A brief report on village exposure visit - Organized by XLRI & Facilitated by TRTC

VILLAGE EXPOSURE PROGRAM REPORT

Organized by XLRI and facilitated by TRTC

MEMBERS IN THE GROUP:

Rahul Rai

G14039

Reddypallii Sudheer Reddy

G14043

Sachin Annanarayan Sonkusale G14045

Salin Kumar Gopinathan Pillai G14047
Soham Ghosh

G14051

Sushant Satyendra Vinchurkar G14054

Tirthankar Pal

G14055

Report Created By:

GMP 2014-15
XLRI Jamshedpur

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A brief report on village exposure visit - Organized by XLRI & Facilitated by TRTC

1. Purpose
The purpose of the village visit was to gain first hand exposure to the village life and understanding the
functioning of the village economy, the means of livelihood and the role of the host NGO TRTC (Tribal
Research and Training Center) and the various self-help groups created by TRTC for the upliftment of the
rural community.

2. Team composition
Team Guide: Mr. Krishna from TRTC (acting as an interpreter)
Members: Rahul Rai
(G14039), Reddypallii Sudheer Reddy (G14043), Sachin Annanarayan Sonkusale
(G14045), Salin Kumar Gopinathan Pillai (G14047), Soham Ghosh (G14051), Sushant Satyendra Vinchurkar
(G14054), Tirthankar Pal (G14055) [All are students of GMP 2014-15 Batch]

3. Field Site
Following villages were covered 27th to 29th June 2014:

Kainua
Gundipuci

4. Basic Facilities in the villages

We were a group of 8 people, who visited the two villages namely: Kainhua and Gundipuci. While both the
villages were remotely located from Chaibasa and conditions were almost same but we find that there
were differences in the facilities that were available in these two villages. While both the villages are still
struggling to get better facilities, what we found is that Kainhua village (With population of around 900
1000) has primary school till 8th Standard, Anganwadi, electricity (managed by villagers) and water from
lake, which is around 1 km but they lack lots of other important basic facilities such as:

Primary health care, for which they have to travel to Chaibasa for emergency and non-emergency
cases.
No water for farming, they are totally dependent on rain water for farming.
Nearby no markets are available and they have to travel a lot around 15 kms to get the groceries.
Lack of sanitization.
Roads are bad and night life is horrible due to lack of street lights.

There is lot more that needs to be done. This is because of lack of awareness of their basic rights and
approach to issues.
On the other hand when we visited village Gundipuci, where the population is around 1500, we found that
although it too lacks Infrastructure but they are trying hard to get better and this credit goes to head of the

A brief report on village exposure visit - Organized by XLRI & Facilitated by TRTC

village (Mukhiya). He has done a lot in the last 4 to 5 yrs to improve the basic infrastructure. The village has
primary school, Anganwadi in good condition. They fetch the drinking water from chapakal (handpump),
although they too lack the hospital but the doctors do visit occasionally, treatment and medicines for the
basic diseases such as cough, cold and fever is available. Electricity is available through the solar panel.
Primary school is available till 5th standard, but the teachers will not be available on regular basis. There
are no banks around and post office is around 3 kms. When we talked to one of the old lady at the
Anganwadi she did told that the village has improved a lot in the last 5 to 6 yrs and they are looking
forward to still make it better.

4.1 OBSERVATION IN DETAIL:

Occupation:

Most of the people in these villages were seasonal farmers. More than 50 percent of the villagers
have farms. They mainly grow rice, dal etc. The produce from farming is just sufficient for
consumption for the family. It is very rare that there is anything available for sale in outside
market.
Lumbering from nearby forest is another occupation people are doing
Women are mostly engaged in household works.
NREGA work is done, mainly building roads.
Some of the villagers own small number of live stock such as cattle, sheep, goat and poultry.
Overall impression was, that they were not very dissatisfied with the occupation opportunities that
they have. They dont have any knowledge about activities happening out of their villages.
However given the chance and training they would definitely explore more diverse avenues of
income, especially the women.

Education:

Primary school (till 8th class) is present in the village but for no school nearby for further schooling.
Transportation problem is a major deterrent in continuation of studies.
The school that is present does not have adequate teachers, in one village there was just one head
master and one teacher. Head master would be busy with government activities such as carrying
out surveys, census etc.
Mostly children do not go to school due to accessibility issues.
Because the present education system simply gives entry to next class without proper assessment,
the quality of students has deteriorated. It has been found that children after passing 10th class
find it difficult to attend further studies because they have not studied anything during their
schooling.

A brief report on village exposure visit - Organized by XLRI & Facilitated by TRTC

Other Observations:

There is lack of drinking water in the vicinity of the village

In one village electricity poles were laid and connections were given to houses, but most of the
time electricity is absent. In another village, even poles are not laid; most of the houses have solar
panels and one light.
Irrigation is a major problem, they cant depend on unpredictable rains for their harvest.
Lack of proper sanitation in villages. Majority of the houses had toilets. Even though NGOs insists
on the use of toilets, it is not practiced by the villagers.
Lack of drainages, proper roads, wells etc are other problems
Lack of clinics/ public health center in the village. From small illness to deliveries and snake bites,
the patients has to be taken to nearest town more than 15 kms away by arranging transportation
on their own.
NGOs active other than TRTC: Asra, Johar

5. Initiatives taken by TRTC

Awareness training for farmers on various water management, rice cultivation and others cereals.
Technology, Training and Marketing support for organic vegetable, vermin and fortified
composting.
Improving household security and livelihood opportunities among the tribal population in the
target areas, based on the sustainable and equitable use of natural resources.
To empower tribal grassroots associations and user groups to become capable of planning,
implementing, and managing their own development.
To promote activities that generate sustainable increases in the production and productivity of
local land and water resources.

TRTC staffs were able to build a rapport with the villagers and work cooperatively with them through a
number of different activities. All villagers were exposed to village-level meetings of the Project Executive
Committee, and trainings were conducted to build awareness on various state/governmental/social issues.
All community members increased their awareness of local government processes.
IN crux Voluntary action stimulated and promoted by TRTC engaged in development play a significant role
at the grass roots level in the Indian social milieu; the success of rural development depends upon the
active participation of the people through Self Help Organizations. The various roles of TRTC are described
below for better understanding.
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
vii.

Catalyze Rural Population

Build Models and Experiment
Supplement Government Efforts
Organizing Rural Poor
Educate the Rural People
Provide Training
Disseminate Information

A brief report on village exposure visit - Organized by XLRI & Facilitated by TRTC

viii.
ix.
x.
xi.
xii.
xiii.
xiv.
xv.
xvi.
xvii.
xviii.
xix.
xx.
xxi.
xxii.

Mobilization of Resources
Promote Rural Leadership
Represent the Rural People
Act as Innovators
Ensure Peoples Participation
Promote Appropriate Technology
Activate the Rural Delivery System
Strengthen gram sabha
Youth Program Juva Jumur
Integrated Community development
Water shed development
Ridge to valley conversion, land and water works
Sarva Sikcha Program
Munda Empowerment
Sustainable agriculture work - Harta

TRTCs thrust on 5 Js: Jal, Jungle, Jamin, Jan and Jawan

6. Initiatives Taken by Indian Government

To improve livelihood security in rural areas, MNREGA aims to provide an assured job involving unskilled
manual work.
Anganwadi centre also provides basic health care in these villages. It is a part of the Indian public
health-care system. Basic health-care activities include nutrition education and supplementation, as
well as pre-school activities, immunization, health check-up and referral services.

Government has also Electrified whole village of Gundipuci by installing solar power panels.

7. Major development in last 5 years

In last 4-5 years the villages have got few good pitch roads to connect to Chaibasa and other near
towns. However the condition of these roads are not that good due to lack of regular maintenance.
In one of the villages, most of the houses have got solar panel as an alternate source of electricity.
But due to unequal distribution of panels, few houses have got 4-6 solar panels whereas few
houses havent got even one.
TRTC has helped the villagers in making them aware of their basic rights and how to request for
those rights. This has helped the villagers in getting some basic amenities, which they were
deprived off before the arrival of TRTC there.

A brief report on village exposure visit - Organized by XLRI & Facilitated by TRTC

8. Aspirations of villagers
Most village people are content the way they live and do not have too many aspirations to improve their
living. However there are a rare few of those who get good exposure to education or city life and aim to do
something good in life.
Villagers do not have too many festivals, however they just have a yearly festival called as Sarhul, which is a
harvest festival and villagers celebrate on grand scale as per their standard. Intoxicated with Handia (a
locally brewed rice-beer) they dance and sing whole night.
Some villagers also shared their aspirations to travel outside but for most of them the world is limited to
Chaibasa on account of their poverty and lack of exposure.
However, a few aspire to have electricity to enable them to use gadgets like television.

9. Vision of Munda (Village headman)

1. The Village headman (Mr. Somnath Tubid) seemed to be an educated and experienced person
with training in TRTC and social welfare activities.
2. He was of the opinion that if all the villagers unite and take collective actions they could do a lot of
progress with whatever currently available with them.
3. He had ideas about creating awareness among the youth about the issues at hand and taking
their help in overcoming those issues.
4. He was also of the opinion that all the children in the villages should go to school and seek
education.
5. He seems to have a drive for taking forward the progress on its stride.
Little support required to convert the vision into a reality!

10. Conclusion
There exists a huge gap which demands urgent attention and action

Inadequate Health and sanitation

1.
2.
3.
4.

Lack of doctors and primary health staff

Lack of awareness of existing primary health care facilities and complaint redressal system
Lack of interaction and coordination among various govt. departments
Rigid mind set of individuals/community owing to cultural background to incorporate best practises

Lack of Quality Education

1. Inadequate number of teaching and non-teaching staff resulting in a skewed ratio of almost 2
teachers for 400+ students
2. Low motivation and drive in parents to encourage their wards to attend school

A brief report on village exposure visit - Organized by XLRI & Facilitated by TRTC

Inadequate housing conditions and benefit trickle of PDS

even in basic facilities like electricity and drinking water
1.
2.
3.
4.

Policy implementation inefficiency

Red-tapism/Bureaucracy
Lack of awareness about government drives and initiatives
Lack of Knowledge of complaint redressal system

Lack of income generation opportunities

1. Mostly people are employed as labourers in agriculture field
2. Low return on handmade articles that are produced

11. Suggestions
Alternative sources of income
1. Encourage more self-help groups or co-operatives which will give them more opportunities of
earning livelihood. There could be groups especially for women who could earn for their families
by investing a smaller fraction of their time and effort. Some ideas would be:
2. Animal rearing - poultry (was already implemented in another village), cows, sheep etc.
3. Handloom industries - Making cloth/bamboo baskets/decorative articles. However, they would
need some training on these.

Schooling
1. Regularity of the primary school with adequate teachers would be the need of the hour. However,
given the fact that it might take some time to come up, the local youth who are educated but
unemployed can be asked to stand in as interim teachers of the community.
2. There could be an informal salary implemented for them. Not only will this give some support to
the non-existent educational infrastructure in the region, it will also be a alternate livelihood for the
few educated persons.
3. Further, it would hopefully encourage the children and the interim teachers to pursue further
education.

Healthcare
1. Mobile Rural immunization camps, Rural health camps
2. Effective coordination by mid-wifes during pre-natal conditions by reaching out to their homes (this
is in effect in some of other indian states). Educate the pro-active labour planning and ill effects of
home labour
3. Grade subsidization in post graduate medical entrance tests for government service in rural PHC
for a tenure of two years (this has been in effect in quite a number of Indian states). This is one
way of getting the medicos to penetrate the underprivileged rural areas.
4. Like many states, Jharkhand can ask the medical students to work as interns/full time for a period
of one or two years, post the completion of their medical education this way the students can
practice and give it back to the society, and the government can make up for their shortage of
manpower at least until a robust solution is found.

A brief report on village exposure visit - Organized by XLRI & Facilitated by TRTC