External aided Odisha Tribal Empowerment & Livelihoods Progrmame (OTELP) is being successfully implemented in 30 backward remote blocks of 7 southwest districts of Odisha since 2005 benefiting 56180 families spread over 1034 villages. It adopts micro watershed as unit of planning and implementation with community participation for livelihoods promotion including farm, off farm and nonfarm enterprise interventions. The results so far are encouraging and have impacted the lives of tribal families in the area of operation with improved field corps production, food security and physical infrastructure etc.
With the success of ongoing OTELP and its impact over tribal people, the Govt. of Odisha has pleased to extend the programme into additional 251 MWS, likely to cover nearly 700 villages in Malkanagiri and Koraput districts. This new extended programme named as OTELP Plus with state government funding will operate in the uncovered micro watersheds in 12 blocks of both the districts from 2011-12. This programme will address the key livelihoods issues of about 40,000 tribal families in these selected remote villages. Like present OTELP, it will adopt a seven years project cycle with a total cost of Rs.263.94 crores. The state government will finance Rs.76.90 crores from state plan and the rest will be sourced from various mainstream development programmes like NGNREGS, BRGF, RKVY, NHM, Biju KBK etc. These funds will be routed to the respective Village Development Committees through the ITDAs.
The coverage of the programme is as follows:
 |
 |
| District | ITDA | No. of Block | Name of the Blocks | No. of MWS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Koraput | Koraput & Jaypore | 6 | Potangi, Nandapur, Bandhugaon, Narayanpatna, Baipariguda, Lamtaput | 102 |
| Malkanagiri | Malkanagiri | 6 | Mathili, Kudumulguma, Korkunda, Kalimela, Khairiput, Podia | 149 |
The programme will partner with Non Govt. Organizations (NGO) for providing facilitation and community mobilization support for the implementation of the programme. Besides, a dedicated professional team of 8 Subject Matter Specialists (SMS) will be positioned for providing programme implementation support to the NGOs and communities in a cluster of 50 micro watersheds. At the district level the ITDA, under the overall supervision of the District Collector and Chairman, OTELP will facilitate the implementation of the programme. At the state level, the Programme Support Unit under the overall guidance of the ST & SC Development Department will be responsible for implementation of the programme.
The programme will impact the lives of remotely inhabited tribal people in enhancing their access to basic entitlements, nurturing their village institutions and improves capacities to adopt innovative interventions for increase of income from agriculture and allied sectors. Basic infrastructures like irrigation, land allocation and development, storage and processing centers, drinking water and sanitation etc. will be the focused interventions under this programme. Skill development activities will be taken intensively to create employability among unemployed youths. It’s expected that after the completion of the programme the socio economic development of these communities will be accelerated.
Districts with tribal concentration have been advised to develop similar proposals which will be subsequently included under the programme.
