Collaboration with Government of Gujarat: One of the achievements in CInI’s basket has been to get linked with the Tribal Development Department (TDD), Government of Gujarat, as partner to develop the “Double the income of poorest Tribal talukas of Gujarat”. The long term idea is not just to restrict CInI to be project partners but one of the key stakeholders in designing the programme and set up a livelihood action lab in the state with the objective to improve the effectiveness of livelihood (for the poverty stricken areas) programs. This long term discussion with the TDD has been able to finally get through with a MoU with the department. The MoU focuses on CInI providing technical inputs towards planning, implementation and monitoring of the Vanabandhu Kalyan Yojana- a special programme by the Government of Gujarat for the tribal development. CInI team would initially develop a detailed plan on water resource development and management in the Dangs district and this would be implemented through partnership mode between the TDD, CInI and field partners. The main emphasis would be towards developing a detailed systematic implementation strategy in the field, which would help achieving the overall objective of doubling the incomes of tribal communities in Gujarat. CInI team was long pursuing this partnership with the TDD, which ultimately materialized in February 2008.

Tata Steel Centenary Project (TSCP): Conceived as a part of Tata Steel’s centenary celebrations, TSCP is a Rs. 100 crores mega-initiative that focuses on enhancing the livelihoods of 40,000 poor tribal households in one block each, of the tribal districts of Keonjhar (Orissa), Saraikela (Jharkhand) and Bastar (Chhattisgarh), covering a total of 400 villages through Natural Resources based interventions. As per the MoU between Tata Steel and Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Tata Steel will depute Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS), Jamshedpur, as its nodal agency for implementing TSCP and Sir Ratan Tata Trust will appoint the Central India Initiative (CInI) Cell to provide technical support and overall guidance to the TSCP. The CInI Cell, set up by Sir Ratan Tata Trust, focuses on dealing with issues relating to the problems of livelihoods of tribal communities in central India in a comprehensive manner. Feasibility report and Inception Report for the Tata Steel Centenary Project has been prepared by CInI.