1. 14 KERALA CALLING July 2012
CURRENT
JAYAKUMAR A
Ashraya
Ashraya has emerged from a
deep will of the government to
sincerely address the problems of
poverty. Ashraya has a holistic
understanding of poverty in all its
manifestations, both causes and
effects, and the ratchet effect of one
factor on the other. It seeks to use
the inherent strength of the
networked organization of the poor,
especially its democratic character,
transparent functioning, culture of
care and concern, ownership by the
poor and excellent outreach and
feed back capabilities.Thus it is a
community based initiative to
accord social security to the
poorest of the poor.
While in most parts of the
country Self Help Groups (SHG)
networks function parallel to
elected Local Governments,
Ashraya seeks to invoke the
leadership of elected Local
Governments even while guarding
the flexibility and autonomy of a
Community Based Organization.
The strategy of bringing about
synergy between elected Local
Governments and the organization
14 KERALA CALLING July 2012
Ashraya is probably the
first project in the country
to target the excluded
poor. It has now attained
the status of a national
best practice in social
security and has reached
the stage of replicability.
Thus, Ashraya is a pioneer,
having developed a model,
which can be adapted by
rest of the country. In
recognition of its
exceptional merit, it was
conferred the Prime
Minister’s Award for Best
Practices in Public
Administration in 2008.
Observation and studies
proved that despite effective
implementation of projects to
alleviate poverty, a small
chunk of population still
remain as outliers owing to a
variety of reasons. They were
termed as destitute since none
of the benefits of the welfare
state for the poor ever
reaches them because of their
vulnerable living conditions
and their ignorance or inability
to access various services.

2. 15KERALA CALLINGJuly 2012
of the poor is fundamental to Ashraya.
From the time India gained
independence, Central as well as the
State governments were keen in
formulating and implementing various
programmes as part of its efforts to curb
poverty. From the 6th
plan period, these
efforts became part of“Direct attack on
poverty”. Various central government
projects viz. IRDP, NREP, RLEGP, SJSY, IAY,
EAS,SJSRY,NSDP,VAMBAY,SGRY etc were
poverty eradication programmes which
evolved from this understanding.
Although the governments were able to
tackle poverty significantly,majority of the
population of the country still remains
poor. Observation and studies proved
that despite effective implementation of
projects to alleviate poverty,a small chunk
of population still remain as outliers
owing to a variety of reasons.They were
termed as destitute since none of the
benefits of the welfare state for the poor
ever reaches them because of their
vulnerable living conditions and their
ignorance or inability to access various
services.
Ashraya follows the principle of
empowerment of the poorest of the poor.
At the same time it recognises that this
can be achieved only in degrees through
a process of understanding, care,
compassion and continuous
handholding. This is sought to be
achieved through the principle of self-
help combined with support from
organizations of the poor themselves.
The Ashraya process
Ashraya is a project which is
envisioned as demand driven, which
means that the identification of the
beneficiaries and the assistance that is
What is
Destitution?
Poverty has been classified as
absolute poverty, relative poverty,
traditional poverty etc. Economists
have also termed it as a state of
living. However it is universally
accepted that denial of
infrastructure and opportunities to
lead a life of dignity could be
termed poverty. The basic
infrastructure includes food
containing enough nutrition,
clothing, safe housing with toilets
and safe drinking water facilities.
Opportunities for quality
education, employment and access
to health facilities etc are also part
of this.
The destitute are the poorest of
the poor. They are the outliers of
the development in the negative
extreme. They live at the margins
of the economy, society and polity.
They do not have a “voice” or the
power of “choice”. They are not
a constituency or vote bank. They
face the worst forms of deprivation
and lack access even to the basic
minimum services. They are
exposed to all forms of vulnerability
and do not have any safety net
against risks. Their income is below
subsistence and they are
dependent. These faceless,
powerless people lack capabilities
and are neither aware of their
entitlements nor are they in a
position to access them. They
cannot compete nor can they
bargain. They drift pushed by
circumstances. Severity of
destitution is intensified by
unfavorable physical, gender or
caste status - that is, being disabled
being a woman, being a widow,
belonging to a Caste or Tribe can
singly or in combination aggravate
the suffering. The collapse of the
traditional social support systems
has orphaned the destitute. They
are sometimes objects of charity.
But they are never subjects of
development. They have to be
invested with identity, personality
and empowered to stand on their
own. Only an Anthyodaya approach
can reach them. Only care and
handholding can lift them. They
can develop only after a period of
well-targeted, well-designed
welfare programmes.

3. 16 KERALA CALLING July 2012
to be provided to the beneficiaries
should come from the grass root level.
The demand should also fulfill the
stipulated criteria. This is primarily
achieved through identification of
beneficiaries using a transparent process
by the Kudumbashree network. The
identified beneficiaries will be short listed
and detailed project is prepared for each
family, based on his/her requirements.
The prepared project proposal is
consolidated and presented before the
local self government executive and is
approved by them after getting sanction
from the Gramasabhas. The approved
project is then submitted for vetting
before Kudumbashree officials who later
send it to the government for final
approval.
In order to avoid patronage and to
introduce transparency and community
ownership, a simple and socially
acceptable criteria has been determined
through an elaborate process of
consultation with experts, elected leaders
and the poor themselves.The criteria is
of two steps; the first being a nine point
indicator,which is as below.
No Land / Less than 10 cents of land
No House/ Living in dilapidated
house
No drinking water facilities within 300
metres
No Sanitary Toilet
No employment to any person in the
family, employment for less than 10
days a month.
Women headed family / widow /
abandoned women / presence of
unwed mother in the family
Presence of physically/Mentally
challenged/chronically ill member in
the family
Family belonging to SC/ST
Presence of an adult illiterate
member
Families attracting seven or more of
these indicators are subjected to another
list of special indicators for rural areas,
which are listed below:
Special indicators for rural
areas
Having no landed property to set up
a dwelling place (living in
puromboke land, forest land, side
bunds of canals and paddy fields etc)
Spending the night time in public
places, streets or in the verandas of
shops for sleeping.
Having no healthy member to win
bread for the family
Resorting to beggary as a vocation
Having women subjected to
atrocities
Having children below the age of 14
who work to earn money for the
family
Special Indicators for urban areas
also include the following four inidcators
to those of the rural areas.
Having Commercial Sex Workers
Having women members who live
in Abala Mandirams.
Living in Slums
Having street children/children in
juvenile home or poor home
Since Ashraya has tremendous social appeal,
some of the enterprising Panchayats have
managed to mobilize additional resources by
way of donations from philanthropic
individuals, sponsorships from institutions, and
service commitments from hospitals and so on.
If a family attracts at least one of these
special indicators in addition to the seven
or more from the first set, it is classified as
a destitute family
Thereafter,utilizing the network of the
poor families, preliminary identification
of probable destitute families is done by
special groups of trained volunteers from
each Neighbour Hood Group (NHG) of
Kudumbashree. Then under the
leadership of the Area Development
Society (confederation of NHGs at the
ward level), the short-listed households
are visited by these teams often
accompanied by the elected ward
member,which interact with the families.
After ensuring that the families come
within the definition of destitution, their
multiple needs – namely, survival needs
(food, health, pension, education etc)
infrastructure needs (land for house, new

4. 17KERALA CALLINGJuly 2012
house, shelter up-gradation, sanitary
latrine,drinking water,electrification etc)
development needs (awareness creation
for employment, skill development,
accessing employment opportunities,
livelihood for sustenance etc) and
psychological needs (building of
confidence, social inclusion, safety, etc)
of each family are identified and the
objective target segment is selected.
Experience shows that most of the
families cannot even articulate their
needs. Here a sensitive enquiry and
elaborate interaction by the volunteers
based on empathy helps.
After the needs identification, the
Ashraya plan is developed with
individual family as the building block.
The plan of each family which includes
benchmark description and photograph
and cost of different required
components, is linked together to
develop the Local Government Ashraya
Plan.
Convergence of resources
Resources required for funding
different components of the plan are
mobilized, as much as possible, from
existing schemes and programmes
including PDS. Since most of the anti-
poverty and social welfare programmes
have been brought under Local
Governments in Kerala the convergence
exercise has been made easier. After
identifying available resources in this
manner , the gap is filled up by the untied
resources transferred to Local
Governments for development purposes.
As an incentive to the Local
Governments to take up Ashraya,
Government have committed to provide
40% of the project cost subject to a
maximum of Rs.15 lakh as special grant.
Since Ashraya has tremendous social
appeal, some of the enterprising
Panchayats have managed to mobilize
additional resources by way of donations
from philanthropic individuals,
sponsorships from institutions, and
service commitments from hospitals and
so on.
Implementation
In order to promote social inclusion
and provide a human touch to the
implementation of the different
components, each family is attached to
a Neighbourhood Group of
Kudumbashree, which undertakes to
carry out the implementation of different
components as a social obligation.
The all-round acceptance of the
process of identifying beneficiaries and
willingness to provide higher order of
assistance to the identified families, the
gradual, but progressive empowerment
of the targeted families, who begin to
access entitlements, starting with food
security through the public distribution
system, moving on to health security,
social security in the form of pension
and then reaching out to human
development aspects like skill up-
gradation and the visible transformation
in the attitudes and approaches of
officials and elected representatives who
were directly involved in the project are
some of the highlights of the Ashraya
Programme.
Benchmark of Ashraya against
other states
As of date, 933 of the 1043 local
governments, including both rural and
urban, have taken up Ashraya projects
covering 73565 destitute families at a cost
of Rs 421.64 crores.
Special Ashraya projects for the tribal
population have also been initiated in
Local Self Government Institutions where
tribals are excluded from general
Ashraya projects.
Ashraya is probably the first project
inthecountrytotargettheexcluded poor.
It has now attained the status of a national
best practice in social security and has
reached the stage of replicability. Thus,
Ashraya is a pioneer having developed
a model, which can be adapted by rest
of the country in recognition of its
exceptional merit, it was conferred the
Prime Minister’sAward for Best Practices
in Public Administration in 2008.
The writer is Programme Officer (Social
Development) Kudumbashree State
Mission.
State government will explore the
possibility of setting up fast-track courts
to try cases of atrocities against women
and children. Help and cooperation of
the High Court of Kerala will be sought
in the matter and expenses will be borne
by the State government, said Chief
Minister Oommen Chandy, inaugurating
the State-level launch of the ‘Nirbhaya'
programme. The programme, aimed at
combating violence against women and
children, has been revised incorporating
suggestions from various quarters. Five
centres would be set up in the State to
rehabilitate victims of violence. The first
‘Nirbhaya' to counter violence
against women, children
of these centres would be opened at
Thavanoor, near Kuttippuram
The Social Welfare Department had
managed to provide protection to
women and children to a large extent.
However, some of the recent incidents
set one thinking about the safety of
women in their own homes. Society's
conscience should awaken in such
cases, Mr. Chandy said.The ‘Nirbhaya'
toll-free number is 18004521400.
Victims will be picked up from any spot
and brought to the rehabilitation and
counselling centre or they will be
directed to the nearest Nirbhaya centre.
As an incentive to the
Local Governments to
take up Ashraya,
Government have
committed to provide
40% of the project cost
subject to a maximum
of Rs.15 lakh as
special grant.