NGO-Govt relations - Collaboration or confrontation

In our decade-long work with development organisations one significant issue on which we saw a range of different responses has been the attitude of NGOs towards government and its financial resources. While we ourselves were part of some of these situations, some others, we have been able to observe from a distance. This note is an effort to develop an understanding of the causes and consequences of such positions.

Through the 90s there has been an increasing acknowledgement by the government of the role of NGOs, especially in areas where there are gaps in delivery of basic services. These are manifest in government policies, programmes and schemes, which have to varying degrees tried to incorporate NGOs, especially in building the social interface with communities. The acknowledgement of NGOs ability to deliver technically sound products on a reasonable scale has been more recent. These grudging responses have been precipitated by the evidence of significant local action by several NGOs, but also perhaps growing international pressure, especially from multilateral and bilateral aid agencies to incorporate NGOs into the formal development space. Interestingly, the government also come into the ‘business’ of forming NGOs – the DRDA, etc., extended arms of the government really, but constitution-wise NGOs.

In this climate, NGOs which were established through the 70s and 80s and which came to have significant local presence and community support, especially, have in recent times been forced to reassess their positions vis-à-vis the constituencies they serve. The values they espoused – participation, democracy, rights, sustainability – are today articulated with as much fervour by quasi-government NGOs, and are common parlance in CSR espousal of corporations. The greatest challenge, and potential arena of conflict, though, is with Panchayats which are, at least on paper, given responsibility for fulfilment of basic services –running schools, developing watersheds, managing commons, establishing water supply and sanitation, building roads, setting up markets, etc.

NGO responses to working “with the government” have varied. Among organisations engaged in constructive development action, there are those who make efforts to leverage government resources, directly, or through community based organisations. These organisations acknowledge that resources available are scarce, that resources allocated by the government must be spent wisely with the maximum benefits reaching the targeted people.

For these organisations, the process of working “with the government” has been, at best a challenge, at worst a humiliating nightmare. Negotiating through the labyrinth of political patronage and bureaucratic concession, often coming into direct competition with ‘born yesterday’ NGOs (often promoted by local politicians for obvious reasons), require them to develop a very special kind of ability to negotiate. Often established NGOs find years of work in nurturing communities being taken over by some other NGO or government department, which has been allocated a certain “watershed” to be implemented. For most communities and their leaders, however ‘mature’, the choice is difficult to make and the lure of short term gains very powerful. Unfortunately there is no level playing field. It is pure muscle and acumen and on occasion, strings at a ‘higher level’ which need to be pulled.

Not all is bleak though. There is an occasional bureaucrat, who is sensitive and understanding and is able to identify the grain from the chaff. A lot has depended on the capacity of NGOs to build rapport with such officers, investing time and effort in the process, to be able to influence programme implementation processes. Most often though these don’t sustain beyond the particular officer and die out with his/ her transfer.

Some recurring problems of working with the government, whatever the programme or scheme, include -
- Standardised pre-determined approaches, with little or no room for innovation or negotiation to suit local contexts
- Erratic fund flows, wherein there is either too much to spend within the stipulated time or too little, but never enough when it is needed the most
- Government departments which sanction and monitor the programmes are often in competition for the same projects. This places NGOs at a distinct disadvantage and reinforces their subservient status.
- Corruption, in a variety of forms. Where NGOs have resisted bribes, or sharing a fraction of the sanctioned funds, they are punished by delays in sanction/ release of funds.

For these reasons, among others, a large number of organisations engaged in the constructive development approach choose not to collaborate with the government, even though these spaces are there. Many have tried a few times and scarred by the experience have chosen to leverage other resources, typically foreign aid, which evidently is a dwindling resource.

For these reasons too, organisations which leverage substantial government funds are often looked at with suspicion and labelled variously as ‘government contractors’, ‘co-opted by the government’, etc.

Those working in the ‘activist’ mode of mobilising communities to claim rights from the government feel that any form of collaboration by NGOs will be construed as co-option. There is a sense of belligerence in their approach, and a belief that community based organisations will be able to stake claims and play an integral role in implementation of schemes (or at least ensure wise use of resources using instruments such as the Right to Information) once they are adequately aware of rights.

These same organisations have a different form of working “with the government”. In their effort to influence policies, they consistently lobby with and actively seek support of politicians – Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assembly who will determine the destiny of legislations and policies. Laudable as these efforts are, there is a creeping sense of a different form of ‘co-option’, when such support is used as a measure of success or validity of efforts by such NGOs.

Irrespective of the branding accrued – contractor or co-opted – a more urgent situation requires the NGO sector to seek stronger ways to work with the government. Traditional sources of development finances (foreign donor funds) are fast drying up. Corporate philanthropy in India has not assumed a scale where it can be considered serious or pan-Indian. At the same time, allocations for NGO-facilitated development schemes within the governmental system have increased. The balance is firmly tilting towards this end. There are already a large number of organisations created for the express and exclusive purpose of garnering these funds. Very little of the resources routed through such NGOs ever reach the intended target. Caught between these two contradictions, should the established, credible organisations take a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude towards government funds or build up capacities, within and with the constituency, to use these resources in a credible manner?

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Working with rural communities – for whom and by whom?

‘Voluntarism’ or ‘voluntary action’ is most evident at the community level, where men and women engage in a range of activities aimed at community good, without expectations of commensurate individual gains. Village level volunteers forming part of village management committees and demonstrate high levels of initiative in mobilizing the community and ensuring progress of projects/ tasks. They also take on management roles at the village level, often involving maintenance of complex records, accounts, liaising with banks, government, and other external agencies.

Dignity definitions
Most of these activities are not compensated for in monetary terms, though norms vary across communities and organizations. In instances where organisations/ movements bring in compensation measures based on levels of responsibility vested on local volunteers, volunteers identify themselves more as staff the organization, rather than the community. For the large numbers of volunteers who work on no remuneration or token amounts, the impetus comes from the position/ standing that they get both within their community and vis-à-vis outsiders, as they are the perceived leaders. There is a great sense of dignity that they derive from the positions they hold. ‘Dignity’ – Izzat is a very strong motivating factor. Several of these volunteers go on to participate actively in political processes in local governments (panchayats) or other government supported positions at the village level (health workers/ teachers/ VLWs, etc). How long does such voluntarism sustain and what are its limits and boundaries?

Who is ‘empowered’?
‘Empowerment’ is a common term used in most non-government action. This is interpreted variously, ranging from affirmative action by the ‘marginalised/ oppressed/ poor/ weak’ challenging social structures at the village level, to political assertion. The measures for ‘empowerment’ are more often set and decided by the facilitating agency (NGO) rather than the communities. So access to water and fuel (reduced drudgery of women) becomes a measure of empowerment, as does participation of women in public fora. Often community perception of ‘empowerment’ is widely different. Infact rarely are the community consulted on what they would construe as empowerment, though it must also be said that there may be overlaps in these views. Who decides if a community/ people are empowered, and how can this be measured? There is need to examine the contours of ‘empowerment’ from the perspective of facilitating agencies vs community.

Whose participation and how?
Facilitating agencies of most non-government action promote a range of forms of ‘community participation’ and collectives in an effort to nurture democratic processes at the local level. Several of these draw on existing leadership and collective management systems existing in the village. In several instances, they evolve over a period of time demonstrating characters that are valued by the promoting agency. These include participation/ representation of women in decision making bodies, representation across different caste categories, democratic decision making systems, etc. The robustness of such evolved forms of participation varies from community to community and is often reflected in nature of responsibilities vested/ appropriated by these collectives and acceptance within the community frame.

In a large number of cases however, there is a tendency to standardize the composition of community collectives based on formulae set by the facilitating agency. In such instances, the collectives are more perfunctory rather than real, having little role, responsibility or relevance in long term development processes. These are most evident where facilitating agencies implement government sponsored schemes, often resulting in multiple decision making bodies at the village level, having little correlation/ synergy with each other. Forms of people’s organizations/ institutions which evolve at the local level (rather than based on external prescriptions), develop deeper roots in community decision making processes and often thrive/ survive beyond the period supported by the external agency. They also develop greater affinity and play proactive roles in political processes/ Panchayats, etc. There appears to be a need for greater understanding of institutional forms at community level - evolved vs. prescribed. More importantly how do these forms of village institutions relate to legitimate forms of governance as embodied by Panchayats.

Poor are not passive takers, they have their cards and they play it
Working with communities requires negotiation of tricky spaces. In most instances people are looking for ways to maximize their benefits (individual or collective) and play their cards in such a manner to extract such benefits from facilitating agencies. There is the fallacious assumption that homogeneous village communities are egalitarian and work towards sharing benefits. Information asymmetry/ isolation of rural communities is another common argument placed by facilitating agencies to defend their usurpation of decision making spaces. This is often based on a gross under estimation of knowledge/ information available at local levels. People/ communities often go with and demonstrate allegiance to where they see/ perceive greater benefits at any point in time.

Community level dynamics are not understood, or missed by facilitating agencies not familiar with local dynamics, often because not enough time is spent in understanding socio-economic and political contexts and idiomatic processes. Their responses are tailored on set ‘global’ practices and have little contextualization to local conditions. Often even agencies with long term association/ local presence fail to anticipate/ detect these calculated responses by communities.

Questions are being asked about the role and relevance of interventions by NGOs, especially in the context of widening spaces of civil society as well as enlarging identities and domains of Panchayati Raj institutions. They are being called upon to be accountable and answerable to the communities they purport to serve and to establish their legitimacy for continuing interventions. Some honest introspection and search for answers would be useful.

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‘Needs based’ or ‘Rights based’ – Two sides of the same coin?

In our encounters with development organisations and movements, workers and activists, we have come across a wide range of responses. These have been shaped by the socio-economic and political contexts, but also to a great extent by the proclivities of the leadership which initiated these responses. Over the years, these have grown in size and their ‘impact’ is visible in varied hues. What is often intriguing is the projection of self by these interventions, the claims vis-à-vis the people/ communities involved, the scale of impact, etc. Such claims have often been the basis for classification of interventions into broad boxes of ‘needs based’ and ‘rights based’ approaches. Interestingly, there is often a noticeable sense of antagonism/ scepticism between the actors and institutions involved, especially those operating within the same region.

Such classification is fuelled by the academic discourse on development, especially in the West, which influences to a great deal donor positions and responses. A cynical view would be that the desire by different interventions to project a certain image is fuelled by the need to attract scarce donor resources. Often these labels are applied by donors themselves to justify who they fund or ‘partner with’ to be politically correct, and who they do not.

Our view after travelling through several states across the country, and seeing in close proximity, a range of interventions of movements and organisations, is that if ‘needs based’ and ‘rights based’ approaches are indeed two ends of the spectrum, the bulk of interventions would fall somewhere in between. Several interventions also left us feeling that the ‘needs based’ and ‘rights based’ approaches are not exclusive and parallel, but ‘two sides of the same coin’ at best.

Shades of rights
In our effort to understand what is generally meant by rights based approaches, we came across a wide range of literature. The broadest definitions of rights based approaches bases itself on ‘human rights’ rather than ‘legal rights’. This got us very confused, because from what we have seen, all interventions we came across are geared towards development or restoration of ‘human rights’. Most of the so-called ‘needs based’ interventions are geared towards restoration of ‘human rights’, providing access to education and health care, or enhanced access and control of economic resources, etc.

PRADAN for instance is viewed as an organisation which works towards augmentation of livelihoods through techno-managerial solutions – a clear example of ‘needs based’ approach – promoting poultry, mushroom, silk rearing, etc in Kesla, MP. The confidence of Savitribai, associated with PRADAN’s activities for over a decade and a leader in her own right, in addressing social wrongs and inequities within their communities, and even making efforts to claim their legal rights, had us wondering about the classification of PRADAN’s interventions as ‘needs based’. Would it be correct to say that an economic intervention, done well, builds capacities and confidence of the women to address other issues affecting them as well, and even claim their ‘rights’?

Gram Vikas in Orissa builds community institutions around water supply and sanitation – another case classified as ‘needs based’. These institutions are eventually able to ensure that Panchayat funds are properly utilised, government schools are properly functioning, etc. Seva Mandir in Rajasthan, through its interventions over three decades has built robust institutions at the village/ community level which are able to ensure effective management of common resources, and can protect their rights against vested interests. The level of effort by Gram Vikas or Seva Mandir in consciously promoting awareness of ‘rights’ is limited, but the strength comes from enabling communities to meet basic needs – enabling ‘dignified’ survival, and building community institutions which are sensitive on issues of social and gender equity.

The other end of the spectrum has, for instance, NBA, a movement for claiming rights, which mobilises and educates people of their legitimate entitlements. For over five years people rallied around and have blocked construction of the Maheshwar dam. In mobilising communities around the Veda dam however, they have acknowledged the need for ‘constructive action’ in addressing livelihoods issues. As Bhgawan bhai, a long term activist with NBA summed up – these are two sides of the same coin. In SWRC, the effort to engage people in the Right to Information campaign bases on rainwater harvesting structures initiated or supported by SWRC. Ramkaran ji acknowledged that while people can be made aware of the provision of ‘rights’, mechanisms and capacities have to be developed over a period of time to enable people to make use of it. The Koriya Initiatives is an interesting case of a ‘rights based’ approach, basing on the mitanin (health worker) programme to improve access to government health services. The success in this is leading on to working towards better functioning of ICDS, PDS, etc.

So is it a question of differing in methodology rather than differences in output that characterises ‘needs based’ and ‘rights based’. In either case, catalytic action is essential to enable people challenge existing socio-economic and political structures and assert their rights. In ‘needs based’ approaches catalytic institutions engage proactively with communities to deliver tangible benefits and build communities around these, leaving communities to use their collective strength to determine which battles they want to fight, and proactive role of catalytic institutions in enabling CBOs in claiming ‘rights’ from the state is often limited. The catalytic institutions take responsibility for mobilising resources and implementation of programmes. Community institutions that are nurtured are localised in their action often at the village/ Panchayat level.

‘Rights’ based approaches are based on mobilisation of communities on specific issues – resistance to dams, transparency in utilisation of public funds, effective functioning and access to government services – health centres, PDS shops, etc. Interestingly, while people/ communities coalesce, often in loose formations, for these rights, it does not necessarily translate to a broad spectrum collective action for all rights. For instance, in NBA areas, it was evident that women were active only in some areas. Most of the activists themselves are men. Collective resistance to the dam, did not mean that they stayed together to ensure proper functioning of schools, or that girls attended, or that PDS shops worked effectively. ‘Rights based’ initiatives are dependant on catalytic individuals, rather than institutions. The catalysts prefer to remain in the background and attempt to project ‘people’s/community institutions’. There are a large number of community level activists, who build the momentum in mobilizing communities. The dependence on external funds is limited and often strong positions are taken on these (eg. NBA does not accept foreign funds).

The size of the constituency also differs. Institutions following ‘needs based’ approaches have defined and largely stable constituencies. ‘Rights based’ approaches have amorphous constituencies, whose size varies (from five to 50,000 we were told in NBA) depending on the immediacy of the issues being addressed. They have acknowledged that if survival is threatened, and if basic needs are not met, the momentum of mobilisation may vastly weaken.

Both approaches, we felt have a great deal of complementarities and have a great deal to learn from each other. We could start, perhaps by lowering our prejudices, and beginning to appreciate strengths and finding ways of working together. The common ultimate objective – of enabling people and communities to live in dignity – should be motivation enough for working together.

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APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGIES (INDIA), UKHIMATH

AT (India) or ATI works in the upper Himalayan regions of Uttaranchal, promoting and supporting small enterprises that draw upon the vast natural resources of the region. ATI works with self help groups in the villages, through a system of service/input providers and establishes market linkages for the products. ATI has developed a complete package of services to support oak tasar production. Dairy development and apiculture are to two other areas where it has done significant work.

ATI focuses its work on villages in the districts of Chamoli and Rudraprayag, and is based in the town of Ukhimath, which is famous as the winter abode of Lord Kedarnath. Villages are clustered into ‘valleys’, and ATI has established support infrastructure for each valley. Two companies have been registered as producers’ companies – one for tasar, one for honey – to manage their respective businesses. At the valley level or in the villages, however, one did not come across any division between the three entities, and the identity was only that of ATI and its staff.

The tasar enterprise covers the entire gamut from egg production to garment making. ATI or Chamoli Tasar Limited (name of the company registered to manage the activity) has established the infrastructure for spinning, reeling, dyeing and weaving. Cocoon grainage and rearing are done by farmers in the villages. The predominant production is of oak tasar and this requires the farmer to live in the oak forests away from their villages for the three months when the cocoons are left on the trees. With the rapid disappearance of oak trees, ATI is now shifting focus to other forms of silk, eri raised on the castor crop and mulberry cocoons purchased from elsewhere. Bulk of the employment generated is in the post-cocoon category when the yarn is spun, dyed and woven. Chamoli tasar sells well in the market and it is a large supplier of tasar-wool blended materials to outlets like Fab India.

Devbhumi honey is the branded product from Devbhumi Madhu Limited, the company ATI has promoted for its apiculture activity. In this case, ATI has not taken the responsibility of marketing all the honey that is produced through its network of producers. ATI provides training to apiculturists and has established a network of ‘collectors’. These collectors act as the intermediary between the farmers and the company. All honey produced by the farmers is collected by the collectors, who depending on demand from the company supply unprocessed honey to it. The excess production is processed and sold locally by the collectors themselves. The area being close to Kedarnath, there is very high demand for honey during the yatra season every year, and this market is catered to by the collectors.

The yatra market also has very high demand for ghee. The dairy programme developed by ATI has had many takers in the villages due to this. ATI provides a support package involving artificial insemination, improved fodder and tie-up with the government livestock development programme for veterinary care.

Eco-tourism is another of ATI’s interventions. It has helped three entrepreneurs establish lodges that cater to diverse interests as hiking, bird-watching etc. In village Sari that falls on the route to Deoria tal, a lake at an altitude of more than 2000 metres, an eco-tourism group was organised. This group was expected to generate employment and income for themselves by taking advantage of the large number of tourists visiting the lake. One of the group members is also one of the three entrepreneurs who have set up tourist lodges. Gradually, it seems that the individual’s business interests have overtaken that of the group and the self help group is probably functional only on paper.

Some thoughts
It was a study in contrast to see the work of ATI soon after seeing that of Grassroots. Here are two organisations that talk about more or less the same things – sustainability of mountain ecologies and its people. But each has chosen to approach this goal from very different angles. ATI has a taken a market based approach where establishing an enterprise and ensuring its viability have taken precedence. One could even see pointers to the fact that business prudence has taken precedence over the original purpose of the organisation. The tasar enterprise began with a view to providing incentives to the local population to arrest the degradation of oak forests by generating tangible incomes from them. However, over the years, tasar or silk business in itself has become more important than the fact that oak forests continue to disappear. In the process people have gained, undoubtedly, especially new skills like spinning and weaving which have helped women improve their economic status.

Grassroots has let go of its commercial activities to Umang, which again is a Society. ATI despite having put in place business entities like the two producer companies has not been able to ‘let go’. The two companies – Chamoli Tasar and Devbhumi Madhu – together do business worth about a crore of rupees every year. One would think that is a scale sufficient to raise the two as independent entities. Why this has not happened is probably worth exploring further. What does it take for NGOs to build sustainable, community managed businesses? Is it yet another chimera like sustainable development?

While on the topic of NGOs doing business, it was educative to see the number of organisations that are engaged in producing the same kind of products and incurring fixed marketing costs many times over to sell them in the same market. Walking around Dilli Haat during the Dastkar Nature Bazar in late November, one came cross six organisations running that many stalls selling more or less the same products – woollen products, honey, jam-jelly-preserves and, apricot-peach oil.

A quick calculation of what it means to the producers is simple. Selling, marketing and administrative overheads often take up to 50% of the price realised on some of these products, leaving just half the consumer rupee to be shared between the raw material and labour. In many cases, thus, the primary producer gets somewhere around a quarter of what the market pays – not substantially different from what the “corporate devils” return!

If this is the case, how can NGOs take a holier-than-thou attitude vis-à-vis the market and claim large amount of grants from donors for doing livelihood promotion work? It may be time to go back to the old milkman from Anand and learn about decentralised production and centralised processing. And perhaps more importantly, centralised marketing.

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GRASSROOTS, RANIKHET

Grassroots is short for Pan Himalayan Grassroots Development Foundation. Wish there was some way to shorten the 120 steps, along roughly 200 metres drop, that one has to negotiate to reach their office in the outskirts of Ranikhet. Going down is easy, but climbing back, oh! forget it. Grassroots has been around since 1992, ever since the Pauls, Kalyan and Anita, moved to Ranikhet, the cantonment town in Almora district, from Chirag, an organisation in Kumaon they had helped form, together with other like minded people, in 1986.

Grassroots is now an amalgam of organisations. There is Grassroots itself, a small organisation of less than 10 people that acts as a facilitator to a number of development processes. Over the years, it piloted and experimented with a number of activities, and the successful ones have since been transferred to organisations set up by local staff. The Mahila Umang Samiti, Umang for short, is a federation of self-help groups in villages in Almora, Nainital and Bageshwar districts. Umang provides a platform for the women to engage in productive activities like knitting and food processing, by bringing about linkages with the market. Kumaon Artisans’ Guild (KAG) is another organisation which Grassroots has helped establish. An alliance of masons and construction supervisors, the Guild is an outcome of long years of work that Grassroots has put in, in the area of alternative technologies. Biogas is one of them.

Grassroots work priorities are governed by its founding mission of working on the regeneration of the Himalayan mountain ecosystem. It sees its work in diverse sectors as alternate technologies and natural resource management as being elements of this larger strategy. That this approach is working is evident from what one sees in the villages. Traditional sources of drinking water are drying up fast. The infiltration wells that the organisation has helped establish have provided a working alternative to the people. Similarly biogas has helped in reducing the demand for firewood, a very scarce commodity in the region.

Establishing successful pilots and leaving the expansion and scaling-up to local organisations like Umang and KAG is the role Grassroots plays. Moving from the past of technology specific interventions, Grassroots is now planning a fairly large natural resource development programme – regeneration of the Gagas river valley. The Gagas is a stream-fed river into which more than 30 streams, locally called Gadhera, drain. Through an intervention named “Gadhera Bachao Abiyan”, Grassroots plans to facilitate a multi-stakeholder forum to bring about substantial difference in the natural resource base of the area. Interestingly, about 90% of the land in the region belongs to the forest department. Thus unlike similar NGO interventions elsewhere, it is not sufficient to have community participation alone. There is need for a strong, working tripartite deal, between the communities, facilitating NGOs and the Forest Department. In the scheme of things Grassroots has worked out for the programme, local NGOs like KAG will deal with the community interface. About 10 other local NGOs have joined hands with Grassroots to implement the programme. Grassroots will take responsibility for the interface with the State and District administration.

Umang
Umang boasts of a network of women spread over 110 villages in 10 development blocks of the three districts. The governing body of Umang have representatives of the women’s groups. The day-to-day functions are managed by a group of women, headed by the Secretary, all of whom come from the area.

One part of Umang’s work is in community development. This includes areas like alternative energy, savings and credit groups and drinking water and sanitation. The other part of its work falls under the broad label of enterprise development. Knitting of woollen and cotton garments is the biggest activity, covering about 300 women in around 45 villages. Umang produces knitwear worth more than Rs.1.5 million each year, about a third of which accrues to the women as wages.

The other important enterprise activity is food processing. This includes making of pickles from local farm produce like chillies, ginger and garlic and fruit preserves and jams. The apiculture programme is also substantial, producing about 3 tonnes of honey every year. Umang also provides support to women for backyard poultry rearing.

Kumaon Artisans’ Guild
The purpose of the Guild revolves around the application of appropriate technologies for rural development. Thus most of its work is in the areas of biogas promotion and drinking water and sanitation. The infiltration wells technology developed by Tim Rees is the most significant drinking water solution that the Guild offers. Over the years the Guild has helped build more than 80 such wells, in addition to about 400 toilets and 200 biogas plants. The Guild also offers technical assistance to other organisations in Kumaon.

Some thoughts
The dominant development paradigm in Uttaranchal – heralded by the State with funds from multilateral donors and supported by a large section of the civil society – talks of the livelihoods approach. One sees very little focus on the quality of the natural resource base, which quite evident to the naked eye, is fast degenerating. Undoubtedly, Uttaranchal has great natural endowments to be exploited, to enable its people to earn good incomes. But concerns about sustainability of interventions get mere lip-service. It is in the context of such approaches that the interventions of Grassroots assume significance. They may be small in terms of coverage, but in terms of demonstrating alternative approaches they bring about a welcome freshness.

Grassroots also offers an interesting case study on the structure of development organisations. Irrespective of the degree of effectiveness of its ‘let-go’ strategy, it is refreshing to see an NGO make such efforts and actually take it beyond rhetoric. Lines dividing functions of Umang or KAG from Grassroots may be thin, but one cannot miss the genuineness of the effort. In fact, efforts are being made to ensure that the three organisations do not share the same work space. Now, all three work out of the Grassroots campus (of the 120-steps notoriety). During November 2005 in fact, KAG moved to its new premises. Umang needs a better organised space to manage its diverse production activities and once a suitable one is found, it also would have a new home.

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