The efforts of corporate in driving community sanitation through CSR were recognized by Research & Sustainable Development Consortium (RSDC) who had organized India Toilet Summit to promote Swachh Bharat Mission on 19th November, 2014 at Chennai.

Smt.Santha Sheela Nair,Vice Chairperson, State Planning commission, Tamil Nadu honored Karaikal Port for the commendable work in this sphere on 19.11.2014 by presenting citation.

Strategic Partnership for Community Development MSSRF :

Karaikal port (KPPL) has leveraged the expertise of MSSRF, globally acclaimed NGO based at Chennai to conceive and implemented an ICT based Knowledge connectivity project on partnership mode under CSR from November 2011 on a pilot basis in Karaikal & Nagapattinam districts.

The objective of the project is to address “the livelihood risks of fishing in Karaikal & Nagapattinam districts which are prone for multi kind of disasters” such as cyclone, flood, drought, high waves, high wind and tsunami etc in terms of life and livelihood asset loss to the coastal community of fishers.

Another major gap is the divide between scientific and farming community, which results in lesser awareness among farmers on existing schemes, and services of government and research organizations ultimately affecting their benefits in terms of services and technology transfer. The aftermath of these issues led the farming community experiencing decreasing trend in the yield and productivity of major crops in these traditional basins of agriculture over the years.

The pilot project (Nov 2011 –March 2013) had been created visible impact on empowerment of target groups of Farmers, Fishers & SHGs women in terms of awareness creation, capacity building and addressing livelihood security issues besides mitigating risk associated with fishing activity. Incidentally, the pilot project adjudged as the “Best Community Programme” under CSR at the Responsible Business Summit held at Mumbai for the year 2012-2013.

Based on the results of the pilot project, the phase II had been implemented as an extension of phase I retaining the mobile application to 300 cluster groups of Farmers, Fishers and SHGs @ 100 each to enlarge the scope of the project in Karaikal and Nagapattinam districts from Sept 2013 to April 2015 to address the identified gaps of our pilot project:

• non-conversion of the skill learned for large scale adoption in the field,
• absence of bank linkages to pursue economic activities
• inadequacy of appropriate extension modules and personnel’s
• identification of penetration tools’ to supplement the mobile for wider reach and coverage

Karaikal Port P Ltd had shared the working capital cost of various deliverables of the project. MSSRF is the executor of the partnership project with its specialists, field officers, infrastructure at VRC (Village Resource Centre) at Nagapattinam and net work of resource personals for delivering intended deliverables as per MOU signed on 02.09.2013.

The project had utilized the tested concepts of dissemination of audio advisories on Ocean state forecast (OSF) & Potential fishing zone (PFZ), Global Positioning System (GPS), Weather forecasts, disaster alert, market price, Govt.schemes and news alerts experimented in the name of Fisher Friend Mobile Application (FFMA).

MSSRF developed this mobile app in association with QUALCOM, INCOIS & TCS and tested through their VRCs (Village Resource Centres) in Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh progressively over the years from 2008-2011.The same methodology was adopted to disseminate seasonal Agriculture, Animal husbandry and other advisories to farmers & SHGs which was found successful in Tamil Nadu from the experience of MSSRF since 2009.

The project adopted a multi prong strategies of

Need assessment, Audio-advisories, Help line, Phone-in-programme, Master trainer, Awareness training to reach the target group, Model farm, Converging State/central Government schemes & expertise, Financial linkage with banks, Model Bio-Gas, Tree planting, Reinforcement of knowledge through Community newspaper (CNP) every fortnightly and broadcasting capsule programs in FM Radio.

Help line set up at VRC project office serves to provide more information and to clarify doubts to the target groups based on the audio advisories. Phone–in programmes are being organized with subject experts to obtain further information, clarification and guidance.

The target groups comprised: 452 farmers in 22 villages; 100 fishers from 4 villages; 223 Women from 34 SHGs in 10 villages in Karaikal & Nagapattinam districts as against the original target of 100 each from these groups. Based on the convenience timings of the target groups, two audio messages/advisories @ 50 to 55 seconds for each group were disseminated on a daily basis, based on the need and emerging issues.

Based on the need assessment study, 18 training programmes were conducted at village levels and also at external training centres at KVK, Sikkal, Thanjavur and Coconut Research Centre, Veppankulam etc relating to the livelihood issues of target groups. Cadre of master trainer @ 20 from each group has trained to act as reference point at the villages to motivate and train other community members for capacity building in their vocations.

The web based knowledge management system has been developed to capture all the data, learning, results and all the documentation related this project by MSSRF.

Project Monitoring and Advisory Committee (PMAC) comprising officials from Government departments, Resource persons of the project, Coast Guard, Panchayat Presidents, few target groups, MSSRF and CSR officials of the Port was conducted once in a quarter followed by field visits to review the progress in terms of beneficiaries involvement, dynamic needs if any, and to take course correction, addition or subtraction of the deliverables.

Final user interaction meet was conducted on 24th February 2015 at MSSRF VRC at Nagapattinam with all the stake holders with 42 people participated followed by village visits to assess the impact of the project.

Perceptional case study method was adopted to ascertain the phase 11 project results and its impact on the target groups, by the experts as to “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results”- Winston Churchill. 35 success stories were documented in the form of case studies and published as booklet. The case study results were in agreement with spontaneous reflections of all the stake holders/target groups about the impact of the project interventions and its sustainability on their livelihoods aired in PMAC meetings/field visits.

To sum up, Impact Assessment & Learning’s from the Project

• Project deliverables like Audio Advisories, Helpline, Phone-in programmes and master trainers have provided expert advises swiftly with practical solutions suitable to the local conditions which brought significant changes in the capacity of target groups due to real time demand driven dynamic information & through appropriate training
• On-site learning’s through model farm established in master trainers field has been found to be great source of inspiration for adoption of latest crop production techniques by the farmers & SHGs in the respective village/neighborhood
• Empowerment of women is the visible hall mark of this project in terms of advisories and trainings imparted on SHG management, Value added products, developing kitchen garden, small businesses, animal husbandry, health care, Bank and Govt. schemes & financial linkages
• Fisher friend mobile app, with OSF and PFZ forecasts utilized in the project is emerged as an innovative model to improve the income generation & also in mitigating the operational risks involved in the loss of life   and physical assets.
• The project through its various interventions has contributed sustainably for enhancing the household income of SHG members, farmers & fishers besides efficiency in fishing/farming practices
• Community news Paper (CNP) is emerged as a ready reckoner for diverse fields focusing farmers, Fishers, SHGs, Students and general public in 8 districts in Puducherry & Tamil Nadu

This pilot project would address the gap between “scientific knowhow” and “field level do how” using different Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools. The stake holders perceived our partnership project as an innovative, acceptable and highly adoptable extension service deployed at an optimum cost utilizing the neighborhood concept (i.e. target groups disseminating the advisories to their family members, neighbor & peer to peer).Overall the project deliverables has reached more than 40,000 people in around 40 villages in Karaikal and Nagappatinam districts.

Incidentally, the mobile app of FFMA, one of the tools utilized in the project developed by MSSRF had won the mBillionth South Asian Award 2014 for its innovative features socially empowering millions of people/fishers through digital media in the coastal districts of Pondicherry, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.

Majority of Core areas of CSR prescriptions of new CSR Rule 2014 under companies act 2013 viz Education, Empowering women, Environmental Sustainability, Preventive Health Care, and national agenda of Skill India, Agriculture and Fisheries have been covered adequately in our Knowledge connectivity partnership project with MSSRF (2011-2015).