THE SELF HELP VILLAGE

By Team JRD TATA

The dream
Can You Believe This ? No one will have to visit a court ever Not even a single villager has any Loan in any form from any Bank. The Progress of the village has not been sidelined in wait of any government program implementation. There is not a Single Political Party in the Village. Surprisingly noticeable, after entering the village is the distance between any two houses. It is around 10-12 feet and totally clean. A Big truck can comfortably be driving around.

Yes its possible!!

A self help village model helps to achieve all the previously mentioned points

What is a self help village Economy?

Gandhian View Of Selfsufficient Village Economy Gandhi held the view of the maximization of social welfare and for this he gives prime importance to the welfare of the individuals by reducing inequalities in income and wealth. According to Gandhi every person should be provided with bare minimum necessaries i.e. food, shelter, and clothing. Concentration of wealth to a few groups of people certainly will shatter the dream of a society which will be socialist in nature. Gandhi wassin favour of the self-sufficient village economy where the villages will be the independent economic units. In agriculture that techniques will be adopted, which will not deplete the soil and pollute the environment. For this farmers should use eco-friendly production technique by using lesser and lesser amount of fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides. He prefers well irrigation instead of large hydro-electric projects since this will lead to exploitation. As regards the ownership of land holding, Gandhi was against the zamindari system and ownership of land should go to the actual tillers of the soil. He also viewed that there should be communal ownership of land for balanced cultivation and the surplus land, if any must be distributed to the rest of the village communities.

The Self help village Model

There is only one Shop in the village. Everybody buys only from this shop and it gives credit to every person for a maximum of 3 months. Every 3 Months the accounts of the shop are verified. In case of emergency, A credit of Rs 5000 is issued. There is no political party in the Village. Every politician is welcomed warmly, but the decisions are taken in unity by the Villagers. The School should be constructed by the villagers without waiting for the implementation by the government. A Temple/Mosque should be built by the villagers where everyday there is a spiritual and praying session.

The youngsters of the village are guided by the elders and they undertake various development activities. The judiciary system is jury based and representatives of each community is part of the bench, So the judgments are fair. All the community work is done by villagers themselves. And they get paid in There is a strong presence of barter system, where people exchange grains , food ,milk and other perishable goods for each other, through the shop. The school should be connected through the video/audio conference learning , where teachers from different parts of the country can teach the children. The same school can have classes for elders in the evening where they get educated and a minimum level of literacy can be attained for every single villager

There should be gatherings where people share there knowledge about different ways of doing profitable agriculture.
By the help of voluntary donations from the villagers a hospital should be built , which should have all the minimum facilities to handle emergency.

Small scale industries like handicraft , jute bags and clothes should be promoted. Water resources should be properly utillized by counstructing small dams,tube well so that there is no scarcity of water for agricultural as well as personal use There should be a self help group for women . Women empowerment is compulsory for sustainable growth of any economy. A cooperative bank should be setup, which works on the model of Microfinance . A person can deposit as low as 25 Rs in there savings account, and can take loans up to 2 lakhs. Sanitary problems should be addressed , every household should have atleast one toilet. Farmers should be taught to do organic farming using bio degradable wastes as fertilizers,so the final produce is very organic and healthy in nature,and that kind of agricultural produce will help them fetch very high prices making them more and more self sufficient.

This village will be an Ideal example of what can be achieved by unity and co-operation.

Conclusion
There is already a Panchayti raj system in existence, we need to empower Panchyati raj system,and make it more autonomus so that they are self sufficent.