ABSTRACT

Godhani Group Gram Panchayat is one of the famous Gram Panchayat in Umred Block in Nagpur district of Maharashtra. The village Godhani is marching towards becoming “Adarsha Gram” (Model Village) through several development works with active participation of the villagers. The whole process is led by dedicated leaders with support from sincere officials at panchayat level. The village has 81households and population is 381. It has 83% Households belongs to Schedule Caste following Buddhism and remaining minority are VJNT follow Hinduism. The narrative is how the village is becoming a Model village with emphasis on both the process as well as result.

1. History

The name of Godhani has significance. While decoding Godhani, it is “Go” and “Dhani”. Go means Cow and Dhan means resource. People had cow as major resource in earlier time. The village had 40 a total of dalit families in 1962. A dam (Padrabodi pond) was planned by government, which submerged the whole village and their 146 hectares of agriculture. The dam is used for drinking water and irrigation to other areas but these displaced villages don’t get either. They suffered a lot in absence of house, food, and livelihood. They didn’t get any compensation as all of them were illiterate. A renowned lawyer, Mr. Karmaveer Haridas Awade supported the villagers, who filed a case for proper rehabilitation and compensation to the villagers. The government was forced to build house for all of them in nearby government land and allocated agriculture land for their livelihood. Government also offered job in Western Coal Limited but nobody accepted job as they didn’t want to leave their village. Somehow, they settled in the new place, which is known as Godhani now. Though the villagers had house but didn’t have essential amenities like safe drinking, education, healthcare etc. However, the villagers have taken effort to have all by making it a model village.

2. Process of model village

After settling in the new place, the villagers of Godhani participated in Gram Panchayat election. Few leaders mostly landlord tried to get basis amenities to village like drinking water by digging well, village roads, bus connectivity to the village etc. Though the village had only dalit community and panchayat had dalit and tribal community, but there were several fractions everywhere. They lacked unity so affected the development of village as well as panchayat. The year 2000 was a turning point for the whole Gram Panchayat. Mr. Rajhans Madavkar got retirement from Indian Army (Mechanical Division) and returned to the village. He preferred to work for the villager rather taking up any alternative job. He felt that he served the Nation and now he has to serve his “village”. His got 6 acres of land from his father and started cultivation. The villagers had great respect for a defence personal and treated Mr. Mandavkar as their leader. He took lead for the development of the village. He mobilised people not from the village but from other villages of Group Gram Panchayat and identified few key leaders from each village. Though he is no more the leader in the village but the seeds of development have been grown in the village. The villagers wanted to make it a model village so followed the following processes

1. 1. Unanimous election: Meetings were conducted in all villages of Gram Panchayat. All fractions or opposing groups were brought all of them together for greater good of the village. All of them decided to make the retired defence personal as their leader resulting in unanimous Sarpanch without any election. The village not only benefited uniting everybody but also received special grant from government (as they didn’t have any election), which was spent for the development. Since 2000, there have been unanimous elections, where both the ward members and sarpanch are selected by people.

   2. Making of Model Village: The Sarpanch along with some villagers visited models village like RalegonSidhhiled by Anna Hazare and Hirwe Bazar led by Popatrao Pawar. On their return, the inspired villagers had a Gram Sabha and proposed state government to cover their village under “Adarsha Gram Yojana” means Model village. The proceedings of the Gram Sabha and key developments of the village were recorded and the CD was sent to government in 2010. The state government team visited in the year in 2011 and finally accepted the proposal in 2013. The long term Action Plan for a period of 5 years was prepared by the Village committee after assessing the needs of the village. The proposal worth Rs 1.67 Crore for overall development of the village got approved in 2015 after the second visit of state team. The execution of the action plan has been started.

   3. Dedicated Team: Next step was to create a dedicated and selfless team for driving development in the village. The primary focus was on women, who are generally silent and have low engagement in spite of having great potential. Hence, the selected women group was promoted to form a Self-Help Group (SHG) in the year 2000. The group has not only have savings over Rs 21.5 Lakh as on 2015 but also have been active in the development of village. Gradually others including youths came forward and joined in the team. The panchayat got a young and dynamic “Gram Sevak”, who was motivated by Sarpanch to go beyond the daily routine to make something difference in the lives of people. Both Sarapanch and Gram Sevak along with the team were very dedicated for development of the panchayat. They ensure proper planning, easy execution in transparent manner and timely supervision of development programs.

   4. Trust Building: The ex-Sarapanch organised picnic and other entertainment programs for people particularly SHG members. The members were taken exposure to city, where they saw flights in airport first time and visited big hotels. This has not only made the leaders very close to people earning their trust and also encouraged people to engage for the village development.

   5. Community Based Organisation: The panchayat has some limitation. The ex-sarpanch and few other people formed a community based organisation, Prashik Bahu Udyes Sikshan and Arogya Seva Santha (Registered). This NGO aims at promoting overall development of the village by mobilising resources from several sources like government, corporates, individual donors and corporates.

   6. Jan Jagriti Week: The CBO organises Jan Jagriti Week means Public awareness week during the first week of June (1-7). Several government department officials are invited to share about schemes and the process of availing them. Public speakers are invited to encourage and motivate the villagers and youths to work for their personal as well as community development. This program brings the government closer to people and builds the confidence among people.

   7. Partnership: The Gram Panchayat has been very active as people have been participating in the development process. The CBO and NGO have been bringing their resources and expertise for the development.

These processes have resulted in development of the village.

3. Development Outcome in the Village

The Gram Panchayat, village committees with support of local NGO have undertaken several development programs benefiting people.

1. 1. Entry Level Development Work: The sarpanch started utilising the resource for development of people in the panchayat without any bias as have been selected by all unanimously. The key activities were started like building road, ensuring proper functioning of anganwadi, schools and ensuring immunisation of kids etc. The village school has been updated from only class III to class VII with very good infrastructure.

   2. Single Compound Facilitates: All key institutions of panchayat were built in one compound with proper boundary. These are pucca Gram Panchayat office, post office, police patil, talati (tehsil representative), computer centre, school (class I to VII), aganwadi centre, health centre, community hall in one campus. This not only helps the villagers to access all facilities in a single place, but also villagers monitor institutions regularly.

   3. Saptasutri– This means seven pronged strategy in the village includes Charaibandi(no open grazing), Kuradhibandi (ban on tree cutting), Nasabandi (no alcohol or drugs), Nasbandi (Family planning), Lota bandi(ban on open defecation), Borewellbandi (no digging of bore well), Shramdan (voluntary labour contribution). The village has ensured all these as follows in different point of time-

• 1. Nirmal Gram or Swachha Village: The villagers used to go for open defecation. Being from defence, cleanness was very important for the ex-sarpanch. Sanitation being the key problem was discussed in village and decided to start sanitation program by building toilet for all. To address the problem along with health issues, the sanitation program was started in 2005 and completed within two years. He organised the National Service Scheme (NSS) camp by Urmed based college, NutanAdarshMahavidyalay. The principle was from the same village and brother of ex-sarpanch. Around 70 students camped for 7 daysin the village, created awareness on sanitation and mobilised people. They all dug up sanitation pits for all households. The local NGOprovided some construction materials and each household started building their personal toilet. 100% households built toilet. They have banned open defecation in the village. In fact, there is no need of open defecation. This resulted in getting Nirmal Gram Puraskar from President of India on 8^th December 2008. This gave lot more confidence and encouragement to do more for the village.

  2. Tanta Mukti Abhiyan: After covering 100% households under sanitation program, the villagers decided to ensure Tanta Mukti (no conflict) village having a committee. All conflicts and issues can be resolved in the village without approaching police and judiciary. Such cases used to be financial burden, time consuming and psychological depressing for both parties concerned. The president of the committee shared the reality of legal cases as “when cases used to go to judiciary, generally one wins and other loses. One party used to happy and unhappiness in other”. He claimed as now practice in the village as “both parties are facilitated to resolve the cases as win-win for all. This brings happiness in both parties apart from without any financial burden and within short time”. They formed a samiti (committee) in 2008 and resolved 32 cases (like internal conflict, land issues, etc). The committee invited all parties concerned, tried to find the root cause of the problem and facilitated to find solutions. They got support of various stakeholders like village leaders, local police patil and other officials. All old cases have been resolved and new cases too periodically. This again resulted in declaring the village as Tanta Mutki and getting an award from Maharashtra Government in 2009. One of major root cause of the conflicts was alcohol so the village banned alcohol as Nasabandi drive.

  3. Green Village: The villagers have started watershed program in massive scale by levelling the land, water treatment etc. They have also planted around 5,000 trees on both sides of the road approaching to the city of 2Km. 27 villages have been engaged under NREGS to guard and water them. They have taken ownership of the forest under Joint Forest Management by protecting the forest to grow and collecting Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs). They have banned tree cutting and regulated it, which is part of Kuradhibandi.

  4. Fodder Management: The villagers have also regulated open grazing known as CharaibandI, which affects agriculture and forestry. There is dedicated place for grazing.

  5. Water Management: Each household has access to safe piped drinking water, which comes in the morning and evening. The village witnessed the initial benefit of ground water recharge though watershed program. To preserve and recharge ground water, the villagers have banned borewell as Borewell Bandi for irrigation. The watershed program is in early stage. The benefits would come in future.

  6. Health for all: The anganwadi teacher takes care of the children by giving mid-day meal. ASHA and ANM ensure 100% eligible children and mother get immunisation, safe delivery and treatment of common diseases. The health workers create awareness among people on family planning as part of Nasbandi program.

  7. Shramdaan: The villagers have been contributing their labour for the development work. They have worked together to construct the community hall, watershed programs, tree plantation and fortnight village cleaning. At least one person from each family including girls joins to sweep the road and clean it up linking to Swach Bharat Mission. The children and youth are oriented from early age about the voluntary work for the village. They enjoy while making the village clean and subsequently post their photographs in social networking sites. This earns respect for them from their friends in their college belonging to other villages and cities.

1. 4. Elimination of Money lending: At present, the village has 16 SHGs with 225 members with a saving of worth lakhs. Expect one, rest of groups were formed in last one to three years. Each group has savings of Rs 50,000 to Rs 1,00,000 and the oldest group formed in 2000 has Rs 21.5 Lakhs. As the community didn’t have access to formal financial institutions, so used to be dependent on money lender for meeting their financial requirements. Now they take loan for both consumption and production purpose from the group and repay timely with interest fixed by them. This has ended the traditional exploitation of money lenders and worked as internal lending.The SHGs meetings have become platform to discuss about the family and village level issues.

   5. Access to Education: The village has very good school upto class VII. All eligible students study in the school and then go for higher studies to the nearby city, 12 Km away from the village. The youth including girls go to college to study range of courses like sciences, arts, social work, engineering, nursing, computer, and other fields. This has produced 35 bright people from the village having government job as doctors, engineering, professor, agriculture scientist, defence personal, CISF, police and teacher including one have returned with Ph.D from USA.

   6. Cultural festival: There is a religious committee to look after all religious and cultural festivals. They celebrate very few selected festivals like Budha Jayanti, Dushhera, 14^th April (Ambedkar Jayanti), Nag Panchami without spending much money. The educated and employed people of the village sponsor the major festival, Budha Jayanti and even many of them come to the village during that time.

   7. Transparency: There is transparency in functioning of gram panchayat. All village issues are discussed in gram sabha, actions are proposed and thereafter executed. The financial details are shared with people in meetings. The notice for jobs and all schemes are put in public places. The transparency functioning and unanimous election has controlled the corruption in panchayat level as claimed by many people.

4. Future Plan for the village

   1. Livelihood: The main occupation of most of village is agriculture. During khariff, they growprimarily Soyabin, Tur Dal and Cotton whereas Chana, Wheat (few Rice and chilli) in rabi. Most of people work as daily wage labourer particularly after the agriculture session. The villagers are exploring potential and secure livelihood for them. With support of an NGO, 27 families have received hybrid cow each and started dairy program. They sell milk in local area earning profit of Rs 2,500 per month from one cow. The milk business has great potential so few farmers have spent own money to buy additional cow and other farmers are followings them. However, most of people lack secure livelihood. Using the resourceof SHGs and government schemes, it is essential to start small and medium scale (SMEs) programs to secure livelihood of all households. There should be haat means weekly market in the village to promote business benefiting people to trade their products.

   2. Equality among all: Few Nomadic Tribes (NT) families were brought by Dalit Budhhist landlord from nearby village in early 80s to work as labour in their land. Gradually, the NTs have started building their houses and demanding for their ownership. They complaint that the panchayat led by majority dalits don’t consider their demand or have been delaying so much. They feel that the majority don’t consider them equal in the village. During fortnight cleanness drive, the roads to NTs area are either done in last stage or left out. The minority backward NTs should be treated equally as citizen by giving all facilities.

   3. Promoting local youth leaders: Most of the leaders of the village are landlords. After improving their standard of living, the leaders have shifted their base from village to nearby city, Umred. Though, they frequently visit to the village and aware issues and problems of the village. The villagers complained that the leaders don’t experience the difficulties such as electricity problem so not very serious to address it. The youth expressed that elderly people in the panchayat decide the ward members and sarpanch unanimously without giving an opportunity to them. The most of the selected leaders are illiterate and unaware of system. Hence, they demand for the need of young educated leaders to take charge of the panchayat.

   4. Youth Development: Youth should be encouraged not only to do shramdaan but also participate in effective governance. As desired by youth; Library, Sports ground and equipment should be provided them for their personal development, building their group and working for the community.

5. Learning

   1. Strong and dedicated leadership– The village had very strong and dynamic leader, who is respected as selfless because of his deference background. The key characteristics of the strong leadership in the village found rich, educated, well orator, negotiator among various conflicting groups, good network with government and political leaders, sincere for the development of the village. As the leader is rich, he some time invested own resource or mobilised from various sources, resulted in the development of the village. People started believing in him. So, he played critical role for development of the village by preparing long term plan linking with government programs. Hence, there is need of strong and dedicated leader for a model village.

   2. Homogeneous group– The village had homogenous group of ___ HHs belong to scheduled caste and Buddhist religion. There was cohesiveness among all as they celebrated festivals (Buddha Jayanti, Dushera, Ambedkar Jayanti, and other Buddhist religious festivals) together. They formed different groups like youth club, which brought youth together from the homogenous group. However, the group neglected minority group of NTs in the village, who were forced to live outside of the village and were deprived off basic amenities.

   3. Power Check and balance – though they all belong to same caste, key leaders are very rich. When people thought that the leaders are becoming autocratic, they change the leadership giving the poorest of the poor a chance instead of the seasoned old leaders. The leaders are forced to accept the decision of the masses. It shows the power of people.

   4. Chance for youth leadership– the village have active and educated youth. Many of the youth after completing their education, has taken up government jobs outside. Many of them are studying nearby colleges and universities. The youth in village have several challenges like absence of good library, lack of proper counselling, unemployment and few others. They have great potential and energy to do more for the village. However, they don’t have much access to leadership role in the village. The elders in the panchayat take all decisions like selection of panchayat members, development programs and they are asked to execute. Few of them even complaint that the educated and interested youth are not given an option to lead for better development instead the illiterate people are selected making political adjustment of elders.

Conclusion

Godhani, this small village is in the making of model village. The dedicated leader with the trust from all was able to unite all fractions resulting unanimous selection of panchayat leader. Such leaders chosen by all are committed for the development of community without any biasness and nepotism. They have created structure and dedicated human capital in multilevel like SHGs, youth club, NGOs, village committees apart from strong panchayat leaders. They have brought changes in social sector by creating infrastructure and providing essential amenities. But there is need to ensure secure livelihood for all, encouraging young educated leadership and ensuring equality with NTs. Then, the village will truly be a Model Village in letter and spirit.