Mission of Organization

The mission of IRDT is to empower the vulnerable and under-privileged to take responsibility for their own development and sustainability. IRDT works with climate-vulnerable rural communities in semi-arid regions of Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts with a special focus on small and marginal farmers; people with disabilities; women and the girl child.

Vision

The vision of IRDT is to ensure that the Poor and Marginalised are treated equally with dignity, respect and rights.

Employing organizational experience accrued over twenty three years from the close association with marginalized  communities in the water scarce regions of Tamil Nadu, facilitating sustainable livelihoods, natural resource management and skill up gradation, IRDT has always focused on promoting natural resource governance by the community for sustainability. By leveraging funds from local administration and linking Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs) to community development initiatives, IRDT has been able to reinforce sustainability in its community driven natural resource management endeavours.

IRDT plans to make Water centre-stage at the Gram Panchayat level by making its spend on water a significant percentage. IRDT also plans to showcase this intervention with the help of HUL Hosur to encourage other corporate bodies to adopt GPs for similar CSR-funded development interventions. IRDT will form User groups (UGs) as its primary governance unit and will organise farmers for Kisan Credit and TcBs (trench cum bunds). In addition, farmers who can benefit from farm ponds and drainage line treatments will also be organised into UGs to apply to the Gram Panchayat for the necessary MGNREGA resources. The UGs for water, trees and SDGs especially will be encouraged to have a close link with the Gram Panchayat to allow better synergy in the accessing of Gram Panchayat resources. IRDT will conduct in-situ training for its UGs employing the flow - Planning/Fund Approval /Implementation/Maintenance/Planning. UGs will be responsible for identifying needs, identifying resources to resolve these, facilitating members to access the necessary resources, and reporting on the use of these resources. IRDT will explain the process of accessing resources from the Gram Panchayat. UGs will be assisted to operationalize this process so that each application is developed as a SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).