ANNUAL REPORT

2015-16

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Title Page No.

Board of Directors 2

Message from the President 3

Mission 4

Vision 4

About Us 4

Human Resources 5

Partnership with other organisations 5

Operational Areas 5

Area of Expertise 6

Experience of Riddhi Foundation 6

Sector specific activities during the year 2015-16 9

Resource & Financial Management 22

CONTENTS

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Board of Directors

Dr. M. N. Roy, President

Shri Parthapratim Sengupta, Vice President

Shri Tapan Kumar Majumdar, Secretary

Ms. Ananya Das, Assistant Secretary

Shri Saktipada Ghosh, Treasurer

Shri Kamal Kumar Pal, Member

Dr. (Mrs) Anjali Roy, Member

Mrs Anita Sengupta, Member

Shri Subhasis Deb, Member

REGISTERED OFFICE IB-190, 2nd Floor,

Salt Lake City, Sector III

Kolkata: 700106, West Bengal, India

Tel: (033) 2335 7531

Fax: (033) 23348097

E-mail: info@riddhifoundation.org

Website: www.riddhifoundation.org

BRANCH OFFICE IMTR Bhavan, Plot No. P-4,

MIDC Railway Station Area,

P.B. 87, Aurangabad 431001

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Message from the President

Dear Friends,

Riddhi Foundation has been consolidating its activities during the

last few years and the process got further strengthened during the

year 2015-16. The activities during the year included (i) Monitoring

and analysis of progress of Swachh Bharat Mission, (ii)

Surveillance of child nutrition through tracking the status of

individual child, (iii) Planning by the Gram Panchayat (iv) Various

studies in the field of socio-economic development and (v) Training in the field of sanitation,

which was a new activity for the organization. Officials of the Government of Maharashtra

engaged in Monitoring & Evaluation at the district and state level were trained at

Administrative Training Institute, Salt Lake by the officials of Riddhi Foundation. A study on

the socio-economic conditions of the Jute Mill Workers was also taken up during the year. This

was the first study in the field of socio-economic development and the same will help the

Foundation to take up similar studies. There was substantial increase in activities taken up

during the year as compared to that of the previous years both in terms of variety and volume

of works and the annual turnover of the organization reached the highest amount of Rs. 131.45

lakh. The extra work required a larger team and the number of full time Staffs and Consultants

increased to 14 and services of several other Consultants were outsourced during the period.

The growth of a knowledge based organization, as we are, is dependent on its ability to learn

and remain at the forefront in using knowledge and skill in providing services. Riddhi

Foundation has done very well in this respect during the year 2015-16. The organization has

become a pioneer in analysis of large data related to some of the flagship programmes of the

country. The most important work taken up during the year has been analysis of progress of

Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) as a partner of UNICEF Country Office, New Delhi. The progress

made under SBM by each of the 29 States of the country has been analysed by us at the end of

each quarter. The analysis has been used to prepare state specific Fact Sheets showing progress

across districts, which were shared with the State Governments through UNICEF and the

Ministry of Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation of the Government of India to guide the

implementing officials at the state and district levels for improving implementation of the SBM

and to guide them for remaining on track in achieving the time bound goal. A national level

Fact Sheet showing progress across States was also prepared at the end of each quarter for use

by the Ministry. This has been a huge learning experience which has given confidence to us in

taking up projects involving even larger data and improving evidence based decision support

to the policy makers and managers of various programmes and projects.

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Mission

Mission of Riddhi Foundation is to enhance wellbeing of the people with equity and sustainability

and to strengthen governance for improving efficiency and effectiveness of delivery of services

towards the deprived sections by both government and non-government organizations in

achieving those goals.

Vision

Our vision is to partner with the delivery institutions both public and private and to work with

them for better understanding of the coverage and quality of services being delivered, particularly

to the deprives sections towards improving service delivery and wellbeing of the people. This has

to be done through generating evidences of successes and failures through analysis of primary

and secondary data and understanding the causes behind for appropriate decision support to the

implementing agencies, helping to build up their capacity and related policy advocacy.

About Us

Riddhi Foundation (RF) completed a glorious eleventh year in the field of governance,

monitoring and evaluation and taking up research works and studies related to various aspects

of socio-economic development and implementation of related programmes. It provides one-

stop solution for all monitoring and evaluation requirement of government and non-

government organizations and takes up research works and studies related to various aspects

of socio-economic development and implementation of related programmes. It has expertise in

large data analysis, particularly in the field of poverty alleviation, health, nutrition, water &

sanitation, environment etc. for helping decision support to government or other organizations

implementing schemes in these sectors. RF also works for improving governance including

planning for urban and rural local bodies. Application of electronic technology and use of

Geographic Information System (GIS) for tracking of services, surveillance and landscape

analysis etc. is another area of expertise of the organization. The organization implemented

several projects in the said field for UN organizations like UNICEF; Government of India

Organization like the National Jute Board; State Governments like the Government of West

Bengal (West Bengal Biodiversity Board), Government of Kerala, Government of Bihar (Bihar

State Finance Commission), Government of Maharashtra and Government of Tripura;

Institutions like National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR),

Indian Institute of Health Management & Research (IIHMR), Vivekananda Institute of

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Biotechnology. It has developed expertise in providing training in the field of monitoring &

evaluation and is in a position to offer hands-on training in this field.

Human Resources

Riddhi Foundation is presently headed by Dr. M. N. Roy, who held key positions in the

Government, during his career in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) spanning over more

than three decades and retired from the IAS in the year 2012 as Additional Chief Secretary to

the Government of West Bengal. He is assisted by a team of expert professionals, both in-house

and consultants, including a two other retired IAS officers in the field of governance, economics,

sociology, nutrition, public health, sanitation, livelihood, environment, data management, ICT

etc.

Partnerships with other organisations

Riddhi Foundation, as a policy, maintains a small group of core professionals and takes up

assignment in collaboration with other professional organizations. At present, it has

collaboration with National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR) as

their technology partner for GIS based applications. It has collaboration with Institute of

Development Studies, Kolkata, a reputed institute in the field of socio-economic development

for taking up research works together and with

Business Brio, a Kolkata based organization,

which has specialization in economic survey and

analysis. Riddhi Foundation has also entered in to

collaboration with Ernst & Young to work

together in the field of capacity development for

the Panchayats.

Operational Areas

Riddhi Foundation is working in the states of

Maharashtra, Tripura, Bihar, Kerala, West Bengal

and Rajasthan with State Governments and Non-

Government Organizations. It is also engaged in

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analyses of Swachh Bharat Mission data district wise for all the States of the country as a partner

of UNICEF country office.

Areas of Expertise

Experience of Riddhi Foundation

Riddhi Foundation has the experience of handling several projects in the field of water &

sanitation, public health, nutrition, local governance and in conducting research. The projects

include developing system of web enabled MIS and GIS for monitoring programme, surveillance

of service delivery and outcome, analysis of big data related to several flagship programmes of

the country like the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural

Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and conducting socioeconomic research through

filed survey. RF has taken up a survey of all the health service providers in certain parts of

Sunderbans and developed the GIS for understanding the access gap for health services and

related issues to support the Future Health System: Innovations for equity conducted by IIHMR

Nutrition

Panchayat &

Municipal Governance

Research & Studies

ICT & MIS Public Health

Water, Sanitation & Hygiene

Poverty Alleviation

Environment & Sustainable Development

GIS & Landscape

Analysis

Monitoring &

Evaluation

Data Analysis

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as a part of a consortium of research institutions led by John Hopkins Bloomberg School of

Public Health. The organization analyses data related to MGNREGS for all the districts of the

country and the same is presented as thematic maps in the website of the Ministry of Rural

Development, GOI for implementation of the MGNREGS (www.nrega.nic.in). Riddhi

Foundation has also been assisting the Government of Maharashtra, with support of UNICEF,

in analysing performances up to Gram Panchayat level under the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM)

across the state and giving feedback to the implementing officials. The effectiveness of

disaggregated analysis and feedback to the implementing agencies for decision support has

been appreciated by the UNICEF country office and the Ministry of Drinking Water Supply and

Sanitation of the Government of India (MDWS). RF has been a partner of the UNICEF country

office to analyse the progress of SBM in rural areas for all the states of the country at the end of

every quarter as per request of the MDWS. It is also engaged in monitoring ICDS programmes

(in Tripura) and also tracking every child & expecting/lactating mother to capture the RCH and

nutrition related services being received by them and also monitoring the status of nutrition

(all the three dimensions of malnutrition viz. wasting, under-weight and stunting) in Attappady

block of Palakkad district and Mananthavadi block of Wayanad district of Kerala. The

organization is also specialized in real time data capturing using mobile telephony and

displaying the same for asset mapping/creation of assets through different programmes on geo-

referenced map using GIS. All the assets created in Wayanad district of Kerala were mapped in

a collaborative project with the NIRD&PR. Riddhi Foundation has designed a web enabled data

capturing tool for Bihar State Finance Commission for capturing feedback (in around 9,000

fields) on various issues related to the functioning of the Panchayats and Municipalities so that

all the feedbacks are captured and analysed promptly for use by the Commission. The

organization has also conducted field study for the West Bengal Bio Diversity Board, National

Jute Board, a statutory body under the Ministry of Textiles of the Government of India etc. It

has completed two bottleneck analyses to understand the problems of implementing the SBM

and issues related to use of toilets and associated behavioural changes in Aurangabad division

of Maharashtra. The work was assigned by UNICEF, Maharashtra and this is a first of its kind

study conducted to appreciate the socio-economic and behavioural aspects of achieving ‘Open

Defecation Free’ status in the country. Some of the projects implemented by RF is given below.

Sl. No.

Projects Partner/Client Status

1 Mapping Access to Health Services, Patharpratima block of Sundarbans

IIHMR Completed

2 Monitoring of malnutrition of children in Vaishali district, Bihar (I- CAN for children under 2 years of age)

UNICEF, Bihar Completed

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Sl. No.

Projects Partner/Client Status

3 GIS based Monitoring & Surveillance of WASH in Maharashtra

UNICEF, Maharashtra

Completed

4 Development of Web based GIS for Improving Urban Service Delivery- English Bazar Municipality of Malda district

English Bazar Municipality

Completed

5 Nutrition Surveillance System for Dhalai district, Tripura Govt. of Tripura Completed

6 Tracking of Mother Child Dyad for First 1000 Days of Life using GIS and real time MIS.

Child In Need Institute

Completed

7 Nutrition Monitoring System for West Tripura District Govt. of Tripura Completed

8 Use of mobile and GIS technology on monitoring malnutrition in Patharpratima

Terre des hommes & Sundarban Social

Development Centre Completed

9 e-Janani (Development of Web enabled GIS including real time data analysis through mobile telephony) for Mandwih block in Tripura

Govt. of Tripura Completed

10 Geoinformatics Based Mapping and Monitoring of Rural Development Programmes with Special Emphasis on MGNREGS –Wayanad District, Kerala

NIRD & P Completed

11 Accelerating access to household sanitation in Aurangabad Division

UNICEF Maharashtra

Completed

13 Survey of Tradable Bio Resources of West Bengal West Bengal Bio-diversity Board

Completed

14 Web-based capturing data related to functioning of all Panchayats and Municipalities of the State of Bihar and compile the findings

5th State Finance Commission, Bihar

Completed

15 Geoinformatics Based GP Boundary for Planning and Monitoring of RD Programmes including MGNREGS in Kerala.

National Institute of Rural Development

Completed

16 GIS support to the study of saline water ingress in 56 villages of Sundarbans

Vivekananda Institute of

Biotechnology, Nimpeeth, West

Bengal

Completed

17 Monitoring nutrition status of all under-5 children of Dhalai and West Tripura Districts, Tripura

Government of Tripura

Ongoing

18 Gram Panchayat Level Decentralized Planning in West Bengal: The Process, the Outcomes and the Sustainability

NIRD & PR, Hyderabad

Ongoing

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Sl. No.

Projects Partner/Client Status

19

Accelerating access to household sanitation in Aurangabad Division, GP wise monitoring in Osmanabad and Tracking Individual HH status of sanitation using Mobile Telephony in 10 GPs of Bhokardan block of Jalna district

UNICEF, Maharashtra

Ongoing

20 Combating child mortality, morbidity and malnutrition in Attappady Block of Kerala through evidence based monitoring using ICT

UNICEF, Govt. of Kerala,

Ongoing

21 Monitoring & Evaluation of SBM(G) across all the districts of Maharashtra

Govt. of Maharashtra

Ongoing

22 Analysis of performances of SBM(G) across all the States of India

UNICEF, Country Office

Ongoing

23 Study for Assessing the Socio-Economic Condition of the Jute Mill Workers & Their Family Members

National Jute Board, GOI, Kolkata

Ongoing

24 Combating Mortality, Morbidity and Malnutrition in Mananthavadi block of Wayanad district, Kerala using Mobile telephony and GIS Technology

Social Justice Department,

Government of Kerala & NIRD

Ongoing

Sector Specific Activities during the Year 2015-16

Sanitation

Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) is one of the most important

flagship programmes of India, which is being implemented with

missionary zeal and enthusiasm to make the country open

defecation free (ODF) by 2nd October, 2019. Though the

programme has been designed and being guided by the Union Government, the responsibility

of its implementation rests upon every unit of administration up to the Gram Panchayats as

well as every rural household of the country. It is necessary to know the progress across each

unit of administration for achieving the goal on time.

The first step towards achieving ODF status is universal access to sanitation by construction of

adequate toilets, which has to be followed with measures such as solid and liquid waste

management, change in behaviour and attitude of the people etc. Since large numbers of

households are yet to have toilets, the most important task to be carried out at this stage is

construction of individual household latrines (IHHL) for every household for ensuring universal

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access. The progress is uneven across the country as well as within any particular state and

unless all the districts, blocks, Gram Panchayats and villages achieve ODF status, the goal for

achieving such status for the country will remain unrealized. Therefore, close monitoring of

progress of access to household toilets has become essential in steering the programme

properly, which is being done through the existing MIS of the Ministry of Drinking Water and

Sanitation (MDWS). Huge data on construction of IHHL is captured through the MIS and the

same is used by the MDWS and the State Governments to some extent have a macro picture of

the progress.

Support to Government of Maharashtra

Riddhi Foundation has been working in the field of sanitation in Maharashtra since the year

2013 as a partner organization of UNICEF. Since 2014, the organization has expanded its scope

of work after being appointed as the State Key Resource Centre (KRC) for Monitoring &

Evaluation (M&E) by the Water & Sanitation Organization (WSSO), the implementing agency

for WASH of the Government of Maharashtra and is providing support in the said field. From

the year 2015-16 RF has been providing support to WSSO in monitoring progress of SBM(G)

across the entire state of Maharashtra. Progress made under SBM(G) was analysed division wise

at the end of each quarter and the Fact Sheets along with thematic maps were shared with all

the CEOs of the Zilla Parishads, the Divisional Commissioners and the State Government.

Accelerating Access to Household Sanitation in the Aurangabad Division through

Strengthened Monitoring by Evidence Based Performance Analysis and Building

Institutional Capacities

The project had three broad components. The first component was to understand the

bottlenecks better along with possible interventions in removing the bottlenecks. The second

component was to put in place a strong system of monitoring activities being performed or not

being performed and understanding of the reasons behind failure for taking corrective

measures by all tiers of government. The monitoring was based on evidence of actual progress

of different components of the NBA and the status of progress with possible analysis available

in the public domain so that everyone from officials engaged in implementation in the

programme to any citizen can view the same. The status related to Blocks and if possible up to

Gram Panchayats was to be displayed for not only allowing everyone to see but to also compare

with performances of other similar units to bring competitiveness in performance.

The Management Information System (MIS) captures all the important parameters and those

are entered in to the national portal maintained by the Ministry of Drinking Water Supply &

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Sanitation (MDWS). The centralized MIS provides easy visualization of the national and state

level progresses in the website. One can also drill down performances of lower levels, which is

laborious and, therefore, hardly used by either the lower tiers of government or the citizen. It

is proposed that important indicators of performances of the NBA will be presented on a map

showing jurisdiction of various administrative units (up to Block level at present). The thematic

maps can be seen by anyone having access to the internet and presentation of performances on

the map will help one to know how performances in terms of any indicators vary across the

districts within the division and across blocks within every district. This system can help both

the implementing officials and the supervising officials to judge performances and design

interventions for improvement in implementation of the NBA.

To make the monitoring more evidence based, the scope of work has extended to cover 10 GPs

of Jalna district for developing an ICT based pilot system for Real Time monitoring of

construction of individual toilets (being third component of the main project). Photographs

and other attributes for each toilet are being captured on a real-time basis using Android run

mobile phones. The data is being captured and uploaded in the server. This requires

development of high resolution map for viewing objects up to household level, customizing the

existing WASH website to display photographs/data to be captured on construction of IHHLs

from the field and development of software as well as mobile application for capturing and

uploading photographs and data on a real-time basis.

Data related to implementation of the NBA for all the blocks within Aurangabad division were

collected from the M&E officials of the respective districts. The same was processed and fed in

to the system for making both temporal and spatial analysis of different performance

parameters for knowing how those varied across districts and blocks and across time for each

of those units. The data fed was analysed by the system to generate reports in various formats,

for helping internalization of the performances of different districts and blocks by all

concerned. Development of the system required preparation of base maps of all the districts

and blocks within Aurangabad division, which had been already completed through an earlier

project on monitoring WASH in Maharashtra. Only customizing the already developed system

was needed to present the NBA related performances for Aurangabad division.

A bottleneck analysis at district, block and village levels to identify what are the factors on the

ground which are impeding implementation of the sanitation programme was completed and

the report brought out several policy issues which has helped the Government of Maharashtra

to know the ground realities for strengthening the implementation process.

The progress of access to household toilets through construction of individual household

latrines (IHHL) in the entire division is being analysed both district and block wise every month

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by Riddhi Foundation. The analysis also covers the progress across various social and economic

groups. The findings are shared with the CEO Zilla Parishads every month in the form of Fact

Sheets, which cover progress in both AIP and non-AIP GPs.

The quarterly analysis was appropriately reflected in a thematic map which helped in

visualizing the past performances and expected pace of construction of IHHL to achieve the

target of the SBM. Physical copies of the map have been shared with all the CEOs, the Divisional

Commissioner and the WSSO at the end of each quarter. Block-wise analysis of monthly

performance for all the districts of Aurangabad division was done in the form of two separate

Fact Sheets, one for only the AIP GPs and the other for both AIP and Non-AIP GPs. The same

was shared as Fact Sheets with all the CEOs, the Divisional Commissioner and the WSSO.

Performance under SBA is critically dependent on performances of each GP. The earlier analysis

was based on data disaggregated up to block level. In the current project, analysis of GP-wise

data (for AIP GPs) will be taken up on a pilot basis in the district of Osmanabad.

Facilitating Government of Maharashtra in finalising processes and outputs indicators and

protocols for monitoring performances at district and sub-district levels. As a part of the project,

several case studies have been developed for sharing with the Government so that they get ideas

about possible improvements of implementation of SBA.

Training on M&E for SBM

As per the agreement with WSSO, a day long training

was organized during the year 2014-15 at the Maharashtra

Environmental Engineering Training and Research

Academy (MEETRA), Nashik for the M&E officials

working at the Zilla Parishad (ZP) level on monitoring of

SBM(G) in presence of the officials of UNICEF and Govt.

of Maharashtra. The aim of the workshop was to enhance

the understanding of M&E officials on important

features of monitoring processes through demonstration

of the data presentation and computation of the data, importance of quality & timeliness of

capturing data and gap in the same, hands on tabulation/computation of offline data,

identifying the systematic issues at the level of implementation in monitoring. From the

workshop, it was felt that the M&E officials of all the ZPs need more intensive training for

understanding various aspects of sanitation in general and monitoring techniques in particular.

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The team of RF interacted further with the

officials of the ZPs to work out the

training need. Based on that, a 3-days

training curriculum was developed in

consultation with WSSO.

Two 3-days training was organized for

the M&E officials of all the ZPs across

Maharashtra by Riddhi Foundation at

the Administrative Training Institute

(ATI), Salt Lake, Kolkata. The trainings

were held from 24th to 26th February

2016 for the first batch and from 29th

February to 2nd March 2016 for the

second batch.

RF officials with the M&E officials of Govt. of Maharashtra at MEETRA, Nashik

Training of M&E officials of Maharashtra at ATI, Kolkata

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Analysis of Progress of SBM(G) for all the states

During the year 2015-16, Riddhi Foundation further extended the project across the country and

is presently working as a partner organization of UNICEF, India Country Office, for monitoring

the progress of SBM(G) across all the districts of the country.

Evidence based monitoring of Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) through

disaggregated performance analysis

UNICEF organised a presentation before the Secretary, MDWS by Riddhi Foundation on the

situational analysis of performance of SBM(G) in Maharashtra on 22nd July 2015 in Paryavaran

Bhavan, CGO Complex, New Delhi. It was discussed that at the GoI level, what will be important

is an analysis of outcomes. For this, relative outcomes of states and districts within each state

may be prepared for all the 29 states of the country. Riddhi Foundation has been entrusted the

opportunity to analyse both the physical and financial progress of SBM(G) and prepare fact

sheets at the end of each quarter at the national level across the states and for each state and

for all the districts within each state and share the same with UNICEF Country office. A

powerpoint presentation was also shared with UNICEF for presenting before the Ministry.

During the year, 240 Fact sheets have been prepared and shared with UNICEF Country office

along with 120 powerpoint presentations for sharing with the Ministry and State Governments.

Nutrition surveillance

Malnutrition among children in India is not only high but the rate of improvement of status of

nutrition is also not satisfactory, which is a serious problem for the country. Status of nutrition

of the children is estimated by measuring weight of the children enrolled in the ICDS centres.

However, the weight data is reported in an aggregated format from which only the incidence of

underweight children are known project wise as well as higher level of aggregation like district,

state etc. Though such data may be of use at the policy level, in absence of compilation and

analysis of individual child wise data over time, it is difficult to make appropriate interventions

or to take pre-emptive measures in deserving cases. This failure contributes significantly in

increasing morbidity and mortality of children in the country. Riddhi Foundation in association

with Riddhi Management Services Private Ltd. has developed an ICT based system, known as

Jatak for tracking nutrition status of individual child. Apart from tracking and analysing

weight, the system allows analysing length/height of the children which help to generate status

in respect of all the three anthropometric parameters of malnutrition, i.e., underweight, wasting

and stunting. Thus, Jatak helps to monitor and track growth of individual child. Data for

individual child can be captured through Android mobile telephony on real time basis or

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through using IVRS. The system can send early warning (as alert notification) about each child

whose growth is found to be faltering to the field workers who have access to internet. The

principal purpose of Jatak is to bring to notice any child before she/he enters into the arena of

‘malnutrition.

Since birth of underweight babies is a serious problem it is necessary to provide good

antenatal care to the pregnant women for improving the chance of delivering healthy babies

with normal weight. Tracking of services delivered and status of various critical parameters of

the mothers is done through another web-enabled software called Janani. It is a combination

of Android mobile telephony and web-server based program especially developed for frontline

health workers to help them deliver timely and quality services to pregnant women and

children. The system offers mother and child care by helping the service providers to proactively

reach every mother-child dyad and in the process by giving feedback on a real-time basis on

the status of delivery of various ante-natal and post-natal services and existence of any critical

health parameter related to risk of pregnancy for appropriate interventions. Janani provides

the following services:

Real-time data capturing through Android mobile telephony, i.e. location, voice,

photograph, etc.

Uploading voice data to web-server (including offline data storing facility)

Data transcription

Data synchronization and analysis

Dashboard

Mobile based Alarm-Alert, ‘To-do’ reports for the ANMs and Medical Officers

GIS (Geographic Information System) interface for identifying the most difficult to reach

mother/child location in the PHC area

The objective of the Janani-Jatak system is to maintain data of every pregnant mother

and child from her/his birth till the age of 5 years and to track delivery of prescribed services to

as well as health/nutrition conditions of the pregnant mothers and the children regularly. The

data captured is analysed to generate feedback to the implementing officials and their

supervisors for making appropriate interventions where necessary. Such feedback and

monitoring of actions being taken can be done on a real-time basis where necessary, which

holds promise for dramatically improving maternal and child health and nutrition outcomes.

On the one hand, frontline providers from doctors to ANMs and ICDS workers can continuously

monitor the status of the mothers and children and initiate corrective action well in time and

on the other hand, the data feeds into the MIS as well, providing decision-makers at higher

levels with up to date information on the status of key maternal and child health and nutrition

indicators on an aggregated basis right from the Anganwadi level upwards. With such

aggregated data being available on the web along with disaggregated information, which can

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be easily viewed up to individual pregnant mother/child, the accountability of the service

delivery machinery is enforced while also ensuring that timely information is available for

appropriate interventions for individual mother/child. The ultimate goal of the system is

reducing morbidity, mortality and malnutrition of the children in the project area.

This software has been used in Kerala and Tripura to monitor the nutrition status in

respect of all the three dimensions for all the children enrolled in the ICDS centres within the

project area. Such surveillance has been helpful in identifying SAM children and those who are

showing growth faltering and feedback is given to the implementing officials for appropriate

interventions.

Nutrition Surveillance of the Children of Attappady block of Kerala

The project was launched on 6th January, 2014 for improving growth and survival of the children

of Attappady with the support of UNICEF and its partner NIRDPR and Riddhi Foundation. All

technical support to the project provided by Riddhi Foundation was in partnership with Riddhi

Management Services. The purpose is to identify MUW-SUW and/or MAM-SAM, and/or MCM-

SCM children and send feedback through mobile notification, email etc. to the concerned

functionaries for further follow up based on WHO protocol. The Jatak and the Janani system

was available at http://jatak.sun.net.in and http://kerala.jananiseva.org.

After successful completion of the first phase the project was continued during the year 2015-16

as the second phase. It was planned in the first phase that growth data of all children will be

captured by using the Android run mobile phone of the JPHNs, who only could be given such

phones. However, that did not work and real time data was available for only the SAM and

MAM children who were identified by the JPHNs who were given such phones. However, the

most important lesson of the first phase was that the system of tracking individual children,

identifying their nutrition status by the ICT based system and displaying the result in the web

on real time worked very well. The SAM and the MAM children were monitored very well and

the children who were stabilized in the NRCs were sent back home for being followed up

through the C-SAM programme, which was also being monitored using the system. These

helped to improve the status of nutrition of many children and reduced their mortality and

morbidity. It was also felt that such types of interventions need to be supported for a longer

period for which it was decided to continue the project with the support of UNICEF and Riddhi.

In order to capture the nutrition status of each child every month a system of IVRS was

introduced through which the AWTs were able to report the data for each child by using

ordinary phones and the data got stored in the server for subsequent transcription and analysis.

This helped to improve capturing of growth data of the children. The ICDS workers were

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oriented on uploading data using IVRS. The IVRS was made operational in September 2015 after

which the data of large number of children could be captured and analysed as shown below.

Table 2.1: No. of AWCs from where weight data was received through IVRS

Reporting month Sept

’15

Oct

’15

Nov

’15

Dec

’15

Jan

’16

Feb

’16

Mar

’16

Total number of AWCs 175 175 175 175 175 175 175

No. of AWCs reported 74 80 164 165 154 163 152

% of AWCs reported 42.3 45.7 93.7 94.3 88.0 93.1 86.9

The system took three months

(September to November 2015) to

stabilise and the percentage of AWCs

from where data was received

increased from 42.3% to 93.7%. The

status of reporting from AWCs

improved from November after a

meeting was held under chairmanship

of the Additional CS of the Social

Justice Department and necessary

effort was given at the field level. The

same attained the highest figure of

94.3% in the month of December ’15.

The number of children whose weight

could be captured using the IVRS is shown in Table 2.2 below:

Table 2.2: No. of Children for whom Weight Data was received through IVRS

Month Sept

'15

Oct

'15

Nov

'15

Dec

'15

Jan

'16

Feb

'16

Mar

'16

No. of children enrolled 5320 5299 5364 5364 5304 5526 5457

No. of children whose

data was received 772 910 3167 3341 2885 3244 2966

Weighing efficiency 14.5 17.2 59.0 62.3 54.4 58.7 54.4

Meeting with JPHN and ICDS Supervisors at Attappady

18 | P a g e

Though growth status of all children living within the project area could not be captured

but individual data of so many children, as shown in the table above, was never collected and

analysed before for

making appropriate

interventions. Such

surveillance helped to

identify the

malnourished children

and make appropriate

interventions. Data for all

the children could not be

captured due to

migration of some of the

children and for other

reasons. At the end of

March 2016 there were

4,569 children whose

weight was taken at least

once during the year 2015-16 while there were another 714 children whose weights could not be

captured during that period and many of them could be from marginalised families and living

in remote areas. It was decided in the state level review meeting taken by the Additional Chief

Secretary of the Social Justice Department during November 2015 that there has to be an

organized effort to reach them and the list of such children were communicated to the AWTs

concerned. That resulted in having only 161 children whose weights were not taken during last

12 months.

At the end of March 2016 there were 282 SUW and 714 MUW children as found from

surveillance mentioned before. 231 out of the SAM children had also information on social

category and 191 out of them were from ST households. Height/length was measured by the

JPHNs but they could cover only a section of the children including those already identified as

SAM. The number of children monitored by them started declining and only 291 children were

monitored by them during the month of March 2016 compared to monitoring 577 such children

during January 2016. At the end of March there were 31 SAM and 127 MAM children as identified

by the JPHNs. This is much lower than the SUW and MUW children identified by the AWTs

who could survey a much larger number of children. Real time information for around 600

mothers were tracked and interventions were made in possible cases for those who had risk of

pregnancy. Details about the project is available in the website of Riddhi Foundation.

Meeting with DPM Palakkad to discuss use of Janani

19 | P a g e

Nutrition Surveillance of the Children of Mananthavadi block of

Kerala

Government of Kerala has found it appropriate, based on success achieved in Attappadi, to have

similar interventions in other tribal pockets of the state, which are also facing problem of

malnutrition of the children. A meeting was held in this respect on the 13th of November, 2015

at the office of the Addl. Chief Secretary of Social Justice Department, Govt. of Kerala, and it

was decided to launch a project, similar to that of Attappadi, in Mananthawady block of

Wayanad district to combat malnutrition, morbidity and mortality of children under five years.

The MoU has been signed between Riddhi Foundation and Govt. of Kerala to work together for

implementation of the project, similar to that being implemented at Attappadi, in

Mananthawady block of Wayanad district. The development of the system

(www.wdjatak.sun.net.in) was started by the end of the year.

Nutrition Surveillance of the Children of West Tripura and Dhalai of

Tripura

A system of nutrition surveillance for capturing nutrition status of children for every

AWC was introduced in the districts of Dhalai and West Tripura with support of Riddhi

Foundation. Government of Tripura agrees to strengthen the same by introducing the system

of tracking nutrition data of every children and an order No. F.1(6-11)- ICDS/SWE/2010/4036(2)

dated 28.8.2014 issued by the Additional Secretary to the Govt. of Tripura, Education (Social

Welfare and Social Education) Department was issued. The same was followed by signing a

MOU between Government of Tripura and RF on 24th March 2015. The Jatak system was to be

customized for that purpose and the system was to be launched for the said two districts on a

pilot basis and the work started immediately thereafter.

The project is designed to ensure qualitative improvement of ICDS implementation through

regular analysis of data through a web-enabled Jatak system displaying performance of all the

ICDS projects along with performances of each ICDS centres as well as for each Gram

Panchayats. The system thereby will infuse accountability and specific local action as per

feedback of the system resulting in sustainable nutrition development of the children enrolled

with ICDS centres of the project districts.

Planning by the Panchayats

Decentralization of governance by strengthening the Gram Panchayat (GP) is very

critical for sustainable and inclusive development. Proper planning by the GPs for investing the

resources under their control for improving various services that they are responsible to provide

20 | P a g e

as well as for enhancing well-being of the people, particularly those from the poorer and the

weaker sections is very critical in this respect.

The need to plan by the GPs was felt more after

the award of the 14th Finance Commission on

sharing of resources with the GPs out of

consolidated fund of the country was accepted

by the Government of India. In this backdrop

NIRD&PR and Riddhi Foundation decided to

take up a joint research named as “Gram

Panchayat Level Decentralized Planning in

West Bengal: The Process, the Outcomes and

the Sustainability” for understanding the

processes related to preparation and

implementation of plans by the GPs of West

Bengal with the overall objective of acquiring more knowledge for strengthening the planning

process at the GP level.

Total 12 Gram Panchayats of the state from four districts (West Midnapur, Nadia, Howrah and

Birbhum) were to be studied to

understand how the planning is

done by the GPs with particular

focus on participation of the people

and the nature of allocation of

available funds for various sectors

under their respective plans. In

order to understand the variation of

the planning process and the

outcome in terms of allocation of

resources across GPs having diverse

context, four broadly different

categories of GPs were selected

based on classification on two parameters. The first parameter was availability of mentoring

support for planning and the second parameter was availability of untied fund. In respect of the

first parameters there are GPs with or without mentoring support and in respect of the second

one there are GPs in BRGF as well as non-BRGF districts. Apart from selection of the GPs, work

related to literature survey and methodology to be adopted was completed during the year.

However, the field work could not be completed since there was delay in release of fund and

the work will continue in the coming year.

ASHA workers of Kamalpur GP, Ranaghat II Block, Nadia

Group Discussion with Ajabnagar GP members, Ghatal Block, Paschim Mednipur

21 | P a g e

Socio-economic surveys

Riddhi Foundation is equipped to take up various studies in the field of socio-economic

development. However, only one such study was conducted during the year 2015-16 as mentioned

below.

Study of the Socioeconomic Conditions of the Jute Mill Workers

The National Jute Board (NJB) engaged Riddhi Foundation through a process of competitive

bidding for conducting a study on the socio-economic status of the workers of the Jute Mills

located in West Bengal and their family members. India has 92 jute mills of which 67 are located

in West Bengal and around 2.3 lakh persons are employed in these mills. There are various types

of labourers like permanent workers, budli workers, special budli workers in these mills and

many of them live in the mill quarters. The objective of the study was to have a proper

appreciation of the level of wellbeing of the jute mill workers and their family members and to

suggest feasible and cost effective ways to improve their socio-economic status. The agreement

for the study was signed on the 2nd December 2015 and the study started immediately thereafter.

An inception report was submitted on the 15th December and the same was discussed with the

officials of the NJB. The study

design was finalized after the

meeting and the same was

conducted by selecting a sample

of 10 jute mills and 50 workers

from each mill, both using the

randomized sampling process.

Apart from quantitative analyses

of the data captured through HH

survey there were to be focus

group discussions and in-depth-

interviews to gain insight on the

qualitative aspects of the findings

as well as to validate the results in

some cases. By end of the year

2015-16 the desk research was

completed and the field survey of some of the mills was completed.

Housing colony of the jute mill workers

22 | P a g e

Resources & Financial Management

Total income earned amounted to Rs. 131.3 lakh in 2015-16 (which includes Donation of Rs. 8.3

lakh), compared to Rs. 45.3 lakh in 2014-15 and Rs 72.8 lakh in 2013-14. Interest income during

the year was Rs. 0.6 lakh in 2015-16.

Thank You to All of Our Partners…

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

2013-14

2014-15

2015-16

72.8

45.3

131.3

Rs. in lakh

Fin

an

cia

l y

ea

r

Income during the last 3 financial years

23 | P a g e

RIDDHI FOUNDATION http://www.riddhifoundation.org

ANNUAL REPORT 2015-16

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