Dear Colleagues,

We write to you with good news !

With our collective commitment and efforts to influence the (proposed) rural habitat policy for India, we have achieved an important milestone !

DA has been representing basin-SA at the meetings of the working group on rural housing constituted by the Ministry of Rural Development. After the last meeting in February, we worked with the Joint Secretary and the director to draft the final report of the Working Group to include the learnings form the policy consultations from across the country. This report was submitted to the Planning Commission as inputs for the 11th Plan and is available on the link below : [http://planningcommission.nic.in/aboutus/committee/wrkgrp11/wg11_rdhou.doc
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The ministry has heard, taken notice and must now be influenced to act. We at DA feel that the journey is long and this endeavour alone will not suffice. But each milestone that we scale together must be a moment to congratulate ourselves and celebrate the result of collective effort. Let us continue to put our energies together so that rural people, especially the most vulnerable can be put on an upward journey of progress and prosperity through access to habitat and livelihoods.

Congratulations once again to all of us !

We would appreciate any ideas from you on the next steps. Please do share with us any initiatives that you or your partners are participating in towards influencing local policies through pilots / demonstration or advocacy. All of these would be really useful at this juncture.

Looking forward to walking this journey further with you.

Warm regards

basin-SA team at DA