Pulling a village out of poverty
- In 2012, Alex Paul Menon, IAS, was taken hostage by Maoists in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh after his 2 bodyguards were killed killed by Maoists. He got his freedom after 13 days. He is now Chief Electoral Officer of Chhattisgarh.
- In 1994, Dr Binayak set up a clinic in an auxiliary village of Chindhbarri, in Dhamtari district
- Chindhbarri, part of Bastar Development Council, is a small tribal hamlet of 75 families. Menon was posted as chief executive officer of Zila Panchayat
- In village food was scarce, 95% of households were ST, 85% BPL , despite being close to Gangrael dam there was acute water shortage, distress migration was common.
- Menon decided to replicate Baba Amte’s water conservation models Chindhbarri with help of NGOs and reverse the fate of villagers.
- Participatory micro-planning exercises were taken up by self-help groups and the local community
- First land holding size of each household and its nature and needs were listed
- After selecting a patch of 40 hectare, land water conservation plans were initiated all along the land.
- He realized ponds needed to be dug. Water conservation necessitates ponds and farm ponds. 2 villagers, Shankar and Maakan, volunteered to donate 5 acres each for purpose.
- Plan was to provide each household farm ponds and fish seed, cattle protection trenches, dugwells, bund plantations, cash crops (mango and cashew), poultry sheds
- Vegetable seed kits, equipment for rice intensification, vermicompost pits, bio-gas and borewells arranged for.
- Arrangement to put up low-cost poly houses, or sabji kuty, according to the needs of each household.
- Historically, the most marginalised residents of a village occupy the ridge or the periphery. Work started from that point.
- Rs.143 lakh was spent by converging the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme with other schemes in a systematic way for three years. Funds came from mainly MGNREGA, which instilled confidence in the villagers.
- After four years, 114 acres of land were levelled and bunded and made suitable for cultivation; 225 acres of land came under irrigation, thereby increasing paddy productivity by 2 fold.
- The village saw a big increase in vegetable, maize, fish and poultry production.
- Today, vegetable cultivation enables 60% of families to earn up to Rs.20,000 per annum. Nobody has taken a loan from the village’s grain bank in the past two years. Distress migration stopped.
- The spark that triggered off an experiment in Chindhbarri has now spread to 47 other panchayats and is still growing.
Exams Perspective:
- Civil Service Activism