RAWALPINDI, April 2: Over 32,300 rural households of six tehsils in the Potohar plateau are expected to benefit from the Barani village development project, for which the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has provided a loan of $15.2 million.

About 83 per cent of the 2.1 million people live rural areas. There are approximately 235,000 rural households with an average family size of 7.3 persons living in some 900 villages in 103 union councils. In view of its successful results, the six-year project has now been extended to June 2007.

The $25 million project is spread over six tehsils: Attock (including Hasanabdal), Jhand, Pindigheb, Talagang, Gujar Khan and Pind Dadan Khan.

Ecologically, the project area is part of two large plains divided by the Salt Range hills consisting of highly saline geological formation — the Potohar plateau north of the Salt Range and the adjoining plains south of the plateau.

Rainfall decreases from north-west to south-east from about 800mm in Attock to about 450mm in Pind Dadan Khan. Due to unreliable rainfall, rain-fed crop production is risky, particularly in the lower rainfall areas. Livestock is an important part of the farming system. Feed resources, however, are scarce and the livelihood has to survive on crop residuals, and on degraded range areas which make up about 40 per cent of the project area, according to project document.

Across the six tehsils covered by the project, only 35,000 hectares are irrigated, while 156,000 hectares depend on rainfall. Given the low and unreliable rainfall in barani areas, crop yields are low and household income from farming is often insufficient to maintain households. The incidence of poverty is therefore very high.

According to official sources, the predominant occupations of the rural households in the project area are: self-employed farming (55 per cent), farm labour and share cropping (15 per cent), off-farm rural and urban labour (8 per cent and 7 per cent respectively), and armed forces jobs (5 per cent). Overseas migration is significant, with 5 per cent of the households benefiting from remittances.

These sources said specific tehsils were selected for the project because of their low levels of development, the high incidence of poverty and their exclusion from previous and ongoing major development activities. On the positive side, he said, they were selected because untapped water resources are available for small-scale irrigation. Previous IFAD projects have established schemes for irrigated and rain-fed development in neighbouring areas with similar agro-ecological conditions.

The project is aimed at improving agricultural production and productivity; improving the incomes of the rural poor; establishing and strengthening of community organizations as the institutions through which technical and social services can be sustainably provided; improving the status and economic condition of women in culturally accepted ways; improving physical conditions by providing water systems, link roads and school buildings; and increasing opportunities for on-farm and off-farm employment in the project area.

An evaluation of the project stated that about 25 per cent households have been organized into 3,915 community organizations with a total number 75,685. Out of the total 1,332 are female organizations with a membership of 25,461. Following the recommendation of the supervising mission, 3,412 new members have been inducted in about 800 community organizations.

The project has initiated a number of steps to sustain the social mobilization process and induction of poorer households in the mainstream. The project also helped them by providing the relevant material after translating it into national language and facilitated in fulfilling the prerequisites.

The basic concept of community mobilization revolves around the management of individual resources with collective efforts. To inculcate this idea, the community is mobilized to enhance and pour their savings into the platform of the organization. The COs members have generated about Rs37.39 million out of which Rs23,57 in the form of case and Rs14.39 million as security bonds which acts as collateral against credit. Many COs have started their internal lending programmes by using their savings.

A Credit Revolving Fund (CRF) has been established with the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) of worth Rs97.000 million to cater the micro-credit needs of the target population. So far, about Rs241.063 million have been disbursed in the form of 22,233 loans out of which 6448 loans have been provided to female members which is about 29 per cent of overall disbursement.

A Community Development Fund has been created to improve the living conditions of the target population. About 353 social infrastructure schemes worth Rs215.470 million have been initiated against which Rs169.440 million have been utilized. Out of 353 schemes, 245 have been completed.