Dimapur, Sep. 28 (EMN): The Nsong Community Development Plan (CDP) under North East Rural Livelihood Project (NERLP) was inaugurated at Nsong village in Peren district on Sep. 26. The programme was attended by the EAC of Nsong circle, Tsutsowe Kupa, village elders, self-help group (SHG) members and staff of NERLP, Peren.
Organised by the Community Development Group (CDG) and the village council, the CDP on ‘land reclamation by large cardamom cultivation and providing irrigation facility for vegetable farming’ has been successfully implemented by the community, according to a statement from NERLP, Peren.
It stated that the total cost of the project was INR 12, 62,300 where NERLP contributed INR 10,00,000 and the community contributed unskilled labour and local materials worth INR 2,62,300.
During the inaugural programme, the district project manager, NERLP Peren, Ruuvilie Kotsu congratulated the villagers for the successful implementation of the CDP and lauded the villagers for their unity to complete the activity supported by NERLP.
Kotsu challenged the villagers to understand “the utility of the asset created and plan for managing these assets by themselves in the long run rather than waiting for the state government’s rescue if any damage occurs.”
In addition, he said that the good practices of NERLP viz. “transparency and accountability” for the CDP implementation can also be adopted by the village council for any other developmental activities. Kotsu also briefed the villagers about the various activities in the district and said that a saturated total of 1033 SHG have been formed in the district where INR 14 cr. has been supported as ‘seed and livelihood fund’ to the SHG in the district.
“130 SHG credit linkage to banks have been done and another 120 SHG are in the process of documentation for credit linkage. The total savings of SHG in the district is around INR 2 cr. and 36 SHGVF has generated interest from the corpus more than INR 1 lakh and above,” the statement read.
Tsutsowe Kupa, lauded the villagers saying that Peren is fortunate to have NERLP working in their district as India is a welfare state and projects like NERLP are externally funded and do not have the state share, and therefore, are more efficient. He asked the villagers to have the sense of ownership of the project to ensure sustainability of any livelihood activities they are taking up.
