Short Essay on Incredible India’s Village

 

As I myself belong to village, I would like to start my mission change (constructive change) from my own village.

My village Gurgurdo (Batalik sector of kargil) which happen to be the last village of North West J&k before actual LOC, The village has population of about 700. The extent of difficulties and hardship faced by the villager due to lack of proper rural infrastructure are unthinkable.

The govt. schemes on various rural development works are still unknown to them (Peasant). A proposed road that will connect the village from Leh and kargil district is still underway.

The work started 14 year back (in 1997)on this surveyed  area of about three km, and most part of it(nearly 96%) is gentle slope with sandy soil(Not rocky terrain).But the connection of this distant village is still a far dream for peasants there.

It is not the only problem that the villagers are facing, beside it, the village is facing severe problem of drinking water in winter, not due to lack of water resource but because of the absence of water related projects (like tap water transmission) or inaction of PHED (public health engineering department).

The village dispensary is not properly functioning from the time of its establishment; the village is still without an Animal husbandry despite having a large cattle population. Due to this, the peasant has to travel 9 – 10km away from their own villages to other neighboring village for breeding of their cattle’s.

Being the second highly populated village & highest animal per capita (which include cows, goats, donkeys etc..)  beyond the  Lalong La pass (Kargil), it still devoid of  an Animal husbandry. Even a relatively small village like Batalikh has  Animal husbandry. It is a great injustice to the part of Gurgurdo.

School

Not to talk about the quality of education.

The village school that holds more than 120 students which is now recently upgraded to 8th class level ¬ without upgrading the teachers number and school infrastructure (there is only three class rooms in the school). The teacher student ratio is highly skewed, sometime only one teacher controls the whole school and it seems to be a jailer rather than a schoolteacher.

The prioritization of the kargil’s administration system is highly lopsided. In the town (Kargil city), the school seems to be “Gyarh cooli barh mait*”. As most of student lodged in private schools and the Govt.schools left with a handful of student, even some school has reported to have one or no student in some classes.

Hence, in such a situation the influential’s & businessman-cum-teacher chose to stay in such school so that they run their parallel business with the Government job. Whether it is town or in villages, hardly a day goes with all teachers present in a school. However, the rates of absente teachers in remote villages (like Gurgurdo) are far more.

Again coming to Gurgurdo, the villagers every time express their grievance to the Sarkari Babus and Netas, whenever they visit the village, for the official tour or election campaign respectively.

However, every time they go with full of false assurance “*hum Dekhen gay”. They did not pay any heed to the villager’s plight. Now the Gugrgurdovis are fed up with these officials & Netas* and it seems they are going to take a bolder step in nearer future, may be an election boycott!

By

Mohammad Hussain

PGDRDM 4th batch student

National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad India

Email: sangsangot-at-gmail.com