Implementing Agency:
Department For International Development (PAND)

Managing Institute:
Plan International

Contractor:
Plan International UK

Project Code: 149-680-059	Start Date: 01-Apr-90	End Date: 01-Mar-93
Commitment: £108,132	Status: Completed	Type of Funding: Bilateral - JFS

Project Background:
The Afforestation Project has been developed for Virudhunagar, India, because there are more than 20,000 acres of land which have lain idle for more than 20 years; the reasons for this neglect are a combination of an acute lack of rainfall and the fact that the people do not have the resources or knowledge to develop proper irrigation systems.

Currently, cultivation yields are dropping, despite the investment of labour and resources, because of the lack of rainfall.

As a result, the farmers lose hope and sell their farms to the wealthy at very low prices and move to urban areas in search of regular employment. It is estimated that 5,000 acres have already been sold to wealthy landowners. This project has been established in the hope of curtailing this process and of improving the productivity of the land.

Project Objectives:
To identify and elaborate key development issues in a geographically defined disadvantaged community in and around the Virudhunagar area.

To use sponsorship of children as an effective means of enabling families to work towards their own social and economic improvement.

To integrate the Virudhunagar Project into the existing social, economic and cultural context and to help the programme participants to use available sources of government and non-government assistance.

Intended Outputs:
To increase crop production in the marginal dry areas and increase the income of the villagers by bringing 160 hectares of waste land under cultivation.

To reduce the rate of soil erosion.

To enable poor farmers to retain their lands rather than sell to the wealthy at extremely low prices.

To increase the average family income by 100 rupees per month by the inroduction of fodder crops as an adjunct to the animal husbandry project.

To increase employment opportunities and thereby reduce the rate of migration from the rural to the urban area.