ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION
AREA OF OPERATION
Guntur District is located in Andhra Pradesh along the east coast of Bay of Bengal. The district has a coastline of around 100 kilometers. Guntur City is the largest city in the district and administrative center of Guntur District. Telugu and Urdu are the main languges spoken in this district.
Guntur district covers an area of 11,391 Sq.km, and has a population of 4,465,144 of which 28.80% is urban. The Krishna River forms the northeastern and eastern boundary of the district, separating Guntur District from Krishna District. The district is bounded on the southeast by the Bay of Bengal, on the south by Prakasam District, on the west by Mahbubnagar District, and on the northwest by Nalgonda District. It is divided into 57 mandals with 729 villages.
ORGANIZATIONAL SET UP
To institutionalize this grass root orientation, the GDSS&WS works through its 85 parishes or local units covering more than 729 villages in the district, spread over the total 57 Mandals in the 4 revenue divisions. Each parish consists of a cluster of 7 to 8 villages, including their hamlets and Scheduled caste and Scheduled tribe locations. The parish priest is appointed president and resides in the area. He constitutes a local committee of community leaders, who are the elected representatives of the gram panchayats as well as the people affected, women, youth, professionals available in the area, teachers, bank officials, government servants. This committee also interacts with the on-going state sponsored development programmes and agencies at the Mandal and Gram Panchayat levels.
These local units identify community needs and development issues. They then approach the GDSS&WS for studying them scientifically and for evolving a plan of action for responding to the issue. Based on these, GDSS&WS helps the unit to plan a project proposal, mobilizes resources (local and foreign) and channels it to the local unit. Sometimes, when issues identified are common to several units, they are brought together, and a single project is developed, with unit-wise resource allocation plans.
Alongside, personnel from GDSS&WS support the local unit in implementation, and in maintaining proper records, accounts and registers. Progress reports and financial statements are centrally collated. GDSS&WS arranges verification, evaluation and audit. It has the necessary complement of support staff with experience and expertise in various sectors of development, in project management and community organisation/training.
As the coordinating office, GDSS&WS takes overall program/finance accountability with its collaborating agencies, in India and abroad. GDSS&WS also organizes, at apex level, regular review meetings for the units involved in various projects, training programs for community leaders and project staff at the community level. These are supported sometimes also by subject experts invited as process consultants.
NETWORKING
The GDSS&WS coordinates and networks with other development agencies and organizations, both governmental and voluntary. It is active in several NGO fora at district and state levels lobbying for and working with : employment guarantee program, literacy, anti-child labor, implementation of land reforms and allocation of land to landless agricultural laborers, women movement against alcohol, watershed management, etc.,
The GDSS&WS is closely involved with the District Rural & Development Agency (DRDA), the Scheduled Caste (SC) Scheduled Tribe (ST) Backward Class (BC) Corporations, A.P.Housing Corporation, Jan Shikshan Sansthan of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, Women and Child Welfare, and District Medical & Health Officer.