CDC (Community Development Committee) formation guidelines

A community is a body of persons sharing common problems, living in a physically identifiable area. Social mobilisation is the primary step of community development and poverty reduction.  It allows people to understand their socio-economic circumstances and initiate action with their own creativity for change. Through mobilisation people can organise themselves to take action collectively by developing their own plan and strategy rather than either disparate individual action or a plan being imposed from outside.

Each new community will present the results of its Primary Group formation exercise to the other new communities and the "guide" CDC at a small workshop. Any difficulties encountered in the formation of the Primary Groups and the numbers of those joining compared to those in the census will be reported and discussed at the workshop.  The time to be taken for the formation of the Primary Groups is about two weeks. 

Formation of Community Development Committee (CDC)

·         After formation of Primary Groups, the Community Development Committee will be formed in each community

·         All Primary Group leaders and secretaries will be members of the Community Development Committee

·         The members will elect a Chairperson, a Vice-chairperson, a Secretary and a Treasurer for a period two years.  The COs will raise this issue 6 months before the expiry of the Officers’ term and facilitate elections

·         Only the post of vice-chairperson may be filled by a male

·         Each Community Development Committee must formulate its own constitution

·         Each CDC will open bank account for monetary transaction

Following are the generalized criteria to form new CDCs in Slums.  If there arises any ambiguity or difficulty, be cleared with UPPR HQ.      

1.      Ward specific: A CDC must be fully located within the concerned ward boundary.  No CDC will extend its boundary out of its concerned ward boundary.

2.      CDC size range: CDC should have between 200-300 households.   

3.      Mutually separate boundary: CDCs must have separate boundary i.e. there will not have any overlapping of boundaries among or between CDCs.

4.      Geographical physical divides: Where possible and applicable, CDC boundaries will be clearly separate from other CDCs with visible physical entities like road/ major road, storm water drainage, rail line, canal, river, major features like industry, factory, educational institution, government or non-government office areas etc.

5.      Location identity wise: One or more CDCs will be formed within a large slum/ squatter area or big colony or area of big communities like sweeper/ cobbler/ bihari/ relatives or housing area of the workers from same industry/ factory or industries/ factories of the same owner or within a widely known area/ Para taking the settlements or HHs of the specific area individually and its boundaries will not be extended out of the area.

6.      Proximity among settlements: Where possible and applicable, priority will be given to form CDCs taking geographically adjacent, adjoining, bordering, neighboring settlements.   

7.      Dividing large settlements: If there is any large settlement and meet the requirement to form one more CDC with respect to number of HHs, there the settlement will be divided into possible CDCs taking the most neighboring HHs into each.

8.      Ownership of land: Where possible and applicable, CDCs will be individually formed according to the types of land the settlements are exclusively located on like private owner’s land or central government owned land or local government owned land or land owned by occupants.     

9.      Isolated/ pocket settlements:

a)     There may have isolated small (with respect to number of HHs which does not meet the requirement to form a CDC) settlement separate from/ located far from other settlements due to river, canal, lake, road/ rail line, large building/ office area or other reason.  

b)     If the isolated settlement cannot be grouped together with other settlements to bring it under a CDC and there are one or more CDCs close to it, then it will be absorbed into the closest CDC. In this case, if possible, either PG will be formed taking 15-20 HHs as per project guideline or the pocket HHs will be taken under closest PG of the mother CDC. Then the pocket leaders will be introduced to the CDC leaders, there will have a CDC wide meeting, terms and conditions will be fixed in presence of councilor and Project staff, and the CAP and PIP will be redo.

c)      There may have one more isolated pocket settlements without having any existing CDC close to them or within 1-2 km reach. In this case, small CDC (e.g. 75-150 HHs) can be formed taking the settlements. Here some special terms and conditions can be fixed e.g. low frequency of CDC meeting due to the constraints of distance among the PGs.    

10. Single HH based settlement: Single HH based settlement will be absorbed into the closest CDC.

11. Other considerations: To avoid probable difficulties, emphasis will be given to form CDCs according to religion, ethnic minority, and tribal community.