Council on Energy, Environment and Water Integrated | International | Independent
This case study is a complementary document for the scalability framework. It provides a detailed account of how certain programmes scaled up and sustained in the long run. The anecdotal evidence of the success factors given here form the basis of the scalability framework. An overview of each phase’s activities and success factors is presented in this case study. We have identified four phases for the programme, and each consecutive phase depicts either a shift or expansion in solutions, involvement of different stakeholders, and a variation in scale. The success factors are directly applied from the scalability framework without modifications. Please refer to the framework for theoretical clarity on terminologies
The core success factors that enable scale, replication, and sustenance are as follows:
Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), initiated a tasar silk programme to promote tasar sericulture-based livelihood. The programme focuses on improving the livelihood of marginalised communities, such as the Schedule Tribe (ST) and Schedule Caste (SC) communities across Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, and West Bengal. It aims to establish the viability and profitability of tasar by reducing uncertainty in the silkworm rearing process and increasing the productivity of cocoons. It established an entire vertical of tasar seed production, augmenting supply of disease-free seeds, technically known as Disease-Free Layings (DFLs).1 This stabilised cocoon production expanded the scope of participation of unemployed rural youth, women, and men. In later stages, the Central Silk Board (CSB) supported PRADAN’s idea of decentralised seed production enterprises, called grainages, operated by rural entrepreneurs called graineurs2 . This has been adopted by various states with far-reaching impacts in the sector. PRADAN laid special emphasis on encouraging women to take active part in seed production, silkworm rearing, and cocoon processing to produce yarn. The programme established backward and forward linkages, from plantation to silk reeling, to develop all facets of tasar sericulture. Currently, the programme impacts over 50,000 families across five states.
This experimental phase laid the foundations of the project in three districts of erstwhile undivided Bihar. Tasar sericulture was traditionally practised by the region’s forest dwelling communities, but the value chain was in a state of sharp decline. This phase explored sericulture as a way of increasing livelihood for the tribal population of the Chota Nagpur plateau areas of southern Bihar (now in Jharkhand). PRADAN set up silkworm rearing plantations, of mostly Terminalia Arjuna (arjuna) trees, outside the forest areas to revive the traditional tasar silk value chain. The focus was twofold: gaining trust of stakeholders, including donors, the community and the government, and building a model and a proof of concept to generate greater buy-in. The model aimed at revamping the tasar silk value chain systematically, through active community engagement and incorporation of technical solutions, and ensuring commercial viability in the long run.
Timeline: 1988 - 1999
Scale: Three districts—Godda, Banka, Dumka; erstwhile undivided Bihar, now Jharkhand
Key Drivers: Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN)
Integrated research and staff capacity building: The state government formed PRADAN undertook multiple rounds of on-ground and market research to ascertain the gaps in tasar production and to design contextualised experiments and interventions to bridge them. PRADAN staff practically lived with the tribal silk producers to gather traditional community knowledge and practices and understand their reservations towards tasar cultivation. This process led to capacity building of PRADAN staf to strengthen the project. They analysed the demand and supply of tasar the market, and the main constraints that caused lukewarm response to tasar products. They also studied the existing technologies in tasar production and in outdoor rearing, and the barriers to the availability of good quality DFLs
Action learning approach: PRADAN identified the lack of host plantations for tasar outside of forest areas as a significant challenge, among others. To counter the identified challenges, the team created an extensive database to understand the feasibility of various solutions that were designed. They tested and improved people-centric models based on lessons learnt from small-scale pilots to build a package of practices (PoP) for implementation. Accordingly, viable plantation, grainage, spinning, and reeling models that could generate livelihood options were set up, along with a standardised rearing model. PRADAN incubated the Tasar Development Centre to explore ways for commanding remunerative prices for tasar silk cultivators and revive investments in this sector. Later, the Centre was established as the Masuta Producers’ Company in 2005.
Trust building: Initially, the community did not trust that the PRADAN team would stay long enough to truly implement change. So, they provided degraded lands for the programme activities. However, the team ensured that community participation was central throughout the programme stages, involving primary producers in planning, implementation, and knowledge creation. PRADAN spent three to four years learning from the community, recruiting local families to become programme champions, and generating evidence for proof of concept. As a result, they earned the community’s trust and access to their fertile trees outside forest (TOF) lands for planting host trees.
Training tribal youth entrepreneurs: A key gap for the tasar value chain was dearth of DFLs. PRADAN trained tribal youth to produce DFLs and to set up grainages, or seed production businesses. The success of these grainages, and the potential shown during training led to PRADAN making the tribal youth graineurs.
Expanding the producer base: PRADAN reached out to community members who did not traditionally practise sericulture and involved them in rearing silkworms on the arjuna trees that grew on their private lands. This gave these families an opportunity to improve their livelihood. Numerous participants adopted tasar sericulture as a vocation in phase one because of this outreach.
Building proof of concept: Initially, the CSB lacked a precedent for PRADAN’s decentralised model of training tribal youth as graineurs. The Board did not perceive the tribal youth as a good fit, due to their lack of formal education. There was also no proof of concept for the PRADAN model’s bankability and scalability. The programme worked intensively with the community champions to build the proof of success of tasar silk sericulture, display commercial viability, and improve the livelihood of tribal families, which eventually led to buy-in from the CSB.
Building relations with the Central Silk Board (CSB): The partnership with the CSB was initiated with the deputation of senior scientist Mithilesh K Jha, who was interested in supporting the programme’s grassroot implementation. Initially, Jha planned to stay for six months, but he ended up collaborating with PRADAN for five years, strengthening this partnership. Simultaneously, the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) was exploring projects on fibre-based arts and crafts through the CSB. In a multi-stakeholder meeting, PRADAN was able to bring UNDP officials on board the tasar programme.
Flexible funding: By keeping tribal communities as the primary stakeholder, PRADAN secured a grant from the Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation (ICCO), The Netherlands ICCO aligned with PRADAN’s vision to promote tasar sericulture-based livelihoods and allowed PRADAN flexibility in using its funds. They supported setting up plantations and grainages, and exploring new techniques, staff exposure visits, and capacity training.
Maximising diverse funding opportunities: PRADAN mobilised funds from other government and non-government agencies, such as the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) and the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART). While ICCO remained the major funder, these investments also supported plantations on private land, building community institutions, and seed production prototypes.
Sustained value proposition for the leadership: The PRADAN team’s long-term vision persuaded the CSB to enter into a lasting partnership. The team also ensured a high level of engagement with grassroots graineurs and research-level stakeholders.
Adapt the core solution: PRADAN undertook a systems analysis to understand the long-term constraints faced by the tasar silk sericulture sector and accordingly planned the interventions. Their solutions database helped make the programme responsive to community needs, while their peoplecentric approach increased the community’s confidence in new technologies and production techniques.
Bring suitable change to the enabling environment: PRADAN created opportunities for the value chain through partnerships in the public and private domains. The resultant integrated research led to successful tasar plantations on private TOF lands.
Enable community ownership: PRADAN built social capital in the community by living with and learning from primary producers. Their programme champions helped overcome the community’s apprehensions, while the trained graineurs, rearers, and weavers established an integrated value chain, avoiding working in silos.
Create and maintain self-governing institutions: PRADAN trained tribal youth to be graineurs and helped set up commercially successful grainages to plug the gaps in procuring quality raw material. This training allowed the community to co-create solutions with the programme staff and combine traditional knowledge with modern techniques to eventually set up community-led businesses.
Enable government ownership: PRADAN’s sustained engagement with the CSB resulted in the extended tenure of the CSB scientist with the programme and the Board’s support for the UNDP collaboration, which was realised in phase two.
Enable pathways for government support: The CSB official attached to the programme not only helped PRADAN capitalise on the Board’s expertise and technical support but also generated interest among other Board staff.
Ensure flexibility in funding: The donor ICCO’s trust in PRADAN to use funds as per its discretion proved to be crucial in building a functional model.
Bring funding from diverse sources: Making use of various revenue and funding opportuni
In a meeting jointly organised by the union Ministry of Textiles (and its subsidiary the CSB) and the UNDP to revitalise tasar sericulture, PRADAN was chosen to scale up its existing programme across more districts of Bihar and Jharkhand. PRADAN implemented its modern tasar value chain in this phase, with funding from UNDP and technical and financial support from the CSB. The spinning and reeling, the grainage and the plantation models, established in phase one, were standardised, codified, and expanded. The credibility of these grainages was widely recognised. New technology assured steady income for producers, year after year, along with doubling the productivity of DFLs. Finally, the project was expanded to more districts of Jharkhand and Bihar.
Timeline:2000 - 2003
Scale: Six districts in Jharkhand and Bihar (Banka in Bihar, and Godda, Dumka, Koderma, Chaibasa, and Saraikela in Jharkhand)
Key Drivers: PRADAN and UNDP, with CSB support
Standardisation of solutions:The partnership with the UNDP codified and standardised the programme language and practices, which crystallised further institutionalisation of the programme.
Establishing tasar value chain: The PoP established in the first phase were expanded into two production cycles for the value chain. The first involved select participants producing seed crops in private grainages from CSB-supplied seeds. In the second phase, they offered the resulting DFLs to other rearers to produce commercial grade cocoons (Sinha and Pastakia 2004, 29). Through these implemented PoP, PRADAN offered guidelines for rearers and addressed key supply gaps.
Tasar Development Centre: PRADAN expanded the scope of the centre, which had been established in 1998, to sell value-added products. The staff trained local community members to professionally design the tasar silk products
Engagement with CSB: PRADAN’s engagement with the CSB further increased through their collaboration with the UNDP. The Board provided technical and financial support to the programme, which continued to bring success stories from the field.
Incubation of community platforms and organisations: The programme institutionalised more community-owned platforms. The Basic Tasar Silkworm Seed Organisation (BTSSO)—the sole seed organisation of tropical tasar—set up field units to ensure the production and supply of DFLs to train farmers and graineurs and monitor disease. These young graineurs, who ran private grainages, could now detect diseases such as pebrine disease in the moth specimens. Meanwhile, PRADAN set up Common Facility Centres (CFC) for clusters of villages and for women-led self-help groups (SHG). These women ran the Mutual Benefit Trust, also set up by PRADAN, to manage the new machines for reeling and spinning developed by the CSB.
Ensuring diverse sources of funding: The UNDP was the programme’s major funder at this stage, with some support coming from the CSB.
Adapt the core solution: The programme engaged closely with the dynamic nature of the market, technology, and the stakeholders to capitalise on relevant opportunities and ensure scale and resilience of the programme.
Sustained value proposition for the leadership: The UNDP’s institutional key performance indicator (KPI) for the tasar programme aligned with that of PRADAN. With their support, PRADAN expanded the scope of programme implementation and strengthened its ties with the CSB.
Create and maintain self-governing institutions: The Tasar Development Centre and the grainages ensured a functional supply chain and market for the tasar crop. These grainages and the Common Facility Centres (CFCs) were governed by the community, nurturing their trust in the programme.
Enable government ownership: A CSB committee visited PRADAN’s field sites and observed the meticulously kept grainage registers, in addition to understanding the extensive knowledge of the graineurs. The committee were impressed enough for the CSB to champion the programme further and introduce its model in all states through the UNDP project.
Enable pathways for government support: The CSB formally endorsed the programme and enhanced their collaboration by providing technical and financial support.
Bring funding from diverse sources: The partnership with the UNDP and the CSB gave PRADAN enough financial support to expand the programme’s scope and impact.
The programme was scaled up under the SGSY, a Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) scheme designed to enable self-employment among Below Poverty Line families. Crucially, the programme, under SGSY, aimed to provide 66 per cent of the required commercial seeds to address the gaps in supply of seeds. PRADAN and the CSB set up a seed value chain, with trained Adopted Seed Rearers (ASR)3 to multiply the seed material. They formed multiple women-led structures including selfhelp groups (SHGs), groups of seed producers, rearers, and reelers. These groups developed into cooperatives at the block and district levels, establishing the tasar silk model as self-functioning with a systematic and operational value chain. PRADAN’s tasar rearing model was promoted across Jharkhand and Bihar for both private plantations and forest patches with available host trees.
Timeline: 2003–2012 Bihar and 2003–2008 Jharkhand
Scale: 9,590 families across 310 villages, in seven districts of Jharkhand and Bihar
Key Drivers: PRADAN and the CSB
Setting up local enterprises along the value chain: Initially, the CSB supported rearers by procuring tasar crop at minimum support price (MSP), while PRADAN organised buyer–seller meets for farmers. Community-owned institutions at every node of the value chain were established in phase 3, including cooperatives, and basic seed production units, with backward and forward market linkages. The Tasar Development Centre became Masuta Producers Company, comprising women reelers and spinners. It procured cocoons from the local cooperatives to turn them into yarn. Then Eco Tasar, a private limited company started with the community youth, bought this yarn to create professionally designed fabric and other products to sell ahead (Sinha, 2011). After two to three years, the rearers directly engaged with the government and became independent of PRADAN. So did the Tasar Development Foundation (TDF), which PRADAN had incubated earlier to build market linkages. Farmer collectives organised under the TDF to have more bargaining power. They connected with buyers from across India to fill in gaps in the supply of tasar silk.
Ensuring community participation through knowledge sharing and training: PRADAN established Tasar Vikas Samitis (TVS) in hamlets as knowledge-sharing hubs facilitating rearing, seed production, and the participation of local rearers at every stage of production, including cultivating host trees on privately owned wastelands. TVSs sold the cocoons reared here to Masuta.
Ensuring equal participation of women: Women were formerly not included in post-harvesting activities. PRADAN, through the SHGs, worked on male members of the community to change the situation and demonstrated women’s capacity for excelling in these roles. They included women in CFCs, grainages, and the Masuta staff to multiply the tasar workforce.
Strengthening private–public–people partnership: PRADAN strengthened these partnerships by building relations with researchers, government officials, and the community members. They created spaces for direct linkages, facilitated scientists to learn ground realities through fieldwork, and connected the communities directly with the government through local cooperatives.
Establishing the Project Monitoring Committee: The Committee consisted of CSB, PRADAN, state government, and community-level organisations. It evaluated programme activities through field visits by nodal officers and approved yearly work plans.
Establishing the Project Management Board: The Board, besides approving the Committeerecommended yearly work plans, submitted reports on the programme’s physical and financial progress to the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) every quarter.
Expanding collaboration with the Central Silk Board: The CSB Member Secretary became the Project Management Board Chairman, and the CSB the programme’s executing agency. It acquired technological support from the Central Tasar Research and Training Institute (CTRTI), Ranchi, for pre-cocoon stages and from the Central Silk Technological Research Institute (CSTRI), Bengaluru, for post-cocoon stages of the production cycle. Through the Basic Seed Multiplication and Training Centres (BSMTC) units located in the state, it met the programme’s basic seed requirements till the graineurs became the major seed suppliers. Thus the CSB–PRADAN partnership established a modern and commercially remunerative tasar model.
Diverse sources of funding: PRADAN generated evidence of rural development for major private and government bodies. Thus, the MoRD decided to fund 75 per cent of the programme costs from 2003 to 2008, while the CSB and the state departments provided the remaining 25 per cent. The programme also aligned with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development’s (NABARD) interest in innovative models for large-scale tribal and community enterprise development. From 2012 to 2016, NABARD supported 2,215 families across Bihar and Jharkhand, who were part of the programme, through the Tribal Development Fund (TDF).
Negotiating lack of national funds: The programme did not receive any national funding from 2009 to 2012, and the central government asked PRADAN to be patient. However, Bihar and Jharkhand could support the programme via the larger UNDP project and the SGSY. Thus, the CSB was able to transfer money to PRADAN for these states. In Jharkhand, the state tribal welfare department financed the programme through the Special Central Assistance to Tribal Supply Areas scheme, as the programme supported the livelihoods of tribal communities.
Create and maintain self-governing institutions: As the programme scaled up across Bihar and Jharkhand, PRADAN created commercially profitable, market savvy local enterprises, owned and managed by the community, and augmented the role of SHGs.
Enable community ownership: The TDF and the TVS built a greater buy-in from and a higher level of trust within the community buy-in of PRADAN’s continued presence.
Sustained value proposition for the leadership: PRADAN ensured that community members were capacitated to manage organisations such as the TDF. PRADAN also established linkage between the TDF and government officials so as to channel public investments directly to the community.
Enable alignment between leaders, staff, and collaborators: The Project Monitoring Committee and the Project Management Board effectively monitored and evaluated the programme, while keeping it aligned with the state and the CSB.
Adapt the core solution: The programme stayed relevant through continued collaboration with stakeholders such as researchers, government centres, and buyers.
Enable government ownership: PRADAN generated enough evidence of success to create champions in the government. The MoRD started supporting the programme and officials from other states invited PRADAN to expand the tasar programme.
Enable pathways for government support: The CSB provided the programme with technical support, monitoring, and pathways to connect with other government departments for funding.
Bring funding from diverse sources: PRADAN converged the programme goals with those of existing government schemes to attract funds from the central government and NABARD.
The MoRD sanctioned a bigger tasar programme, expanding its financial support as well as the programme’s geographical reach. The CSB and the MoRD initiated the Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana—Non-Timber Forest Produce (MKSPNTFP): Tasar Project as an extension of the special SGSY projects. Tasar projects under the MKSP aimed at creating 36,000 sustainable livelihoods for marginalised households, especially women, belonging to Scheduled Tribes in selected 23 districts of seven states (Venkataronappa, Kutala, and Madappa 2019). The scheme supported women-centred development of tasar sericulture and promoted pre-cocoon sericulture on arjuna trees. The programme focused on technical and technological interventions and communityled services across the value chain. Additionally, it established cocoon banks for the producers to mitigate against commercial exploitation by the traders. The multi-state initiative was launched in seven states and implemented through NGOs such as PRADAN and the BAIF Development Research Foundation.
Timeline: 2013 onwards
Scale: Seven states—West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Telangana, Maharashtra
Key Drivers: PRADAN in West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand; Kovel Foundation in Telangana; BAIF in Maharashtra
Evolving solutions: Masuta had to exit the programme due to financial difficulties, and outdated spinning and reeling technologies, prompting the programme to create better institutional mechanisms and machines. Some such interventions in the tsar cycle were seedling raising, wider spacing of host trees, and chawki rearing under nylon nets, eco-friendly practices such as Jeevan Sudha, secondary nutrient supplement SM5, and using vermi-compost from silkworm detritus. The programme regenerated 9,468 ha of natural flora to raise 3,503 ha of plantations. These produced 0.675 million DFL basic seeds, 5.935 million commercial seeds, and 160 million reeling cocoons (Venkataronappa, Kutala, and Madappa 2019). PRADAN also established cocoon banks to provide producers with reasonably priced cocoons.
Enabling the participation of women: PRADAN introduced schemes that funded women’s participation in the value chain, especially as readers and weavers, enabling the expansion of post-harvesting activities.
Training CRPs: The programme trained 478 Community Resource Persons (CPR) under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which has the provision to employ people to plant sericulture host trees.
Sustaining community organisations: The producer organisations, the cocoon banks, and other such community institutions kept the community members engaged.
Expanding state and central government collaboration: PRADAN partnered with the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) in implementation of the project across the seven states. The MoRD financed this phase under an NRLM sub-component, the Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP). With the CSB, it launched the Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana—Non-Timber Forest Produce (MKSPNTFP) for tasar.
State-level convergence: The state sericulture department and the CSB set up new infrastructure by creating schemes for private grainage enterprises.
Convergence with the government: The MoRD, through the MKSP, was the major funding source in this phase, allowing PRADAN to continue including women in the programme.
Private partnerships: Programme beneficiaries needed sufficient external support as they did not make enough profit to reinvest. To supplement funds from national schemes, PRADAN secured private funds through the corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds of companies to fulfil their carbon-offset obligations.
Adapt the core solution: PRADAN stayed engaged with stakeholders across the value chain, keeping their solutions relevant to the needs of the participants.
Enable alignment between leaders, staff, and collaborators: The TDF and the Project Management Board constantly monitored and evaluated the programme work, ensuring dynamic solutions and sustainable programme leadership.
Create and maintain self-governing institutions: Through the CRPs, the TDF not only ensured social capital and community participation but also converged with MGNREGA.
Enable community ownership: The programme leadership built on their relationship with the community to increase women participation.
Enable government ownership: PRADAN’s successful collaborations with the state and the CSB led to convergence with the centre through the MoRD.
Enable pathways for government support: To maximise touchpoints for government engagement, PRADAN built on existing relationships with the state and the Centre, and also formed new ones.
Bring funding from diverse sources: PRADAN partnered with private companies through their CSR mandates to offset carbon footprints. Through state and national schemes, such as MKSP, PRADAN created a value proposition for funders and also promoted women’s participation and leadership as central to tasar sericulture.
Virtual interview, Satyabrata Acharyya, (ex) integrator, PRADAN, conducted over Zoom. 2021, 2022
Pastakia, Astad, Shamshad Alam, , K. Sathyanarayana, Khitish Pandya, Binod Raj Dahal, and Ranjendra Khandai. Reel of fortune - Building inclusive value chains: the case of Tasar silk in Bihar and Jharkhand. PRADAN, 2015.
Sen, Biswajit. June 2019. Empowering the Rural Poor through Livelihoods. PRADAN.
Jha, Mithilesh. 2017. Memories of the Tasar Project. https://www.pradan.net/sampark/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/PRADAN_s-Sericulture-Programme-in-Bihar-and-Jharkhand-Impact-Assessment.pdf
Selvaraj, C., Bommyreddy T. Reddy, and Datta Bawaskar. 2020. Quality Tasar Seed Cocoon Production Through Farmers’ Participation. Vigyan Varta. https://www.pradan.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/newsreach_mar_apr_2017_tasar_special_issue.pdf
Sinha, Manu. 2011. PRADAN’s Sericulture Programme in Bihar and Jharkhand: Impact Assessment. PRADAN. https://www.pradan.net/sampark/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/PRADAN_s-Sericulture-Programme-in-Bihar-and-Jharkhand-Impact-Assessment.pdf
Sinha, Shalini, and Astad Pastakia. 2004. GOI–UNDP ‘Community-based Pro-Poor Initiatives’ (CBPPI) Programme, Sub-programme on Promoting Sustainable Livelihoods in South Bihar by Organizing Women for Self-Employment: PRADAN (IND/97/449).
Venkataronappa, Manjunatha A., Sathyanarayana Kutala, and Devika C. Madappa. 2019. Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals: What Role for Social and Solidarity Economy? Draft paper prepared in response to the UNTFSSE Call for Papers 2018. UNSSE Knowledge Hub. https://knowledgehub.unsse.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/98_Manjunatha_Assessing-social-and-solidarity_En.DOC.pdf
| ASR | Adopted Seed Rearers |
|---|---|
| BSM&TC | Basic Seed Multiplication and Training Centres |
| BTSSO | Basic Tasar Silkworm Seed Organisation |
| CAPART | Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology |
| CSB | Central Silk Board |
| CSTRI | Central Silk Technological Research Institute |
| CTR&TI | Central Tasar Research and Training Institute |
| DLF | Disease-Free Laying |
| DRDA | District Rural Development Agencies (DRDAs) |
| ICCO | Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation |
| MBT | Mutual Benefit Trust |
| MKSP | Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana |
| NABARD | National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development |
| POP | package of practices |
| PRADAN | Professional Assistance for Development Action |
| SGSY | Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana |
| SHG | self-help group |
| TDF | Tasar Development Foundation |
| UNDP | United Nations Development Programme |
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