ANNOUNCEMENTS
The project aims to understand the needs of the villages located in 4 panchayats within the 5 km radius of a large- scale manufacturing plant in the state of Odisha. The large-scale manufacturing plant operates with its mission of being socially responsible and therefore aims to implement programs/activities through its ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ (CSR) for community development of these villages. In order to carry out ‘Community Development Programs (CDP)’ it is vital to carry out ‘Need Assessment Survey’ (NAS) to identify the socio-economic needs of the villages and come up with some long-term developmental programs/activities which are sustainable and can address those needs. The needs were categorized into three types which are felt, perceived and forced. Felt needs are those that are immediately required by the villages and not fulfilling those needs can lead to disruption and increased vulnerability for the villagers. Perceived needs are those which are identified from a third person and often not true. Forced needs are often called put on needs and arise due to creamy layer of the society. This report identifies the felt needs of the villagers through ‘Focus Group Discussion’ (FGD) and ‘Participatory Rural Appraisal’ (PRA) sessions. During the FGD sessions, a mix of all the villagers were targeted which included village Sarpanch/President, ward members, members of the self-help groups (SHGs), youth (18-25 years) etc. A discussion session questionnaire was prepared based on that questions were asked on the basis of that. In PRA session the villagers were further asked to participate in the resource mapping exercise which includes drawing of the village map. The map includes all the resources in the villages including schools, agricultural land, water resources, pasture land, railway tracks etc. The physical validation has been also performed. All this information was used to create target area profile along with identification of the felt needs. Some key indicators were also identified to construct the village profiles and Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) is calculated for all the selected villages. The index shows the current scenario of the villages in terms of resilience against anthropogenic or natural phenomenon like disease outbreak or climate change. The key indicators identified were classified into the five capitals of the LVI (physical, social, natural, human and financial). This study demonstrates the importance of CSR and CDP activities of the large-scale manufacturing plants in India to promote development in the peripheral villages and how need assessment analysis along with livelihood vulnerability index provides strong justification and urgency of implementation of certain needs in the villages.
Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Community Development Programs (CDP), Need Assessment Survey (NAS), Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI), Resilience.
