Smt. Surajbai Kushwaha

Name of Interviewee : Smt. Surajbai Kushwaha Date of Interview : 19/12/07 Place of Interview : Her Residence Identification : Sarpanch of Sunpura village (We, a group of 5 students reached the Sarpanch‘s house to lake her interview.) Interviewer: Good Morning Madam, we are students of R.I.E. Bhopal. As you know, we are here in Sunpura under our project in Working with Community. We want to take your interview, if you can spare sometime for us. Interviewee : (Smiling) Ok. Interviewer : What is your name? Interviewer : Surajbai Kushwaha Interviewer : What is your husband’s name? Interviewer : Lallu Singh Kushwaha. Interviewer : When have you been elected as Sarpanch of the village? Interviewee : I was elected in 2006. Interviewer : How many villages come under this Panchayat? Interviewee : 4. Grunt, Madhopur, Sunpura and Vighan. Interviewer : What is the total population of all these villages? Interviewee : 1275. Interviewer : What are the populations of Sunpura? Interviewee : 700. interviewer : How many voters are there in this village? Interviewee : 300. interviewer : How many houses are there in the village? Interviewee : 75 Interviewer : How much schooling have you done? Interviewee : I have never gone to school but I have learnt to read and write under Adult Education Programme, which had stopped 3 years back. Interviewer: And your husband. Interviewee : He had passed 5th class. In the meanwhile, Mr. Lallu Singh Kushwaha has also reached home with one of our friends asking for the interview of the Sarpanch. (Information given by him to our friend: He has passed 7th class & his wife 5th) Rest of the interview of Sarpanch was taken in the presence of her husband who helps her in carrying out the works of Sarpanch. (We can say that he is the working Sarpanch.) He was helping her to give the data and information. Interviewer : What is the literacy rate of the village? Interviewee : 25% approx. Interviewee: What according to your records are the literacy rates of males and females? Interviewer : Male literate (mostly up to 8th ) - 40% Female literate (mostly upto 5th ) -15% interviewer : As told by the headmaster (Sunpura School) almost all the children of the village are going to school but what about the children who have passed 8th class? Interviewee : Presently, they have to go to Vidhisha for further studies. But we have placed the proposal with help of our C.O. Mr. Prakash Acharya for getting grant of Rupees 3.50 lakhs for opening 9th and 10 here. Our, who stays in Lashgarpur. Interviewer : But we found that most of the parents are not sending their daughter to Vidhisha for secondary education due to absence of sec. school here and the lack of transportation. What are you doing about this? Interviewee : For that we can only talk to them but cannot force them as they have their own reasons. Interviewer : What about the education of the illiterate adults in the village? Interviewee : Once a Samittee had started in which the village ladies started to learn something. But as time passed the village ladies did not participated in it and finally the progaramme stopped. It was run for 2-3 months from 7:00p.m. — 9:00 p.m. and only 10-15 ladies have participated in it. Interviewer : We have seen very few hand-pumps in the village and the taste of water is a bit odd but the water we drank from a house was different. Is there any other source of water? Interviewee : Yes, the water you have drunk must have been of the supply line from the Grunt village. It is been timely & daily supplied to the houses of this village. Interviewer : What about the electricity in the village? Interviewee : There is electricity in the village but it undergoes power-cut daily between 10:00a.m. — 02:OOp.m. and 06:OOp.m.— 09:OOp.m..And all of us, especially the women, are unhappy about it as they feel that electricity is mainly in the same time in the evening. Interviewer : According to you, what are the major problems of the villager? Interviewee : Sanitation, Higher Education, Transportation, Lack of Hospital (in the village or in any nearby village) & of course the biggest one- Poverty. Interviewer : We have been told by many women of the village about one more serious problem of alcohol in this village. Is it true? Interviewee : Yes. It is true. But the laborers, after working throughout the day can not be stopped of doing so. Interviewer : Do they not know about the harmful effects of it? Interviewee : They know it very well but are bounded by their habit. interviewer : What about the sanitation facilities? Interviewee : Presently, 30 houses are having toilets. Interviewer : Good but what about the others. Government has launched scheme for making toilets in the village areas. Interviewee : The amount given by government is falling short for it but there is one NGO namely LUPIN which gives loan for making toilets and Houses too. Interviewer : What are your plans for the further development of the villages? Interviewee : We have we have placed the proposal for getting a grant of Rs 1 .20 Crores for making — a water tank for school, a pond in the village, Ghat at the bank of the river, a canal from Sunpura to Vighan and a hospital. Interviewer : We are glad to talk to talk to you both. Thank You very much for your kind co-operation and valuable time you have given us. INTERPRETATION: They are very co-operative. The Sarpanch and her husband are very much concerned about the welfare of the village and villagers. I found that there are many problems in the village and the Sarpanch along with the villagers are trying to sort them out. But the problems like Lack of Secondary School in the village, Adult education, lack of hospital in the village need an urgent attention of the Government as without their help they can not be sorted out.