The president of BAIF, Dr Narayan Hegde, said that this Rs 52 crore Adivasi development programme, supported by Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (KFW), a German Bank for Reconstruction through NABARD, is among the 23 projects selected from India for this Expo 2000. The expo will be presenting the best ideas and solutions for facing the challenges in the next millennium.BAIF's Dharamapur project at Valsad in Gujarat is entering its fifth year and is transforming the lives of the impoverished tribals there. Before the programme, a tribal family in Valsad barely had an annual income of Rs 4,000 and most of the family members migrated to cities to end up as labourers on construction sites.

BAIF launched a holistic development programme with the family as the basic unitand based on a forest-based lifestyle. The project started in 1995 with 42 families and the effort was to offer livelihood through wasteland development and the introduction of horticulture. Hegde explains that the key to the success of the project was that it ensured that tribal families themselves were at the helm of affairs and were involved in the conceptualisation, planning and implementation of the project. The thrust was on self-help groups and cooperatives.

The area has seen a lot of transformation since then. Around 1,50,000 mango, 3,00,000 cashew trees and 20,000 other species have been planted. These plants have started bearing fruit. The wadis or productive orchards form the foundation for a new life. The programme today covers nearly 20,000 families in Valsad and its adjoining villages, which have also joined the programme.The taluka today is full of cashew and mango orchards and family income levels have gone up to Rs 25,000 per annum from them, and in some cases, even gone up to levels of Rs60,000 a year. This year saw the production of about 250 tonnes of pickles and 25 tonnes of mango pulp. Efforts are on to set up processing units to add value to the products and increase avenues of income generation.

BAIF monitors the activities and is training the tribals in managing all their activities.

Hegde says that within four to five years, these families have come out of the poverty circle and the programme demonstrates how a holistic approach to development can get better results. "The capacity building will ensure that the community will be able to take over when BAIF leaves," says Hegde. BAIF is trying to emulate this success in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Rajasthan.