More than 5,000 herbal homegard enshave been developed in remote tribal villages covered under Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project(MPRLP). These herbal home gardens have come up in Dhar, Jhabua, Barwani, Mandla, Dindori, Anuppur, Shahdol and Sheopur, an official release said. Developed under the country cooperation fund of United Nations Development Programme, the purpose is to conserve bio-diversity and revive indigenous knowledge system among the tribal communities. The tribal families would be encouraged to cultivate herbal plants in their backyards, it said adding that this was informed during annual review of the MPRLP by the Department for International Development (DFID)UK here. Project coordinator Jitendra Agrawal apprised the DFID review team about the progress in various sub-sectors and the scope of convergence of MPRLP with different rural development programme like National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The DFID review team included Livelihoods advisor to DFIDRachel Lambert, governance advisor Arif Gouri, Minaxi Nath, AnGupta, Chris Chalmers, members of State project support unit and technical cooperation project support unit Duncan King, Shahza Khan, Utpal Moitra. It was informed that Livelihoods support centres would be set up for registration of workers having skills in different trades would bedone. Those migrating for better employment opportunities would also be registered and informed about their rights and entitlements, importance of job-oriented trainings at the Livelihoods Suport Centres. One Livelihoods Support Centre would serve two Gram Panchayats. The data about rural artisans would be linked to District Employment Exchange for the convenience of potential employers. It would also help the employers to assess manpower requirements using he data. During review of impact of convergence with National Employment Guarantee Scheme, the DFID team was informed that so far 49,000 households in phase-I villages have been covered under net planning process. The net planning will inform the field staff about a particular resource or asset required by a household. It will save time in identifying needs of families and yield results faster. The net planning will be taken in new villages shortly. Agrawal said that the Gram Sabha is central to the Project philosophy and strategic steps have been taken to strengthen the institution of Gram Sabha. The Project is playing the role of a facilitator. It was informed that Management Information System has been designed and is being field-tested. The NREGS has brought forth opportunities for improving livelihoods by land improvement and watershed development.