Editorial

I am happy that the first phase of 638387.org is over and you can now see each of India's village. As of now, we have categorised the villages districtwise. This process started in 2005, when we decided to classify our portals districtwise. From the 2001 census of 593 districts, we went to do 602 districts, then 612 districts and with some states further dividing districts, we hope to have all the 620 odd districts online by 15th August 2008.

The second phase of the portal was started almost simultaneously, when we started calling district collectors to learn about their version of the social and developmental challenges of their district, as well as creating an information base of the districts. We are happy that you can see the basic info of almost all the districts of India.

The second phase also included learning about a few thousand programmes and interventions of NGOs across the country. All these programmes would now to districtwise, villagewise in our issue forums from now till August 14, 2008

The third phase of the portal is starting from August 1, 2008, where we now plan massive reachout excercise, inviting multiple stakeholders to share their programmes and interventions, villagewise and districtwise and that too issuewise. I am sure this will be more exciting because we are now starting to add information and knowledge to the villages, which today look dry with just basic databases.

Simultaneously, we will invite people to share pictures which represent their villages. It can be that very famous shot of a village tree where the villagers meet or the local religious place or just anything which represents the village...

We are aware that development of villages needs sustainable partnerships between village NGOs and other stakeholders. As a first step, we will therefore start building the capacities of district and village level NGOs on project documentation, proposal writing, finance & legal issues, monitoring and evaluation and NGO credibility....The first step here is inviting NGOs to pay a nominal fee of Rs 100/- for the first year, where they will get these modules, plus, they can share their work in any one village and also have a dedicated page for them, which can serve as their own page on the portal. This phase starts in September 2008 when we send our first knowledge module.

What excites me most from all the future plans is the idea of creating 638387 village jaankaars. I dont know if it will take just a few years or longer, but I believe its a long felt need. And I feel connecting the 638387 villages through a contact point will be one of the biggest benefits of 638387.org

Sanjay Bapat
Founder - IndianNGOs.com Group
30th July 2008