Inception Report Presentation Workshop of State Facilitating Agency (SFA) for Social Engineering Cell
under Public Participation & Awareness (PP&A) component of Yamuna Action Plan (YAP) II

(8th February 2008)
Navin Fal evam Sabji Mandi Parishad, Sahibabad, Ghaziabad

The workshop started with welcome of the chief guest Sri Swaraj Kumar, Chief Engineer, (Ghaziabad Region) Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam (UPJN), Mr. K.P. Singh, General Manager, YAP II and all others present from Project Management Consultant (PMC), New Delhi, UPJN (Ghaziabad & Agra), chief functionaries & team members of partner NGOs, and representatives from Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam, by Ashok Bhai, Project Director of State facilitating Agency (SFA) – Sahbhagi Shikshan Kendra. There after brief self introduction of the participants was done. The workshop was formally inaugurated by lighting of a lamp jointly by the chief guest, representatives of UPJN PMC and SFA. It was mentioned to the house that SFA has started functioning since November 15th 2007 at Ghaziabad. Since then the team of SFA has visited the partner NGOs and tried to understand the nature and type of activities being carried out by them. Based on the findings and analysis of the same, a draft project inception report depicting SFA’s future course of action in consonance of its scope of work has been prepared. This workshop has been envisaged as a platform to share this report with primary stakeholders of the project and receive necessary feed backs and suggestions on the same for its finalization.

The workshop began with a brief presentation on Public participation: Key Considerations by Sri R. S. Negi, PMC representative, the presentation reflected upon the need for public participation and brought out the fact that it has been proven in various evaluations of developmental projects that technical alternative of engineering knowledge can not yield optimum result on sustainable basis without connecting people at large. he highlighted the UNEP Rio Declaration of 1992, which clearly advocated for involvement of citizens in the decision making process for any environmental development programme which is possible only through spreading information about the programme within the community. The strategies of public participation incorporated into YAP II were discussed which depicted the participatory approaches followed by the explicit programme themes. Viz –
• Socio-economic and Environment up gradation of Community Toilet Complexes (CTC) neighbourhood community programme,
• School Health & hygiene programme,
• Town specific Innovative programme, and
• Clean Yamuna Manch programme (only for Agra)

Putting together the work undertaken so far under the themes, Mr. R.S. Negi shared the concern that after completing one year, we have realized that the programme is being implemented in tits and bits. He pointed out that if we go on implementing the programmes event wise, without linking and comparing with the pre stated results, it would be difficult to achieve the intended results of the programme? Summing up the discussion he emphasized that if engineering design- feature the skeleton then non engineering interventions provides life and blood to it. Therefore, it was conceptualized and envisaged for a social engineering cell component into this programme.
SFA is engaged for social engineering cell for strengthening and enhancing the capacity of the partner NGOs, monitoring and reviewing their efforts for further refinement and developing guidelines for sustainability of the programme.

After PMC’s presentation, SFA's representative Ms. Vandana Tripathi made the presentation of the Inception report. The SFA’s presentation comprised of its geographical coverage, goals and objectives, scope of work, and the process of inception report preparation and major findings. On the basis of these findings future course of actions with regards to the three areas of work of SFA viz capacity development of partner NGOs, Monitoring and review of their work and developing sustainability guidelines framework have been discussed. The strategies of capacity development viz carrying out TNA exercise, organizing structure training events, exposure visits, creation of an e forum, etc. were discussed in detail. Similarly strategy for the other two areas of work also the strategies were discussed. And then to carry out this assignment the team composition of SFA was also discussed through the presentation. Vandana ended her presentation with raising certain important concerns from SFA’s side. The detail presentation is annexed with this document. Adding on to this Ashok Bhai briefly discussed about evolution and major thrust areas of Sahbhagi Shikshan Kendra (SSK) and its coverage in the state of UP. SSK is a centre for Participatory Learning which works for the empowerment of socially and economically backward communities by promoting their participation for good governance through capacity building of Civil Society Organizations, Community Based Organizations and institutions of self government.

A brief open session on the two presentations was invited questions and answers were thrown open. During this Mr. Nafis from Ray Welfare trust supported the need for SFA and suggested that while organizing any such event in future the dates be finalized in consultation with the partner NGOs who can in turn incorporate the same while preparing their monthly action plans. Mr. Raghvendra Kishore suggested that in future all presentations be prepared in Hindi as about eighty percent of the functionaries from the partner NGOs feel comfortable in the same. He also raised his objections to the point of SFA’s presentation wherein it was mentioned that some of the partner NGOs are at level 9, some are at level 7 and that SFA’s one of the important task shall be to bring all of them to the highest level. His objections were with regards to how the SFA can do grading of partner NGOs. Clarifying his doubts Sri B. K. Garg, Deputy Director PIU Ghaziabad mentioned that this was stated as an example to explain the strengths and weakness and identifying work areas of SFA. he reiterated that SFA has been brought in to provide necessary support and cooperation as and when required to strengthen NGOs work and therefore its role should not be mistaken as 'policing' of the partner NGOs. Mr. J. K. Dubey, Development Management Trust, enquired about the financial provisions for engaging with meetings and events as organized by SFA. To this Ashok Bhai mentioned that provisions for travel reimbursements and boarding-lodging have been made in all future events except for this workshop.

In the last session, the chief guest for the workshop Sri Swaraj Kumar, Chief Engineer, (Ghaziabad Region) UP Jal Nigam addressed the house. In his address he raised concerns over pollution of river Yamuna and stressed the need of stakeholder's participation particularly people’s participation and awareness building towards achieving the larger goals of Yamuna Action Plan II programme. He too emphasized upon the need and importance of State Facilitating Agency in the whole process and said that "Sahbhagi Shikshan Kendra, which has been screened through a rigorous process as SFA would bring out outputs as expected". Assuring of all necessary support from U P Jal Nigam team to SFA’s smooth functioning he ended his address.
After this Mr. Sanjay Singh, Team Leader, SFA formally thanked every body including the chief guest and other eminent guests for making the workshop a successful event. In total 80 persons attended the workshop which included UPJN, PMC representatives, print and broadcast media representatives, representatives from partner NGOS and SFA team members.