District Convergence Coordinator

Designation- District Convergence Coordinator

[This is a strategic role focused on stakeholder management, cross-functional coordination, and driving convergence across key initiatives. Mapped to the Senior Consultant level at Athena Infonomics]

Programme- Strengthening India's Agricultural Transformation- Rural Growth Hub Pilots

Reporting To- PMU Lead

Engagement Type- Fixed-term Employment

Locations (One Position for Each Location)- Bachhwara, Begusarai (Bihar) | Pallahara, Angul (Odisha) | Maregaon, Yavatmal (Maharashtra) | Indora, Kangra (Himachal Pradesh).

We have successfully completed hiring for Bihar, Odisha, and Himachal Pradesh and are now accepting applications only for Maharashtra .

Vision for the Role

Athena Infonomics is supporting the NITI Aayog in the design and implementation of the Rural Growth Hub (RGH) programme- a three-year field engagement demonstrating how integrated, convergence-led agricultural transformation can be achieved at the village cluster level. The programme operates across five states — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Maharashtra, and Himachal Pradesh- with one pilot district and one focus block per state.

The RGH is the operational centrepiece of this engagement. It brings together government schemes, frontier technologies, community institutions, and market linkages within a single village cluster as mutually reinforcing components of a coherent local development system. Rather than adding another layer to an already crowded programme landscape, the RGH works through what already exists: mapping farmers to schemes they are eligible for but not accessing, embedding technologies within existing government delivery channels, and strengthening the capacity of frontline officials to coordinate more effectively. The programme sits within a broader national architecture. PM Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana (PM-DDKY) provide a reference framework for scheme convergence across 100 aspirational agricultural districts that RGH could learn from and inform. The upcoming Rural Prosperity and Resilience Programme (RPRP) is expected to provide a future financing pathway for scaling what the RGH pilots demonstrate.

The District Coordinator is Athena's single point of contact at the district and focus block level across all concerned departments. This is the role of the primary field intelligence anchor — someone sufficiently embedded in the district and block ecosystem to understand what is happening in practice, what are the opportunities for convergence and what needs to be enabled to make it happen, and how the RGH model can credibly strengthen farmer, village, and block-level outcomes. The District Coordinator's ground-level judgement and documentation are the raw material from which the programme learns.

What You Will Own

• •Ground-level intelligence: a current, granular understanding of the agricultural and rural livelihoods landscape in your district and focus block — going beyond administrative data to understand what is happening in practice, how frontline officials are operating, and where scheme intent diverges from farmer experience, existing adoption level of technologies and the market for such services.
• •District and block action plan engagement: systematic gathering and analysis of the District Agriculture and Allied Activities Plan (DAAP) and block-level action plans wherever they exist, and contribution to the design of the Village Cluster Agriculture Action Plan (VCAAP) — the shared planning instrument anchoring the RGH cluster.
• •Intervention mapping, validation, and orchestration: a comprehensive, honest assessment of all active interventions in the focus block — government schemes, technology pilots, and civil society activities — evaluating what is working for which farmer profiles and documenting clearly where it is not. The role is primarily to inform the larger orchestration efforts towards matchmaking, prioritisations, additional activities to amplify impact by different stakeholders.
• •Stakeholder interface: Establish and manager primary working relationship with the District Collectors, District and Block Agriculture / Horticulture Officers, BDO, DPM-RL, Village Pradhans, Panchayat Secretaries, CRPs, KVK staff, and NRLM field functionaries — convening cluster coordination meetings and tracking scheme enrolment, delivery timelines, and institutional bottlenecks. The role also requires engagement with officials at the state level on areas where state level institutions, infrastructure and digital initiatives could be leveraged for scale up.
• •Technical and process documentation: weekly field observation logs, structured farmer feedback records, convergence opportunity matrices, technology adoption data, and monthly field intelligence reports — the mechanism through which ground-level learning becomes evidence that shapes programme adaptation and national policy.

Key Responsibilities

Scheme convergence and farmer-level mapping

• •Map every farmer in the RGH cluster to their current scheme enrolment status, eligibility gaps, and access barriers, building a convergence opportunity matrix per farmer profile and season. Build a strong and contextual understanding of focus schemes including underlying issues and challenges, areas for improvement etc.
• •Coordinate with block and district line department officers to unlock scheme access for eligible farmers, with particular attention to women farmers, SHG members, and marginal landholders. Track progress weekly against the programme target of a minimum of five schemes per farmer in the cluster.

Frontier technology assessment and deployment support

• •Assess existing frontier technology deployments in the focus block — drones, AI advisory systems, soil health tools, precision irrigation, digital crop surveys — evaluating adoption rates, farmer experience, and input efficiency outcomes.
• •Support identification and validation of additional technologies to be layered on existing interventions if any, ensuring they are embedded within government delivery systems and that data collection protocols meet programme standards.

Ground intelligence and field reporting

• •Maintain weekly field observation logs and prepare monthly field intelligence reports synthesising what is working, what is not, and what course corrections are needed.
• •Oversee conduction of structured farmer feedback sessions at the midline and endline, contributing to the programme's baseline-midline-endline survey framework and the generation of outcome data on farm income, yield, input costs, and market access.
• •Travel between the District Headquarters and Blocks as needed with a focus on project outputs and outcomes rather than activities.

Data systems and Shared Data Map maintenance

Maintain and update the Shared Data Map — the field-level data convergence instrument to ensure clarity on what data systems, parameters exist including information on data quality, validation status etc.

Community institution strengthening

Engage with SHG leads and KVK extension staff to assess the institutional capacity of community organisations around collective scheme enrolment, market linkage, and technology adoption and identify areas of support.

Additional Responsibilities

In addition to responsibilities under the Rural Growth Hub (RGH) Project, the selected candidate will be expected to support and contribute to other ongoing projects, assignments, and initiatives undertaken by Athena Infonomics in the state, as and when required. Such responsibilities may include project planning, stakeholder coordination, data collection and analysis, reporting, field implementation support, and any other tasks aligned with the candidate's role, skills, and organizational priorities.

Who We Think You Are

You are likely to have between six and ten years of experience working at district /block / state level in agriculture, rural development, livelihoods, or related fields. You may have come through a s