To improve the condition and standard of life of people in Sitamarhi district of Bihar through effective intervention, Oxfam India with the support of HDFC Bank planned for a project intervention namely “UTTHAN – Empowering the community”. The primary goal of the intervention is socio-economic empowerment of the marginal communities by enhancing livelihood options and improving accessibility to essential services for the marginalised inhabitants of 15 villages of two blocks (Dumra and Bathnaha). Before implementation, Oxfam, India engaged SIGMA Foundation to conduct the Baseline study to know the status of the project geography. A mixed method approach was adopted to study the phenomena and to perform data triangulation. The study covered 32 KIIs and 1,168 quantitative surveys. The intended stakeholders in the study geography were mapped and reached either through structured quantitative questionnaire or with the help of semi-structured discussion points. Key-Informant Interview (KII) was only considered for the proposed study since the qualitative survey was conducted remotely. The Baseline study found that most of the respondents were illiterate. There was concentration of backward households in the project geography. Based on the classification of World Bank, more than half of the households were belonged to low-income category. The accessibility to social protection schemes was very less. Most of the households had their own agricultural land and major crops produced in the area were paddy, wheat and maize, that means all cereals. Apart from cereals, various kinds of vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, chilies and gourds were also cultivated in the area. It was found that the farmers faced serious problem with marketization of the produced crops.