Mission Sunehra Kal, ITC’s rural capacity building programme, now active in 11 States, empowers rural communities to adopt
sustainable changes that make them economically competitive and socially secure.

In the rural communities where the mission has put down roots there is a new spirit of optimism and confidence. People have augmented and diversified their livelihoods. Education for children, employment for women, sanitation and family health have taken on a new urgency. Every family and every farm has resources to build a better future. Stagnation and deterioration have given way to change and improvement.

To accomplish this change, ITC targets four problems, which it believes are the fundamental obstacles to productivity and growth in the farm sector :

1. Loss of productivity through soil erosion caused by intensification of land use and
   decline of water tables and forest resources.
2. Dependence on out-moded farm practices and inferior inputs.
3. Loss and disruption of farm incomes and non-availability of alternative livelihoods.
4. Inadequate access to primary education and healthcare.

	ITC’s mission is to build community based capacity to remove these adverse conditions and create the basis for renewed agrarian prosperity: help farmers to achieve higher farm productivity, enable communities to develop and manage water, soil and forest resources for long term ecological security, empower rural men and women by creating new non-farm livelihoods, facilitate development of infrastructure for primary education, health and sanitation.

ITC enables farmers to implement solutions that are sustainable because they are

1. mutually reinforcing,
2. based on knowledge transfer and co-operative application of technology,
3. dependent on mobilisation and optimisation of local resources.

The delivery model mobilises a four-way partnership between village communities, specialist NGOs, the Government and ITC, bringing to every initiative the best relevant management and technical expertise.

ITC has also worked with State Governments in pioneering public-private partnerships. In Andhra Pradesh, 2,972 hectares of wasteland have been developed so far through a collaboration with the State Government’s rural poverty reduction project, Indira Kranthi Padham, and its Comprehensive Land Development programme. ITC has also signed a landmark agreement with the Government of Rajasthan to bring 5,000 hectares under soil and moisture conservation in the drought-prone Bhilwara district.

By augmenting water resources and forest cover and fostering organic soil management, ITC has enhanced farm productivity. It has simultaneously opened up new avenues of non-farm income and employment to reduce pressure on land.