From Bastar to Bundelkhand: How Grassroots Lessons Reshape Rural Policy
SRIJAN’s field models show how community ownership can strengthen programmes like MGNREGA and water security missions, making policies more inclusive and resilient.
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SDG 5: Gender Equality | SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation | SDG 13: Climate Action
Institutions: Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare | Ministry of Rural Development
In 1987, a young Aquaculture Engineer in Bastar faced a strange incentive. Success was measured not by healthier tanks or fuller nets, but by the number of “illegal” fishing cases booked. For Prasanna Khemariya, this made no sense.
“When a tribal fisher is caught fishing illegally in a reservoir, filing a police case does not merely penalize the individual, it impacts the entire household. For many, such fishing is not a choice but a necessity for food and survival. The legal process brings high costs, long delays, and social stigma, exacerbating the family’s hardship, while failing to address the underlying problem of sustainable resource management.”
Instead of registering cases, he encouraged community sanctions and motivated them to become members of the cooperatives: temporary bans from fishing rather than fines or arrests. His superiors were initially unconvinced, but villagers saw him as a rare official who valued trust over targets. He also nudged them to set aside ponds for fish culture alongside paddy.
“A one-acre pond can yield 3,000 kilograms of fish in a year, more nutrition and income than a field of rice.” he notes.
That early choice of prioritising community needs over punitive metrics would shape the way Prasanna thinks about policy to this day.
When Reports Outweighed Results
Later, working as consultant and in financial advisory roles deepened his disillusionment.
“The system rewarded glossy reports, PowerPoints and luring clients in; not problem-solving.”
He recalls one colleague advising an army officer to pour his entire retirement savings into a single risky scheme: “Your 15 lakhs will become 30 in a year.”
Prasanna objected. “You must educate about the risk first.” The reply from his bosses was blunt: “My way or the highway.”
For him, it confirmed that mainstream institutions often prioritised paperwork and appearances over outcomes. The frustration also clarified his path
“If the system rewards numbers on paper, I would rather work where the field is the measure.”
To make space for that, he even asked to be paid less – just enough for logistics and his basic needs – so he could spend more time in villages. It was an unusual request, but for him the field remained the only true measure that mattered.
From Disillusionment to Alignment
His earlier stints at the Bhoj Wetland Project, Watershed Mission, and World Bank-funded District Poverty Initiatives Project made him a firm believer that community-owned and community-driven initiatives can sustain themselves if facilitation is done properly.
By 2012, Prasanna joined SRIJAN (Self-Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action). For him, it was less a career move than a return to first principles. The ethos he had tested as a young fisheries officer in Bastar found a full expression here. Its philosophy matched his own: development is not delivered from outside but created with communities.
Today, SRIJAN works with over 500,000 rural families across 4 states, building more than 10 Farmer Producer Companies. Its programmes span agriculture, water management, women’s empowerment and market linkages, all centred on the principle of “community‐owned sustainable livelihood models”.
But philosophies only matter when they shape practice. For Prasanna, the real test was whether this vision could take root in villages where resources were fragile. Change could not be declared; it had to be demonstrated, step by step, in ways people themselves found convincing.
Slow Change, Steady Adoption
At the beginning, building trust was slow. Change started with modest steps. Farmers were not lectured but taken to neighbouring villages where peers had already revived tanks, tried crop diversification or adopted natural farming.
“It’s a demonstration that works,” says Prasanna. “Once farmers witness results, they experiment themselves.”
Women’s collectives became the backbone. They pooled savings, tested new practices together and negotiated markets as a group. In Bundelkhand, women revived traditional tanks that once lay dry, making villages water-secure again. Households shifted from mono-cropping to rotations of pulses, vegetables, horticulture and goat rearing - making small and marginal farmers more resilient to erratic rainfall.
Some federations, like Maitree in Rajasthan, now manage a loan portfolio of nearly ₹5 crore, employ over 20 staff and fund their own agricultural and livestock initiatives. What began as seed support has matured into financially independent, women-run enterprises.
From Village Pilots to National Guidelines
These community experiments soon travelled upward into policy. Tank revival models from Bundelkhand informed Madhya Pradesh’s water security programme. The “Nano Orchard” model, proving that 40 trees could sustain a farmer, challenged NABARD’s earlier rule of 200 trees per acre. The state adopted the idea, and MGNREGA guidelines were later amended to allow orchards on smaller plots, extending access to marginal farmers.
Natural farming, once a handful of pilots in SRIJAN villages, is now embedded in state and national programmes for sustainable agriculture.
“Our role is to test ideas at a scale small enough to fail,” Prasanna explains. “We refine them and present evidence that the government can use. When policy takes them forward, the impact multiplies.”
These community experiments soon travelled upward into policy. Traditional tank revival models from Bundelkhand, were studied by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Good Governance and Policy Analysis, Bhopal. Based on their recommendations, the Government of Madhya Pradesh issued circulars on the restoration and revival of traditional water bodies. The “Nano Orchard” model, which demonstrated that 40 trees could sustain a farmer, challenged the belief that only large farmers with extensive landholdings can undertake horticulture. The state adopted this idea, and MGNREGA guidelines were later amended to allow orchard cultivation on smaller plots, thereby extending access to marginal farmers
“Our role is to test ideas at a scale small enough to fail,” Prasanna explains. “CSOs/ NGOs refine them and present evidence that the government can use. When policy takes them forward, the impact multiplies.”
What Policy Learns, and What it Overlooks
The strengths of this approach are evident: it validates local knowledge and wisdom, proves women’s groups can anchor resilience, and shows how flexible design expands inclusion.
But blind spots remain. System incentives still reward numbers - cases filed, trees planted, reports submitted, rather than outcomes sustained. Guidelines often exclude tenants, marginal farmers or women without land titles.
Prasanna frames these not as failures but as opportunities. “Every blind spot is a bridge waiting to be built.”
Local Knowledge as a Foundation, not a Barrier
Underlying SRIJAN’s work is a conviction: farmers’ knowledge of soil, water and seasons is not a barrier to modernisation but a foundation for it.
“Our task is to validate that knowledge, link it with science where useful, and connect it with institutions.”
This bridging explains why models such as fish culture in tribal regions, diversified farming in semi-arid areas and Nano Orchards on small plots have found their way into official frameworks. It demonstrates that when local knowledge is legitimised and scaled, it strengthens both policy design and community ownership.
A believer in NGO–NGO and NGO-GO collaborations, SRIJAN is part of several civil society platforms and uses these networks to share learning and scale effective practices. As Prasanna puts it:
“The challenges of climate, water and livelihoods are too complex for silos. Peer learning among NGOs is essential. Collaboration and partnerships with the Government, CSR initiatives, philanthropies, and academic institutions can help shape effective policy.”
Ownership as the Only Real Measure
Prasanna still recalls his father’s advice to prepare for the IAS to do social work.
“My measure is simpler, but it delivers just as much.”
From Bastar’s fishermen spared prosecutions to Bundelkhand’s women reviving tanks, community ownership has been the constant thread.
Grassroots work may be slow, but that is its strength. Without ownership, even the most ambitious schemes risk staying on paper. With it, policies breathe, adapt and endure in the very villages they are meant to serve.
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Prasanna Khemariya is the CEO of SRIJAN (Self-Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action). All the details are based on his account and have been approved for publication. This piece was prepared with assistance from Ms Sapna Singh, a member of the editorial team at The Policy Edge.