How Kudumbashree grew under the leadership of IAS officer Harikishore

Climbing the steps of an old building in Thiruvananthapuram five years ago, Harikishore S had felt a tinge of disappointment. He had just left a grand office in Pathanamthitta, serving as the District Collector. The new job put him on the third floor of a building near Thiruvananthapuram Medical College. When he was told that he would be the Executive Director of Kudumbashree — the vast network of women across the state put together for poverty eradication and self-empowerment — Harikishore had a different picture in his mind. However, on Wednesday, July 16, when he climbed down those very same steps, relieved from the job and given a new responsibility, Harikishore walked looking at the floor. He was afraid he’d drop a tear if he saw the loving faces of his dear colleagues and the workers of Kudumbashree who came to bid him adieu. For together, in these five years, they have done more than they dreamt of, they have been supporting not just each other but many families in times of calamities.

“It has been a big challenge, leading this multi-disciplinary team. It’s such a huge sector comprising so many areas including agriculture, animal husbandry, enterprise, market, microfinance, children's development and so on. It has been testing but it has also been highly satisfactory. Every problem fades away when we see the results of our labour. The satisfaction you feel then, there's nothing like it," Harikishore tells TNM on his last day at Kudumbashree. A little later, he posted an emotional message on Facebook, talking about the growth, both the association and he has had in the last five years.

From winning several national awards in consecutive years for the six Indian government projects they have been part of (NRLM, PMAY etc), to generating employment for 30,000 people with the setting up of Harithakarmasena (for decentralised waste management) in all panchayats of Kerala, the work in these five years speaks for itself.

Members of Harithakarmasena

A one-stop centre called Snehitha was set up in all 14 districts as a gender help desk. More than 700 panchayats now have gender resource centres where various support services, including community counselling, are provided.

When COVID-19 struck, Kudumbashree set up 1,120 Janakeeya Hotels within a year to give affordable meals to the needy (Rs 20 a meal). "During the floods of 2018, when I asked if they would donate their one-day income to the Chief Minister's Disaster Relief Fund, each of them contributed Rs 10 or Rs 20 or Rs 40, making it a total of Rs 11.18 crore. That's from 45 lakh families in Kudumbashree," Harikishore wrote on his Facebook note.

Kudumbashree workers at a Janakeeya Hotel

These Facebook notes of his are well-known. In the last two years, he has written 511 posts on the various projects of Kudumbashree. “He has posted nearly every day, except when there was an emergency,” says Chaithanya, communication specialist at Kudumbashree.

He has never had any airs of “being an IAS official,” Chaithanya says. He’d find time for anyone in the vast network of women who wants to talk to him. “Every chance he gets, he’d find some means of livelihood for the women, create job opportunities. Whether it is the book distribution for schools or the convergence with different departments,” Chaithanya adds.

Read: More than 19k job opportunities in 60 days: Kerala’s Kudumbashree programme empowers women

The convergence happened with many innovative projects, including industry loans in microfinance at the time of floods and COVID-19.

Convergence happened at the state level too. "Earlier, there was convergence with three states, now there are 20," says a proud Harikishore. He could give out the raised figures in a number of sectors, the funds that went up in the past years. For example, the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) went up from Rs 18 crore to Rs 243 crore, while the state plan fund from Rs 75 crore to Rs 300 crore.

Women launch Didi Ki Rasoi canteens in Bihar in consultation with Kudumbashree

“I have been with Kudumbashree for eight to nine years, but I haven’t seen the kind of progress that’s happened in the last five years before,” says Kudumbashree member, Sujitha, who served as chairperson of its apex body Community Development Society (CDS) before. “Harikishore Sir is one person who has embraced Kudumbashree, making sure he and his team were there for every member to attain their dreams. He’d somehow find a way,” says an emotional Sujitha.  

She rattles off a list of projects under Harikishore –  Kerala Chicken (making broiler chicken affordable for consumers); cultural festivals for members and children; and Kudumbashree setting roots in faraway Uganda. “Kudumbashree women were always seen as a bunch of waste pickers and talkative lot. All that changed in these five years. Now people know our worth,” she says.

Harikishore, in his emotional post, mentions a conversation with a train passenger who asked him, “Does a group of women picking waste need an IAS official?” Harikishore couldn’t remember what his reply was back then, in those early days of joining Kudumbashree, but he has been forming an answer in his mind all these years. Among all the projects they have done, Harikishore has also saved some of the lines that various women have told him. Kudumbashree is hope for lakhs of women who say this network is their pride and power, that it is a guide that took them from the insides of a home to the vast world outside and that it is what made them what they are. Harikishore says, his answer is now ready.