Agartala, Dec 23 (TIWN): Indo-German Development Cooperative (IGDC) Project has been working with an intention to improve the natural resource conditions, supporting and enhanced livelihood of the forest dependent communities in Tripura since 2009. The project as part of the Indo-German Bilateral Cooperation is being jointly funded and implemented by the German Development Bank and Govt. of Tripura.

According to an IGDC communiqué, the project was initially incepted for six-years (Feb 2009- Dec 2014), which is running into its 6th year. This project has been extended for two more years, until December 2016. The project is being implemented in 70 villages spread across 11 development blocks under Dhalai and North Tripura districts with a focus on socio-economic development of tribal shifting cultivators, rural poor and conservation of natural resources in the state.

The unique features of IGDC project are; involvement of democratically elected bodies (three-tier Panchayat Raj System) at the village, block, district and state level for implementation of the project, fund convergence by way of contribution from existing State and Central schemes to fund a proportion of costs of a Village Development Plan to ensure the long-term sustainability of the overall project and the traditional knowledge management through innovative approaches, diversification of livelihood opportunities including use of advanced technologies.

The IGDC project has been providing vocational trainings (VTs) to the selected motivated and entrepreneurial individuals since Financial Year (FY) 2012-13. To start the training, altogether 15 types of trades were introduced in phase 1. In a span of 1.5 year, IGDC has trained over 2372 beneficiaries under 15 trades- Tailoring, Handloom, Motor Driving, Basic Computer, Mobile Repairing, Dalmut/Chanacur, Two wheeler, Solar equipment, repairing, candle making, Carpentry, Masonry, TV/Radio repairing, Handicraft, Artificial flower making and Ornament making.

According to the sources, the project has constituted 70 Village Development Planning Implementation Committees (VDPICs), which are responsible for overall planning and implementation of the project activities and are also the recipient of funds directly to VDPICs bank account from Project Management Authority (PMA) to carry out various activities. Altogether 1225 training programmes including exposure visits were conducted through which 31639 participants were benefitted. Through these trainings 15227 patta holders were also benefitted.

To promote Income Generating Activities (IGAs) for Self Help Groups (SHGs)/Joint Liability interest Groups/ Individuals, the IGDC Project has introduced a Corpus- to be managed as a Revolving Fund (RF) facility at the VDPIC level. A total of 465 SHGs with 5021 members (1920- Female, 3100- Male) have been constituted under this project. As a part of the enterprise development, various product-based clusters are being established like Fish Cluster and Agarbati Cluster.