Lok Sabha Question No. 3248 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-03-16
Subject: Functioning of BRLF
Ministry: RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: Nisith Pramanik, Sukanta Majumdar, Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo, Vinod Kumar Sonkar, Bhola Singh, Sarmistha Sethi, Raja Amareshwara Naik, Rajveer (Raju Bhaiya) Singh, Jayanta Kumar Roy

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT

## LOK  SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3248 ANSWERED ON 16.03.2021

## FUNCTIONING OF BRLF

## 3248.   SHRI NISITH PRAMANIK:

DR. SUKANTA MAJUMDAR:

SHRIMATI SANGEETA KUMARI SINGH DEO:

SHRI VINOD KUMAR SONKAR:

SHRI BHOLA SINGH:

SHRIMATI SARMISTHA SETHI:

SHRI RAJA AMARESHWARA NAIK:

SHRI RAJVEER SINGH (RAJU BAAIYA):

DR. JAYANTA KUMAR ROY:

Will the Minister of RURAL DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Ministry has set up Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation (BRLF) to empower rural India;
- (b) if so, the details thereof including the structure, functions and source of budgets;
- (c) whether the BRLF has been entrusted to ensure better implementation of Government schemes in partnership with civil society organizations.
- (d) if so, whether the BRLF organises various activities and programmes for tribals ;
- (e) if so, the details of achievements made and funds sanctioned during the last three years, State-wise;
- (f) whether the Government has reviewed the functioning of the BRLF; and
- (g) if so, the steps being taken by the Government for improvement in the working of the BRLF?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT (SHRI NARENDRA SINGH TOMAR)

(a) to (c):   Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation (BRLF)  was set up as  an independent society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 on 03 rd December 2013.  BRLF`s mission  is  to facilitate  and upscale civil society action in partnership with Government for transforming livelihoods and  lives of rural households, with an emphasis on women, Particularly in the Central Indian Tribal Region.

BRLF is governed by a General Body and Executive Committee comprising elected, nominated or ex-officio members. The Secretaries of three Central ministries - Rural Development, Tribal Affairs and Panchayat Raj are ex-officio members of its General Body (GB) and Executive Committee (EC). GB and  EC also include representatives of state governments, eminent persons from academia, civil society and the corporate sector with demonstrated experience, understanding and commitment to the issues of concern to BRLF,  financial institutions, public sector undertakings, philanthropic foundations, academic institutions and institutions representing industry. Presently  the President  of BRLF is Shri Hasmukh Shah, Former Chairman, IPCL.

BRLF is  mandated  to  provide  financial  grants  to  civil  society  organizations  (CSOs)  to  meet  their human resource and institutional costs for up scaling of proven interventions, invest in institutional strengthening of smaller  CSOs and capacity building of professional human resources working at the grassroots.

BRLF  has  two sources for its budget:- (i) corpus and endowment funds wherein only interest earned on the funds is utilised for operations and  (ii) grants and donations  Govt. has provided  BRLF with Rs.  200  crore  to  create  its  corpus.    BRLF  can  also  partner  with  private  philanthropies,  public  and private  sector  undertakings  seek  contribution    to  its  corpus  fund  or  annual  grant    or  co-financing support to the projects funded by it.

(d) & (e):  As mentioned above, BRLF engages  with CSOs  and provides  grant support mainly for the  Human  Resources  and  operations  cost  of  CSOs.  In  addition,  each  CSO  supported  by  BRLF attempts to leverage the resources made available by both banks and  government for a number of national and/ or state level rural development programmes/ schemes.

As per information provided by  (BRLF), the following are major achievements made by BRLF:-

- A. BRLF was designated as a Centre of Excellence of Ministry of Tribal Affairs ( MoTA). In this role, BRLF has been mandated to  screen  NGOs for MoTA's Grant-in-Aid Scheme, do Research Study on UsharMukti program and evaluate Grant-in-Aid Scheme of MoTA.
- B. BRLF supports CSOs to conduct the following capacity building programmes :-

(i). Certificate Programme in Rural Livelihoods (CPRL) which is a 6-month certificate programme targeting the tribal youths of 18-40 years of age. A total of 6 batches with a collective strength of 174 tribal youths have been launched till date.

(ii)  BRLF has been providing financial support to bright Adivasi students from the Central India Tribal Belt to pursue a two-year MBA in Rural Management from School of Development Studies, IIHMRU, Jaipur since 2017. Till now 22 students have been supported to go through this course.

(iii)  BRLF  has  supported  25  rural  professionals  of  tribal  areas  to  receive  advanced  training  on 'Water Science and Policy' in partnership with Shiv Nadar University.

(iv) BRLF signed an MoU with Jharkhand State Livelihoods Promotion Society (JSLPS) on 25th May 2019 to impart training to 90 Field Thematic Coordinators to improve current knowledge of field staff on contemporary facets of rural livelihoods.

- C. Since  2017  BRLF  has  special  thematic  partnerships  with  some  state  governments  for large scale projects. Highlights of these programs as under:-

(i). Support to spring rejuvenation program  of West Bangal in four districts   of the State viz., Darjeeling,  Allipurduar,  Kalimpong  and  Jalpaiguri    for  reviving  457  natural  springs  through implementing  partners  PRASARI  and  ACWADAM  and  financial  support  of  Arghyam, Bangalore.

- (ii). Support to the  'UsharMukti Project' of Govt. of West Bangal  was launched across 10,091 villages,  2,080  micro-watersheds,  472  GPs,  55  blocks  across  6  districts  (Purulia,  Bankura, Jhargram, Birbhum, PaschimMednipur and PaschimBardhaman).
- (iii) .  Chhattisgarh  Mega  Watershed  Project: Under  the  project,  an  estimated  1,388 Microwatersheds  are  being  taken  up  for  area  treatment,  checking  soil  erosion  and  runoff  reduction over 6.94 lakh  hectares  of  land. Under  the  MoU,  the  state  government  has  committed  to providing Rs1166.4 crores (from MGNREGA) for all treatment measures, while BRLF and Axis Bank Foundation take care of the CSO facilitation costs. In terms of administrative sanctions, projects  worth  Rs.  302.15  crores  have  been  sanctioned,  of  which  schemes  worth  Rs.  135.17 crores have been completed creating more than 51.4 lakh person-days of employment.
- (iv). Odisha Agriculture Production Cluster Project: This four year project is a collaborative initiative  of  the  Directorate  of  Horticulture,  Odisha  Livelihoods  Mission  (OLM),  BRLF, PRADAN and  16  local  CSOs  to  ensure  doubling  of  income  of  100,000  small  and  marginal farmers  especially  women  by  establishing  650  Producer  Groups  (PG)  aggregated  to  form  30 APCs/Producer  Company  (PCs)  in  40  blocks  of  12  highland  districts.  Of  these  about  64% households belong to ST and SC Communities. The estimated cost of the project is INR. 401.60 crores  of  which  Rs.381  crores  is  program  expenses  to  be  met  out  of  government  contribution from different departments, and Rs.20.34  crores is earmarked towards  CSO facilitation, being borne by BRLF and participating CSOs. Under this project, 790 PGs have been formed covering 85,167  households  and  a  total  of  5509.7  acres  of  irrigation  potential  has  been  created  by leveraging resources through different schemes available in the state. Rs. 81.36 crores have been leveraged from the state government till September 2020
- (v).. Jharkhand MGNREGA Mega-Watershed Project : BRLF has signed an MoU in August 2020 with the Rural Development Department of Jharkhand (via MGREGA Commissioner) for a mega-watershed  project  to  be  implemented  across  24  blocks  of  6  districts  of  the  state  over  4 years. The project aims at doubling the income of at least 1 lakh families in these blocks while providing water security to 1.91 lakh households and bringing cropping intensity in approximately 1.81 lakh hectares of land.
- (vi).  Strengthening  Civil  Society  action  in  the  areas  of  water,  clean  energy  and  climate change: The project, being funded by the European Union, is being implemented in 279 villages of 4 blocks in 3 districts of Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand to transform the lives and livelihoods of the particularly vulnerable tribal groups and dalits of Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand Under this, 1359 water harvesting structures have been constructed under MGNREGA and 450-hectare land  has  been  brought  under  protective  irrigation.  7448  household  have  been  covered  under Ujjwala  scheme.  1463  houses  have  constructed  under  Pradhan  MantriAwasYojna  and  9922 farmers from 172 villages supported to adopt sustainable agriculture practices
- (vii). Special Thematic Areas: BRLF has been working on the following special thematic areas since  inception  -  Non-Pesticide  Management  based  agriculture,  Participatory  Ground  Water Management,  Water  and  Sanitation,  De-notified  and  Nomadic  Tribes,  Backyard  Poultry  and Farmer Producer Organizations. Special knowledge partners have supported the work of BRLF partner CSOs in working on these thematic areas.

The table below gives state- wise grant expenditure incurred by  BRLF:

|       | BRLF state wise Grant Expenditure   | BRLF state wise Grant Expenditure   | BRLF state wise Grant Expenditure   | BRLF state wise Grant Expenditure   | BRLF state wise Grant Expenditure   |
|-------|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
| S. No | State                               | FY 2020-21 (as on 10 th March,2021) | FY 2019-20                          | FY 2018-19                          | FY 2017-18                          |
| 1     | Madhya Pradesh                      | 1,81,28,275                         | 2,93,75,611                         | 3,12,81,231                         | 2,15,80,526                         |
| 2     | Jharkhand                           | 39,55,895                           | 1,66,77,941                         | 1,76,22,244                         | 2,64,95,622                         |
| 3     | Rajasthan                           | 18,31,602                           | 91,94,308                           | 80,16,942                           | 1,66,19,000                         |
| 4     | Gujarat                             | 33,13,885                           | 2,19,73,784                         | 2,15,23,926                         | 1,70,18,664                         |
| 5     | West Bengal                         | 3,06,07,158                         | 4,49,50,843                         | 5,26,79,722                         | 4,40,25,192                         |
| 6     | Maharashtra                         | 27,43,806                           | 1,75,96,403                         | 1,85,81,473                         | 1,88,16,470                         |
| 7     | Odisha                              | 4,13,09,543                         | 7,01,41,755                         | 4,87,77,846                         | 2,82,30,461                         |
| 8     | Chhattisgarh                        | 4,24,38,894                         | 5,14,49,451                         | 2,16,42,358                         | 11,06,025                           |
|       | Grand Total                         | 14,43,29,058                        | 26,13,60,096                        | 22,01,25,742                        | 17,38,91,960                        |

- (f): No Sir
- (g): In view of above, the question does not arise.

******