Dates

Site(s) visited/ Venue

Details of the Respondents

Main Observations/ Activities/ Discussions

Reflection

27 October 2014, Monday

Palampur

1. Bipin Bhardwaj 2. Sakalani

Social Activist Owner of Holiday Home, Hotel

. Brief about the organization, How India has its own culture:

. Different and rich Greatness of Indian culture and its credibility

. Self-sufficiency and development of Indian villages since the Colonial era

. Indian Trade

Example – In pre-colonial era India was one of the largest exporter of steel and London bridge is built by Indian steel. The perfect town planning in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley Civilization and foreign trade between Harappa and Mesopotamian civilization etc. We had well developed port town during Harappa civilization called as Lothal which is now located in Gujarat. Self-sufficiency of Indian villages were disturbed since the British colonization when food crops were replaced by cash crops for the benefit of British. Our trade was recognized all over the world. There was demand for Indian products in world market. So the India was globally linked through trade routes. Many world recognized traders were present during pre-

. Local Elections During Chola period

. Different perspectives regarding the concept of development

independence period as well as before British came to India. We have discovered some inscription on the wall of temples in south India which was inscribed during Chola period. These inscription tell us about the decentralization of political representation and how the election process debarred criminal from the process of election. Definition of development differs depending on the various interest groups like rich and poor which are under consideration. For example –In the case of tribal, their view of development is different from the government perception of development regarding tribal.

28 October 2014, Tuesday

Himachal Pradesh: Chandad

1. Arvin 2. Sarika 3. Veena 4. Omkar Nath

Social Activist and Coordinator Coordinator’s wife Samridhi’s Pradhan Village Miller/ Veena’s husband

. Model village is a village which has basic amenities with hygiene, infrastructure facilities and employment for the people.

Today there was a discussion regarding model village. The organization Samridhi asked us to do survey regarding model village. Firstly, Model Village is a sustainable rural community that is able to generate and maintain the resources necessary to improve its level of wellbeing and happiness without depleting

. Disaster Management: Awareness campaigns and timely weather casting reports for people.

economic, social & environmental values. To achieve this it requires villagers to be aware of resources around them to cater them for further improvement in economic level of village. It will also arrest the migration of young population from village. So the concept of Model Village strengthens the sustainability pillars of Livelihood, Infrastructure, ecological sustenance, identifying and sustainably accessing the resources and Services. The main difficulty is not to convert those resources into useful product, however difficulty is with the marketing of that product where villagers have less communicable and human resources, who has good knowledge about marketing. When I asked question to Pradhan, what do you prefer, government spending money on ecological recreation or building roads. She preferred ecology over the roads. Because their daily life depends on it. While road will provide them the secondary and further benefit. Disaster management is the major problem faced by Himachal Pradesh. According to National Disaster Management Authority, H.P is prone to disasters like earth quakes, Land Slides, Floods. Moreover Himachal Pradesh fall in seismic zone 4 and 5 which points

towards very high damage risk zone and lack of preparedness and preventive measures would have serious consequences. So as students of development our group thought there should be more awareness campaigns for people and timely warnings from Weather casting bureaus etc. What we found out during survey, there is no education or any kind of exercise has been imparted on villagers about how to response to the natural disaster of any kind like, floods, landslides and cloud burst, which are more specific to mountainous ecology. Recently nearby that village landslide has occurred where 6 homes got completely buried under soil.

29 October 2014, Wednesday

Sambha 1. Nirmala Rana 2. Milkiram Rana

Village Coordinator from Samridhi (Ex- Pradhan) Ex Rtd. Army Captain – villager

. Decline of Agriculture

The major problems of village samba are water scarcity and Stray animals attack on agriculture fields. The problem of stray animals attack is linked with depletion of forest resources because due to depletion, the animals from the forest are coming to agricultural fields for food. Finally as result people stopped cultivating their lands because of two reasons: stray animals attack and efficient working of PDS. So

. Samridhi - Nirmalaji

. Caste discrimination in the village

. Role of cooperative

societies for the credit.

. Government Audit and Inspection

people are dependent on PDS for food grains rather than cultivating their fields. Main Crops – Corn, Rice, Wheat Basically Samridhi works for SHG groups. Women are formed in to 10 members group and they used to prepare pickles and daily usage products. The organization Samridhi helps them by marketing their products and profit is shared with members of SHG. Samridhi provided employment for women in the village and at a same time the standard of living and livelihood of poor is increased. Harijan are invited to upper caste marriages but they have to carry their own utensils. In village samba SHG groups are more dependent on Cooperative societies for credit rather than national banks because of collateral documents asked by national banks. Actually the interest charged by cooperative societies is comparatively high than national banks. But then also people are interested to go for cooperative societies because Collateral pressure is less compare to national banks. Money which is invested by Samridhi, Hence they should have complete control over it without any interference by any government authority. While government always interfere and tell the members where to invest and how much to invest.

. Samridhi and labor laws

.Electricity Rates, LPG Connection

. Equality among Male and Female members in household.

Government will always try to interfere and find some mistakes in the working to extract money illegally. However the members of Samridhi are not so much educated to understand all the rules and regulation of government. There should have officer who brings awareness through training to these women. Shareholders of this self-help group are very poor. They wanted to work for organization because they find it attached with their ecology. How are you going to apply labor laws to such organization? It’s a seasonal business hence they cannot employ on permanent basis. One of the cheapest electricity state, because of hydroelectric power station – Tehri Dam. Each household is connected with electricity. Rural electrification is almost completed in and around village. LPG connection is also there in each household. Still they use the biofuel which is available in forest for free for heating water, cooking food. They are not aware of health and environmental problems by using biofuels. As women are involved in agriculture activity and also started working in SHG, we can find less differences in male and female members in household. Women are respected and get involved in society. Some socio cultural practices are still there.

. Disaster Management

. Depth of the River basin

Those male members who supported their partners to do something on their own and gave freedom in home, are successfully working outside the house. E.g. in SHG. Awareness among villagers is very less regarding the action to be taken after disaster. As it is a remote place, it will take time to receive external help. Which can convert disaster into catastrophe. Ancestors had imparted some knowledge regarding how to act in earthquake conditions. E.g. saving your head. Because of climate change and big dams new kind of disaster has been emerged during these days like cloud burst, unseasonal flooding. Villagers are absolutely unaware of this kind of situation and response to them. Government should step in not only helping them in these situation but also to increase the awareness about responding to these disasters Sand and stones from the river belt has been taken away (Khanan) for the development (Carrying out construction activity) of other distinct areas. Hence after each monsoon season its depth has been increased. Hence people lost irrigation benefits from the river. Earlier rivers were flowing with the level of villages. Now the river basin has been gone down by 100-400 feet. However it is scientifically proved that as Himalayan are young mountain series hence inundation

due to flow of river is greater than any other part. Hence government should invest in decreasing the flow of river. By building Bandh and afforestation to maximize the percolation of water.

30 October 2014, Thursday

Sambha 1. Amit 2. Shushil 3. Vasundara 4. Pallavi

B.com Student/NSYU Vice - President B.com Student – Palampur College Anganwadi Aunties Kabirpanti houses (Home Maker)

. Lack of awareness

about how does reservation to caste in education institution work.

. Discrimination among upper caste (Brahmin and Rajput) and lower caste (Kabirpanthi and Harijan) in village

. Unequal distribution of resources among upper and lower caste.

He does not know how the caste reservation works. He was of the view that only the reserve number of seats can be occupied by the schedule caste population. While the population of schedule caste was significant in that village. Lower caste people won’t get invitation from upper caste to participate in their marriage ceremony. Because sometime in the past they asked upper caste not to discriminate lower caste on eating food. Lower caste wanted to eat food with upper caste side by side. But the idea was rejected by upper caste, because they refused to give them the same status what the upper caste has in society. As lower caste were the landless laborer during pre-independence era. They got land during government program of distribution of land to landless.

. Political view of lower Caste People

. Problem of low salaries to Anganwadi Workers

But the size of that land is very small which can only sustain the family without any economic gain. Now the land is fragmented among their children and they almost become landless individually. These lands got degraded over the period of time and there was no efforts made by any government authority to reclaim the land and make it fertile. There is no irrigation facility available hence they are depended on monsoon. Hence the economic resources of these people got degraded which placed them at the bottom of society again. As these lower caste people got land during congress regime, Hence without knowing about the candidate they cast their vote for congress always. Punchayat Pradhan belongs lower caste family. She was also placed by the upper caste people. However these upper caste wanted her to give resignation as she acted independently without listening to upper caste people. Upper caste in this village supports BJP candidate. Anganwadi workers believe that they are doing the work similar to teacher in school, Hence they should be paid in equal with teachers. But we found one contradiction, we visited this

. Maintaining the data about the schemes is done by workers along with the awareness they create among pregnant women.

. Programs handled by Anganwadi workers

. Criticism of Samridhi:

People want to join SHG

center many times and we didn’t find any student in Anganwadi which is enrolled with 30 students. They were also concerned about their credibility. As these workers are not government employees. Still villagers consider them as government servant because of lack of awareness. The main task of workers is to take care of children and pregnant ladies, make them aware of health care and its services available in vicinity. They also provide them nutrition through government scheme like ICDS, WIFS. People are mostly unaware about the other governmental beneficial schemes. Hence they could not draw benefit from the centers. Most of the time money allocated for scheme has not been spent.

- Integrated Child Development Program

- Beti Anmol Yojna - Nutritional program for

adolescent girls - Janani Shishu Surksha

Yojana - Mother Teresa Program - Remarriage assistance - Mukhya Kanyadan Yojana

for BPL - Weekly Iron and Folic Acid

Tablet distribution As Samridhi has policy to have 10 women members from each village. Samridhi extends its

but there is a cap-10 members

shares to those who wants to work with the organization. Many lower caste women wanted to be a part of it, but somehow because of filling the quota of each village they were not admitted to the organization.

31 October 2014, Friday

Sambha 1 Sanjay 2 Neeta Singh 3 Balder Singh 4 Damodari Devi

Care World Welfare Society worker Private School Teacher Govt. School Headmaster (Middle School) Govt. School Head teacher (Primary)

. Concept of SHG lead

to Women Employment

. Problem with agriculture fields

. Problem with private school

The NGO, Care World Welfare, which works for SHG groups and Conducts health checkups for village people. The SHG groups are involved in candle making, papads, weaving, instant stick making. So in this way CWW is providing employment to BPL women. But the women from these communities who works for SHG has to do lot of work, They could not get sufficient time to take rest. They could not give attention towards household. Hence these women are unhappy with the organizations. According to survey of CWW the major problem faced by samba is stray animals attack on agriculture fields. It is very difficult to run a school in remote area, where the population is low and people

. Teachers are not happy with Right to education act

. Condition of public schools

could afford their children paying higher tuition fees for the school. Hence these school always needed external funding. In case of private school at Samba it is supported by Swami Vivekananda Trust financially. The act says that student should get promoted to upper class without clearing the previous standard. This will lead future problem for students. They will fail after completing their 8th standard. This also created extra burden on teacher, As well as the learning capacity of each student is different hence those who take more time to learn will get stuck in studies. There is a provision for 25% poor children to be enrolled in private schools. In remote villages this condition make the private school more paralyzed because of lack of funding. Condition of these schools are much better than private school, because funding is not a problem with these schools. Quality of teachers are better than private schools in remote villages. As number of families try to enroll their children in these school to get free education.

1 November 2014, Saturday

Sambha/Haldra

1 - 2 Sanjay Guleria 3. Anita Kumari

Rtd. Vidhan Sabha Deputy Sec.- Villager Shraddha Founder Panchayat Pradhan

. To keep away the Animals from attacking the agriculture fields. We got different responses from different people.

- Shradhha Foundation

- Villager

- Rtd. Secretory

. Implementation of

government schemes

Solar Fencing is the solution for staying away the animals from agriculture fields. As fencing will have minimum electric shock, hence animal won’t come after they come to know about this system. But this need very extensive and strong wiring because power of animals are so strong that they can enter the field by force. It will damage the whole system and reconstruction cost is also very high. Villagers on their own cannot implement this project on their own, IT will need government financing. Whole village should have been fenced by government by protective wires. Individually they are capable of doing this thing, but they are waiting for government to invest in it. The main reason for animals coming in fields is, decreasing fruit plants in forest. Hence government should invest in raising the fruits plants which is native to ecology. The real poor are not getting the benefit form government schemes. For example one family got Rs: 70,000 from the scheme called Indira Awas Yojana (House building Scheme). But the family is not willing to take money because

. Election of Pradhan:

Actual power is with few upper caste people

. Animal Mela

. Census of Sambha

of some wrong perceptions like if family takes Rs: 70,000 their name will be removed from BPL list. Moreover people are not aware of provisions like Unemployment allowance in MGNEREGA. Since Samba village is a reserved constituency. Schedule caste elected representatives are being controlled by the other upper caste people like Rajput’s and Brahmins for their own benefit. Once in a year it has been arranged. May 13 to May 21. Where cows, oxen, cattle are exchanged. This Mela arranged at Bhavarana, which is 25 km away from the village. Child Population (29) - ICDS (0 to 6) Months - 1 M, 1 F

Total - 2 (0.5 to 3) Years - 5 M, 7 F

Total - 12 (3 to 6) Years - 7 M, 8 F

Total - 15 Population (468) Male – 236 Female – 232 Category Wise Population General - 153 M, 152 F Total - 305 Schedule Caste - 65 M, 66 F Total - 131 Other Backward Caste - 11 M, 7 F Total - 18 Migrants - 7 M, 7 F Total - 14

Adolescent Girls Population 11 to 14 Years - 12 15 to 18 Years - 10 Total - 22

2 November 2014, Sunday

Dharamshala/Mcloed Ganj

N/A N/A Tourist place which is very well developed. SHG in these villages can market their products at such places where tourist visits on daily basis. Hence their material will get carried away in different corners of the world.

3 November 2014, Monday

Chandad

1. Bipin Bhardwaj

1. Social Activist

. Model Village Concept

. Concept of Swaraj

We had discussion with Bipinji on our field exercise and our findings. We discussed about the model village. To build model village, first we need to identify the resource available in and around their village. Then make the sustainable effort to access to those resources. This will generate the identity for the village and it will lead to the path of self-autonomy. It has two concepts

1. Management (Extraction and preservation) of resources by themselves

2. General assembly should take all the decision about the management of these resources and elected body implement those decision.

This will lead us to inclusive participation, making this democracy a working democracy where there is respect for each

AZIM PREMJI UNIVERSITY

Masters in Development (Semester 1)

FIELD PRACTICE COMPONENT (Daily Reflective Journal)

Name - Kuldeep Haridas Ulhe

Semester 1 - Section 1, M.A. Development

Date - November 18, 2014

Filed Work - Village – Samba, Taluk – Palampur

District – Kangra

State – Himachal Pradesh

. Agro – Forestry

. Bureaucratic Dependency

and everyone’s idea about development. This makes the community sustainable and progressive. As decline in agriculture resulted into people shifted their focus on agro forestry. They are interested in planting teak so that it will give them bulk income after its maturity. Bureaucracy has been decentralized and it reached up to the grass root level. It is now interfering with daily life of people. Hence the people are made depended on government for each and every problem’s solution. It is difficult to find the people directly interacting with socio economic needs of the community and solving the issue on their own. Hence we do not find the old practice of solving the problems and innovative local based solutions.

Main Task - Study about socio, political and ecological components

Study about the concept of Model Village

Disaster Management at Local Level

Duration - 27th October to 3rd November.