Activities within the grant and expected impact:
The three-year project enables NBJK to implement an Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) based livelihood project for about 350 tribal families living across 1,042 acres in six villages in Murhu block of Ranchi district, Jharkhand.

The project addresses various livelihood needs of the community, focusing largely on the creation of natural resources and promoting their optimum utilisation.

The prevalent monocropping system followed in the area focuses on growing paddy, and the yield in the villages is about 3.98 quintals / acre, which is much below the state average of 6.07 quintals / acre. The average annual household level incomes, from a combination of agriculture, forest produce and migration labour, aggregates between Rs10,000 to Rs15,000.

The INRM approach being adopted in all the six villages aims to increase their incomes to about Rs25,000 - Rs30,000 per annum, through the promotion of interventions such as agriculture, horticulture, irrigation infrastructure, non-timber forest produce, animal husbandry and micro-enterprises.

The key components of the project include:

	Establishing and strengthening of Community Based Organisations (CBOs): This involves promoting the CBOs such as Self Help Groups and Gram Sabhas to manage the common property resources and development of villages. It reaches out to 350 families and strengthens SHGs and Gram Sabhas allowing them to initiate livelihood development activities.
	Land and water development for agriculture diversification: This includes conservation of soil and water resources through interventions such as earthen ponds, farm ponds, masonry check dams, dug wells, and land development, besides intervening in both rain fed and irrigated agriculture, through stabilisation of paddy with support of irrigation during critical periods. It also includes the promotion of Systems for Rice Intensification (SRI), and vegetable cultivation, along with other crops. Construction of 19 check dams, 50 farm ponds and 15 dug wells would ensure irrigation to 370 acres, benefiting all 350 families.
	Horticulture development: 1,000 trees planted in 14 acres, with a 90 per cent survival rate, would ensure additional income of Rs10,000 per annum per family from the third year onwards. 56 families would be covered under this component.
	Enterprise development: This includes promoting goat rearing as an allied activity for the landless and marginal families, besides vermicompost promotion, lac cultivation and social forestry promotion. Over 450 members would benefit through an additional income of Rs15,000 per annum from the third year of the project.