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Choto Shimulia Project: |
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The Choto Simulia in Bolpur project was the result of Pannalal Dasgupta’s long involvement with the local people of the area. Having heard of the distress of the people, he rallied the community under the banner of the Tagore Society which the locals called “Thakur Samity” as Rabindra Nath Tagore was a personality well known to many of the people there. It was about 12 kms. away that the Poet Laureate founded his university, Shantiniketan.
Originally, 16 villages between the Ajay and the Kopai rivers were the project area as TSRD, aware of its limited resources, preferred to operate at the micro level. The strategy was to organize and empower the people for undertaking development work. Village committees were formed for micro level planning, implementation and reporting.
In an arid and traditionally food scare area like Birbhum, TSRD redevised local level food models. Community grain banks were established and named ‘Dharmagolas’. Employment for both men and women was organized around the vital commodity of food through the Food for Work program.
From this, TSRD moved on to Education through Adult literacy classes and the establishment of night schools for children. Seeing the poor health of the local children and their mothers, the Organization started ante-and post-natal camps for mother and child. In turn, this led to the training of village health workers who were an integral part of our outreach services.
Despite Birbhum being a drought prone area, Chhoto Simulia situated between two rivers is periodically hit by floods. Thus, emergency relief for both drought and flood is also a priority. At the advocacy level, TSRD managed to persuade the Government to strengthen over 20 kilometers of embankments along the Ajoy river. These embankments helped in controlling the periodic floods in the project area.
In a land of farmers with small land holdings, most of them found it impossible to invest in year round deep bore irrigation. Using its excellent community rapport, TSRD organized small farmers into agricultural groups and invested in deep bore wells and pumps. Thus, at a fraction of the cost, farmers now had access to year round water supply. This was so successful that the Government replicated the model extensively. Similarly, the Society influenced the Government to build two weirs on the Kopai river for a water lift irrigation scheme. Moreover, two canal lift irrigation schemes, the excavation of both the Kana river and local silted up ponds were carried out by TSRD for both irrigation and pisciculture. In an agriculture focused program, the next step was the training of farmers, the need for soil testing facilities, the supply of improved seeds and subsequently, conservation and silage.
Ponds belonging to the rich were traditionally off limits to other villagers. TSRD persuaded these rich families to enter into a tripartite agreement between them, TSRD and local Swabalamban Samities (Self reliance Committees). Thus, through a cost/profit sharing agreement, pisciculture, horticulture and the water table would all be enhanced through a single project.
The need to upgrade the vocational skills of the local people was strongly felt. Thus, trainings on handloom, poultry, tailoring, biogas installation, bee keeping etc. were organized. From one training centre, this spread to four more. Soon, there was a demand for more specialized vocational trainings from the villagers.
With the formalization of the Kyoto Protocol, TSRD moved into greening. The sapling mix included fruit, timber, firewood and fodder trees and the entire program was implemented by the local people with the cooperation of the administration.
Under the WatSan programme, TSRD was partnered by UNICEF in setting up a sanitary mart which continues even today after the withdrawal of the earlier subsidies. This was complemented by a GKW-CES, Government of West Bengal, water supply programme. With different components like awareness building, social mobilization and capacity building, nine Gram Panchayets now have access to safe drinking water.
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