Zero Hunger Panchayat – A collaborative government – CSO initiative towards accessing public services in Jharkhand, India

In many places across India, citizens are not able to access rights and entitlements and are even denied claims without specific reasons. An effective mechanism for grievance redressal by the state is not in place and thus the citizens’ complaints go unheard. In such cases, we find the most vulnerable populations like tribals, Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), dalits , women ,elderly and migrants are adversely impacted. Hence Nagrik Sahayata Kendra /Citizen’s Help Desk is being established across 100 blocks to act as a bridge between the community and administration. It will play a pivotal role in improving the access to various schemes through an effective grievance redressal mechanism. The objective of the project is to enhance the capacities of the functionaries through the cascade model as well as build the capacity of the village-level committees to develop, implement and monitor participatory NRM microplanning. The program Zero Hunger Panchayat is a collaborative Government and consortium of Civil Society Organisations (CSO) comprising PRADAN, PHIA and SGVK initiative towards accessing public services in Jharkhand, India. It is technically supported by Welthungerhilfe and BMZ. Different partners of this consortium aim to share and disseminate best practices and knowledge for effective policy change at the state level.