Republic of India

The International Fund for Agricultural Development

For Official Use Only

REpublic of India

MEWAT AREA DEVELOPMENT pROJECT

IFAD Loan 379-IN

PROJECT COMPLETION Report

Main Report and Appendices

Asia and the Pacific Division

Programme Management Department

REPORT No. 2004-IN

April 2008

This document has a restricted distribution and may be used by recipients only in the performance of their official duties. Its contents may not otherwise be disclosed without the authorization of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Republic of India: Mewat Area Development Project

Project Completion Report - Main Report

REPUBLIC OF INDIA

MEWAT AREA DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

PROJECT COMPLETION REPORT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abbreviations and Acronyms, Fiscal year i

Executive Summary ii

I. INTRODUCTION 1

II. PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION ARRANGEMENTS 2

A. Project Area and Target Group 2

B. Components 2

III. PROJECT STRATEGY AND APPROACHES 4

IV. PROJECT COSTS AND FINANCING 5

V. REVIEW OF PROJECT OUTPUTS 7

1. Economic Development 7

2. Social Development 10

3. Project Management 12

VI. ASSESSMENT OF RELEVANCE 12

VII. ASSESSMENT OF EFFICIENCY 14

VIII. ASSESSMENT OF PROJECT EFFECTIVENESS 15

IX. ASSESSMENT OF IMPACT 19

1. Overview 19

2. Impact on Physical and Financial Assets 21

3. Impact on Human Assets 22

4. Impact on Social Capital and Empowerment 23

5. Impact on Food Security 25

6. Impact on Environment 26

7. Impact on Institutions and Policies 26

8. Impact on Gender 27

X. ASESSMENT OF SUSTAINABILITY 28

XI. INNOVATION, REPLICATION and UPSCALING 29

XII. PERFORMANCE OF PARTNERS 30

1. Performance of IFAD 30

2. Performance of UNOPS 30

3. Performance of Government and Line Agencies 31

4. Performance of Project Management 31

5. Performance of NGOs and CBOs 31

XIII. LESSONS LEARNED 32

1. Targeting 32

2. Access to Financial Resource 32

3. Infrastructure 32

4. Skills Development 33

5. Private Sector Involvement 33

6. Dairy Development Initiatives 33

7. Project Management 34

8. Monitoring and Evaluation 34

Republic of India: Mewat Area Development Project

Project Completion Report - Main Report

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Status of expenditures from IFAD loan by category 6

Table 2: Status of Expenditure by component Error! Bookmark not defined.

Table 3: Fund Release and Absorption Comparison by Year 7

Table 4: Comparison between expected and delivered output –Soil and Water Conservation 8

Table 5: Comparison between expected and delivered output – Canal Irrigation 8

Table 6: Comparison between expected and delivered output – Arable Crops Development 9

Table 7: Comparison between expected and delivered output -Horticulture Development 9

Table 8: Comparison between expected and delivered output –Livestock Development Error! Bookmark not defined.

Table 9: Comparison between expected and delivered output –Dev. Support Communication 10

Table 10: Comparison between expected and delivered output –Community and Women Dev. 11

Table 11: Comparison between expected and delivered output –Formal Education 11

Table 12: Comparison between expected and delivered output –Rural Water Supply 12

Table 13: Comparison between expected and delivered output –Research and Studies 12

Table 14: Self Assessment Scores related to Relevance 14

Table 15 : Self Assessment Scores related to Efficiency 15

Table 16 : Outputs from Dairy Development sub-component 17

Table 17 : Outcomes from Community Development sub-component 18

Table 18 : Self Assessment Scores related to Effectiveness 19

Table 19: Coverage of households by the project 19

Table 20: Percentage of SHG members in each poverty category 20

Table 21: Comparative Poverty Status 21

Table 22: Self Assessment Scores on rating of project impact 21

Table 23: Percentage of Households with Pucca houses 22

Table 24: Percentage of Households with Electricity 22

Table 25: Comparison of Household Income 22

Table 26: Results of Survey on Trends 25

Table 27: Comparative Bajra Yield 25

Table 28: Comparative Wheat Yield 26

Table 29: Performance of Project Partners 31

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Linkage between poverty and social capital 24

Appendices

1 Logical Framework

2 Participatory Wealth Ranking

3 Self Assessment Questionnaire

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Republic of India: Mewat Area Development Project

Project Completion Report - Main Report

Currency Equivalents

Local Currency Unit = Indian Rupees (INR)

USD 1.00 = INR …….(Appraisal)

USD 1.00 = INR ……..(Current)

Weights and Measures

International metric system

Fiscal Year

1 April – 31 March

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

CBOs : Community Based Organizations

GOI : Government of India

GOH : Government of Haryana

HIPA : Haryana Institute of Public Administration

IFAD : International Fund for Agriculture Development

MADP : Mewat Area Development Programme

MDA : Mewat Development Agency

MDB : Mewat Development Board

M&E : Monitoring and Evaluation

MYRADA : Mysore Resettlement and Development Agency

NGO : Non-governmental Organization

SHG : Self Help Group

UNOPS : United Nations Office for Project Services

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Republic of India: Mewat Area Development Project

Project Completion Report - Main Report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1 The Project: MADP was conceived with a view to address the increasing difficulties facing the people of Mewat and in response to the willingness of GOH to adopt a more participatory approach to development. The overall objectives of MADP were to: (i) improve the economic and social well being of the Mewat Community; (ii) promote greater self reliance on a sustainable basis; and (iii) broaden the range of economic opportunities available to the community. MADP was appraised during December 1994 and IFAD loan was approved on 12 April 1995. The IFAD loan became effective on 7 July 1995. The original closing date of the project was 31 March 2003 and the project was finally closed on 31 March 2005.

2. The Target Group: The target group comprises 40000 households, approximately 60% of all those in the project area, comprising about 380000 individuals. The nature of project interventions in activities such as community development and soil and water conservation and canal irrigation is such that indirect beneficiaries were expected to exceed that number.

3. The Components: The project had three major components. They include: (i) Economic Activities; (ii) Social Development; and (iii) Project Management. The Economic Activities component includes Soil and Water Conservation sub-component with a base cost of USD2.9million, the Canal Irrigation subcomponent with a base cost USD 2.7 million, the Arable Crops Development sub-component with a base cost of USD 0.5 million, the Horticulture sub-component with a base cost of USD 0.45 million, the Livestock Improvement sub-component with a base cost USD 1.4 million and the Off-farm Enterprises sub-component with a base cost of USD 2.1 million. The Social Development component includes: The Development Support Communication sub-component with a base cost of USD 0.3 million, the Community and Women's Development sub-component with a base cost of USD 2.8 million, the Formal Education sub-component with a base cost USD 0.7 million and the Rural Water Supply sub-component with a base cost of USD 2.4 million. The Project Management component was entrusted to the Mewat Development Authority (MDA) an autonomous Agency covering the entire area of Mewat falling under two districts of Gurgaon and Faridabad. The total financial outlay allocated for this sub-component was USD 0.8 million.

4. Financial Performance: At appraisal, project costs were estimated at USD22.3million and financed with IFAD loan of USD15.0million (67%). The GOH and beneficiary contribution were estimated at USD6.6million (30%) and USD0.7million (3%) respectively. IFAD approved a loan of SDR 9.65 million to finance four categories of expenditure. The highest allocation was made to Civil Works expenditure category with SDR 5.52 million (57.2%) followed by Training and Studies category with SDR 3.08 million (31.9%). Out of the total allocation of SDR 9.65 million, the project disbursed 9.545 million being 98.9% of the total allocation (Table 1).

5. The project had made a total allocation of INR 701.9 million for the entire project duration. Of which, INR 414.8 million (59%), INR 253.7 million (36%) and INR 33.4 million (4.8%) were allocated to economic activities, social development and project management respectively. The project investment into the social development component was 70.82% more than the allocation. The project invested INR 433.38 million as against the allocation of INR 253.70 million. The two sub-components under the Social Development component received substantial additional funding. They are (i) Formal Education and (ii) Rural Water Supply. As against the allocation of INR 31.6 million for the formal education sub-component, the project spent INR 80.49 million. In respect of the Rural Water Supply Component, the total expenditure was INR 263.22 million as against the allocation of INR 92.00 million. The financial performance of the project in terms of total expenditure against the total allocation was below expectations and a s a result, the date of project closing was extended by two year.

6. Outputs: The outputs form Soil and Water Conservation sub-component has exceeded physical targets for most activities. However, major shortfall in delivery of outputs has been in field bunding where expected output has been 11 500 ha and the project was able to deliver only 1071 ha. The outputs from the Canal Irrigation sub-component have exceeded the targets set out in the appraisal report. Under the Arable Crops Development sub-component, the project undertook substantial amount of work relating to demonstrations on farmer plots. The horticulture development activities were included in the project to take advantage of the demand for horticultural products in the New Delhi market. The outputs from both Arable Crops Development and Horticulture Development sub-components exceeded expectations.

7. The outputs related to five livestock development activities were less than expected. They are: (i) construction of livestock development complexes and mini-livestock development complexes; (ii) deworming; (iii) mass mineral supplementation; (iv) feed resource augmentation; and (v) establishment of mini-diaries. The most important output from the livestock development sub-component is the development of Milk Producers Cooperative Societies, and establishment chilling centres and milk booths. The project established 285 Milk Producers Cooperative Societies as against the target of 60. Under the Off-farm Enterprise sub-component, as against the proposed 4750 training programmes for youth, the project has conducted 11 813 programmes. However, as against 9 studies proposed to be conducted for assessing the potential, the project undertook only two studies.

8. The outputs of the Community and Women’s Development were outstanding compared to that of the project design expectations. The project switched over to SHG methodology as against the community mobilisation strategy with village development groups envisioned in the project design documents. The project promoted 1728 SHGs comprising 23 630 members. The project also provided matching grants to 1096 SHGs and Group Development Funds to 1175 SHGs. The output in respect of formal education sub-component was good in terms of improvement to the existing school buildings. The project supported 59 schools as against 30 schools proposed in the project design. The project made substantial investments in rural drinking water supply schemes and the outputs from project interventions were much more than those expected at the time of design. The project strengthened the implementation capabilities of MDA. The project established three sub-divisional offices in Nuh, Jhirka and Hatin.

9. Relevance: The project’s goal was to bring about social and economic development of the Mewat community. Given the circumstances of the region and its peoples, the relative state of impoverishment compared to the rest of the state – and in particular, food insecurity, lack of infrastructure, access to health and education and absence of social support systems were the major themes at the time of project appraisal. The living standards of the project area population were crucially dependent on agricultural and livestock productivity. The project had rightly envisioned that it is difficult to sustain economic development without an improvement on the social development front. This is one of the early projects that focussed on both social and economic development. The project used an integrated approach to development with focus on all sectors such irrigation, soil and water conservation, agriculture, horticulture, livestock, health, education, water supply, SHG mobilisation, micro-credit and off-farm enterprise development. Given the status of the project area and the target group, the relevance of the project was and remains high. The relevance of the project has been considered “High” with a self assessment score of 5 on a scale of 1 to 5

10. Efficiency: Timeliness in delivery of project outputs is one of the key determinants of the project efficiency. The project at the time of appraisal was designed as an eight year’s project and the project was extended by two years and during this period 98.91% of the IFAD loan funds were utilised. In the context of over all delivery of the project outputs, during the course of implementation the project delivery suffered during the financial year 2000-2001. The expenditure pattern of the sub-components reveals a different picture. Under the economic development activities, arable crops development and off-farm enterprises have been less efficient in utilisation of funds compared to other activities. The unit costs for implementing the economic activities were reported to be within the norms of the government for implementation of civil works and other guidelines for project implementation.

11. The efficiency of social development component was comparatively better than that of economic development activities. The project utilised INR 433.38 million as against the project allocation of INR 253.70 million. In respect of formal education and rural water supply sub-components, the project expenditure exceeded expectations. The project management component has incurred proportionately high level of costs. This has to do with interagency collaboration, impact monitoring and evaluation, and undertaking different studies for identifying opportunities to improve livelihood of project area communities. It also had fair amount of success in engaging the NGOs to implement activities related to social development component.