Food and Livelihood

Tribals once known for their self sustained economy are now under the threat of losing their livelihood and food and on the verge of extinction due to non tribal intrusion and exploitation, severe natural resource depletion, land alienation, displacement and intrusion of multinational companies.

In the light of Supreme Court guidelines to ensure right to food, work, pension and nutrition through implementation of centrally sponsored schemes; ARTS started working on the effective implementation of the schemes since 2004.

The schemes are – Public Distribution System, Anthyodaya Annayojana (AAY), Annapurna, Old Age Pension, National Family Benefit Scheme, National Maternity Benefit scheme, Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), Mid Day Meals, Food for Work and Sampurna Grameena Rozgar Yojana. The major activities evolved under this sector are – support to vulnerable groups, promotion of grain banks, streamlining PDS, promotion of market committees, value addition training of forest products for women and other income generation programmes.

My Secure Food: This is a case study of Talagapu Narayanamma (50 years) who is a widow and lives with her 15 year old son. She doesn’t have any land. She earns her living as a daily wage earner, while her son helps her in the domestic work. She holds an Antodaya card, and receives 35 Kgs of rice every month. But she was able to purchase 35 Kgs of rice due to shortage of money and the rice she receives was not sufficient for the entire month.

Last year Narayanamma was supported with 120 Kgs of rice from the grain bank which was promoted by ARTS with ActionAid’s support. She is happy to get timely support from ARTS and ActionAid.