Developing a modern village in Sunderbans- Mukti Gram

Back in June 2020, as I was working from home, one day I had a wild idea. I thought, ‘Why am I living in the city just to be indoors? Why don’t I go live somewhere closer to mother nature, my birthplace, Siddheshwarwadi, a small village in Maharashtra? It will improve my health, my mind and my soul as well.’ I felt this was a good idea. Go back to live in village. But is it practical? Is it?

Mahatma Gandhi once said “If the villages perish, India will perish too. It will be no more India. Her own mission in the world will get lost.” India’s urban population has risen from 17.1% in 1950 to 29.2% in 2015. On top of this, a report from UN speculates that India’s urban population will overtake the rural population by 2050.

One of the reasons behind this trend is lack of development and employment opportunities in present day villages in India. With this background, we are seeing the need to develop villages in better, sustainable ways. It is important to cherish the villages and the heritage of India in them.

The Sunderban areas of West Bengal has lacked development opportunities over the decades and towards this objective, Mukti, a socio-economic development organisation, are developing Mukti Gram, a modern integrated village. Purbaashridharpur village, devoid of many basic facilities like Transport, Education, Health and Hygiene, livelihood etc., is being developed as a model village by Mukti.

What is a model village?

Key elements of Mukti’s model village are

• Sustainability
• Community development
• Technology
• Connectivity

Main pillars of model village interventions are

• Empowerment & Capacity Building of Communities
• Access to Quality Services
• Improvement of Infrastructure
• Promotion of Sustainable Livelihood Opportunities

And the operational model is based on

• Economic
• Human
• Social
• Personal

With this well-defined plan for the model village, Mukti has plans to

• prevent distress migration from rural to urban areas in long run.
• provide easier, faster and cheaper access to urban markets for agricultural produce or other marketable commodities produced in such villages.
• contribute towards social empowerment by engaging all sections of the community in the task of village development.
• development of essential infrastructure in the village through active engagement & partnership with public and private sector stakeholders.
• increase sustainable livelihood opportunities to the families and support the entrepreneurs to have easy technical, market and financial linkages.
• improve the access and quality of services which are essential for survival, development, protection and participation of children, families and village community.
• build and enhance the capacity of children, youth, caregivers and various community structures such that they can actively participate in the decision-making processes for the development of the village and exercise for their rights.

along with other objectives.

Success at Mukti Gram

Some noteworthy works that have been ongoing are,

1. Yearlong treevolution initiative through cutting and grafting of flower plants.

The aim of the project is to cover entire villages with different kinds of flower plants. This initiative is done for transforming villages to eco village.

2. Construction of model houses at Mukti Gram to withstand harsh climates.

Mukti has constructed 3 cyclone tolerant houses on prototype basis under the guidance of an architectural firm. The village is prone to frequent cyclones and the impact is huge enough to affect the lives and livelihood of the community.

3. Mukti Gram Clinic.

Patients are being treated by the doctors at Mukti Community Clinic at Mukti Gram. The clinic has served 1000+ patients since January through local clinic visit and 200+ patients with global panel doctors from across the globe with various specialty clinics.

President of Mukti, Mr. Sankar Halder, during an event at Mukti Gram said that, “Model village does not mean only the beautification of any village but beyond that. Money alone does not convert a village into a model village or ‘Adarsha Gram’.”

“A conceptual model village is one where villagers act as decision makers, partners and beneficiaries with multi-sectored, multifunctional and integrated development to achieve holistic and sustainable development backed up by futuristic and progressive skills leading to higher levels of productivity and improvement in overall quality of life.”

Mukti has already planted trees, installed lights on roads, made houses, created nests for birds, planted garbage bins for village beautification, created job opportunities for the villagers, built study centres for the students, built health clinic and so on.

The future

Mukti is working on building community health care centre, school, agricultural centre and many more.

Thanks to MUKTI for taking an initiative through this project and setting up an example for more of us who will march back to villages and try to make them “Sujalam Sufalam” again.

Find more about Mukti Gram here: Mukti Gram, A Modern Integrated Village | Mukti (muktiweb.org)

If you want to support MUKTI, please donate here: Donate to MUKTI causes | Mukti (muktiweb.org)

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