Income Generation Programs (IGPs)

      They have only one income source – traditional fishing. This often caused severe famine conditions in the area. This necessitated the need to open up new sources of income.

      Traditional fishing remained the only source of income to the target community and that often led to severe poverty conditions as the average income during a good fishing season is only 8 to 12 Euro a month for a family of 4 to 5 members. The lean fishing season which covered nearly 2/3 of the year brought 4 to 6 Euro a month. This helped the local money lenders and middlemen to cast their net onto to the entire fisherfolk population virtually making them slaves of an inhuman and exploitation socio-economic system. The middlemen controlled the fishing sector using their money and muscle power while women to cope with the needs of the family got into the traps of money lenders who charged 48 to 120 % interest on their loans. This situation called for strategic intervention at two levels – freeing the community from the clutches of money lenders and middlemen as well as opening up of new sources of income to reach self-reliance. Internal credit system was developed through the Self Help Groups (SHGs) with the support of Samhathi’s People’s Bank (PB) and four other commercial banks and loans were issued to promote various income generating projects (IGPs) also with the support of Coir Board of Government of India, Agriculture Department of State Government and other institutions / organizations active in concerned field.