( M & E) specialist.( See Exhibit 2 for the reporting structure for the programs)
THE DEEPSHIKHA PROGRAM
Creating health awareness and providing guidance for setting up small scale businesses, the Deepshikha
Program for adolescent girls has been very successful in Chandrapur. It was first implemented in 2008 when UNICEF turned its attention to this section of the society after the change of policy guidelines.
Thereafter, a huge attention has been given to this program considering that the adolescent girls( typically in the age group 11-18 split into 2 groups 11-14 and 15-18) are highly vulnerable, especially in rural areas, since there is lack of basic amenities complemented by traditional thinking about the inferior status of women in the society, though it is slowly changing.
One of the oldest programs in the district this program has run successfully and has achieved its objectives by up to 80 %, much beyond what Ms. Anuradha had expected.( See Exhibit 3 for the impact created by the program) The success of this program was a feather in the cap for Upendra and this boosted his confidence to carry out other programs with vigour.
NEED FOR BETTER REPORTING
On perusal of some data collection sheets from the past records( see Exhibit 7 for the old reporting formats), Upendra found that there was a lack of coherent data of any form. The data was very haphazard, which led to drawing some plans which could not be implemented practically, making the planning ineffective. Thus the basic usability of the data itself was in question.
To cite an example Upendra observed that there was almost 53 % repetition( see Exhibit 6) between the data collected by Anganwadi and Medical Sub-Centre. There were several intersecting areas in the work of the various entities and this lead to repetition. For instance, both Anganwadi and Auxiliary Nurse Midwife( ANM)( the medical officer in the village) implemented vaccination and hence there was overlap in their data. Also at times there was cross-use of data across departments, leading to further duplication( for e. g. Medical Centre passed its birth death record to the gram Panchayat, but both maintained the records of birth and death).
Another important issue was that since the same data was collected by several people, many a time people got irritated and gave wrong information to either of them. Also there were other reasons people gave false information e. g. taking advantage of the Below Poverty Line( BPL) benefits.
The people involved in collecting, recording, and handling the data often complained about work overload. At the same time, the output was ineffective, to say the least. Due to opacity in the whole process, corruption could foster unchecked and caused a feeling of distrust between the villagers and the data collection authorities. This also caused a wide gap between the number of cases reported against corruption and the actual incidents of it.
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