JOHAR — Jharkhand Opportunities for Harnessing Rural Growth

What is the JOHAR project?

JOHAR: Jharkhand Opportunities for Harnessing Rural Growth: is a rural livelihoods project of the Rural Development Department, Government of Jharkhand, implemented on the ground by the Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society (JSLPS). The name is also the state's everyday Jharkhandi greeting, which is why the project is universally called Johar rather than by its full English title.

According to the JSLPS project page, the development objective of JOHAR is to "enhance and diversify household income in select farm and non-farm sectors" for targeted beneficiaries in project areas of Jharkhand. That single sentence sets the boundary of the project: JOHAR is about raising what a household earns, not about paying a household a benefit.

Scale of the project

• Over 200,000 rural households targeted.
• Around 3,500 farmer producer groups to be formed or strengthened.
• 17 districts and 68 blocks of rural Jharkhand.
• Women SHG members, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe households, smallholder farmers and landless families identified as the principal actors.

JOHAR sits alongside the other JSLPS programmes rather than replacing them. JSLPS also runs Aajeevika, the state arm of the National Rural Livelihood Mission launched by the Ministry of Rural Development in June 2011, and JHIMDI (Jharkhand Horticulture Intensification by Micro Drip Irrigation), funded by a Japanese ODA loan. A household in a JOHAR block will often be a member of an Aajeevika SHG first and receive JOHAR interventions second.

What does JOHAR actually do?

JOHAR is built on three components, as set out by JSLPS.

Component 1 to Diversified, resilient production and value addition. This is the largest part of the project. It covers producer collectives, high-value agriculture, livestock, fisheries, non-timber forest produce and irrigation. The farm strategy is explicitly climate-oriented: year-round vegetable cultivation in place of a single rain-fed kharif crop, diversification into pulses and oilseeds, and micro-irrigation to break the dependence on monsoon rainfall.

Component 2 to Market access, skill development and agricultural finance systems. Producing more only raises income if the produce sells at a decent price. This component builds aggregation and market linkage, trains members in grading, sorting and post-harvest handling, and works on the credit side so that producer groups can access working capital.

Component 3 — Project and knowledge management. The support layer that runs monitoring, technical assistance and learning across the project districts.

The practical unit throughout is the producer group, typically federated upward into a producer company. An individual farmer in a JOHAR block does not receive a scheme benefit; the farmer's producer group receives support, and the farmer gains through it. A shared drip irrigation system, a lift irrigation point, quality seed and planting material, technical handholding through a season, and a collective sale that fetches a better rate than a village trader would offer.

Who is eligible for JOHAR support?

A household can take part if:

• The household lives in one of the 68 blocks across 17 districts where JOHAR operates.
• The household is a rural household, typically already linked to a self-help group promoted by JSLPS.
• A woman from the household is an active SHG member, since women SHG members are the project's principal actors.
• The household falls in one of the prioritised groups: Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled Caste, smallholder farmer or landless; or otherwise meets the local targeting criteria agreed for the intervention.

A household is not eligible if:

• The household lives outside the 68 project blocks. JOHAR is a geographically bounded project, and no amount of documentation brings a non-project village inside it.
• The household is urban. JOHAR is a rural livelihoods project.
• The household seeks a direct personal cash grant. JOHAR does not pay one, so an application framed that way cannot succeed.
• The household will not participate through a group. Individual-only participation sits outside the project's delivery model.

Households outside the JOHAR blocks are not shut out of JSLPS altogether. JSLPS reports work at 200 locations across 1,870 villages serving more than 500,000 families through its wider programmes, and Aajeevika SHG formation continues statewide.

What documents does JOHAR need?

The paperwork burden on an individual household is deliberately light, because the compliance work sits with the producer group and the JSLPS block team.

How to apply for JOHAR project support

JOHAR has no individual online application form. Anyone offering one is not connected to JSLPS. The real route is through the group structure:

1. Confirm your block is a JOHAR block. Ask at the Block Development Office or the block JSLPS team whether your block is among the 68 covered. If it is not, ask instead about joining an Aajeevika self-help group.
2. Join or activate your self-help group. JOHAR reaches households through SHGs, so an inactive or non-existent group has to be formed or revived first. The village organisation and cluster-level federation handle this with the community mobiliser.
3. Ask the group to raise your activity with the block JSLPS team. Producer group formation, crop planning, irrigation demand and livestock or fishery activity are all planned at group level and put up to the block team.
4. Enrol in the producer group for your activity. Vegetables, pulses and oilseeds, livestock, fisheries and NTFP each have their own producer group structure. Membership is recorded formally, and it is this record that entitles you to inputs, training and the collective sale.
5. Attend the technical training and follow the crop or activity plan. JOHAR's support is sequenced across a season; a member who skips the training rounds usually cannot use the inputs effectively.
6. Sell through the collective. The market linkage component only pays off for a member who routes produce through the aggregation point rather than selling at the farm gate.

How do I check on my JOHAR participation?

1. Ask your SHG or producer group secretary for the group register: your membership, contribution and input receipts are recorded there.
2. Ask the cluster-level federation or village organisation for the status of a pending demand such as an irrigation structure.
3. Approach the Block Programme Manager, JSLPS for anything the group cannot resolve.
4. Call the JSLPS toll-free line, 1800 4190 292, or write to jslps.ranchi@gmail.com, quoting your district, block, village and group name.

Why does a household miss out on JOHAR benefits?

• The block is not a JOHAR block. The most common disappointment, and the one no paperwork fixes.
• The SHG is dormant. Groups that have stopped meeting and saving are not usually taken up for producer group formation.
• The activity is not in the project's sectors. JOHAR works on high-value agriculture, livestock, fisheries, NTFP and irrigation; a request outside these sectors has no line to fund it.
• Land tenure is unclear for a land-based intervention such as an orchard or an irrigation structure, so the site cannot be sanctioned.
• Expectation of cash. Households that join expecting a per-person payment frequently drop out, because JOHAR's returns come through a production and sale cycle rather than a transfer.

Where to raise a JOHAR grievance

• JOHAR project office: Itki Road, Hehal, Ranchi 834005.
• Phone: +91 651 295 1916 or +91 651 295 1915.
• Toll-free: 1800 4190 292.
• Email: jslps.ranchi@gmail.com.
• JSLPS head office: 3rd Floor, Shantideep Tower, Radium Road, Ranchi 834001, phone 0651 2360038 or 0651 2360142.

Participation in JOHAR is free. No SHG office bearer, community cadre or agent may charge a household for producer group membership, for inputs supplied under the project, or for inclusion in a beneficiary list.