Uchamadihi an upcoming model village, a success story

The village Uchamadihi is situated in Banspal block of Phuljhara GP, Keonjhar district, the tribal dominated village consists of 121 Households. With more than 4 years of fruitful intervention by the organization named Prakalpa in the village, has literally made the villagers to get assembled and plan things in organized ways, many villagers feel they are now literate enough to understand the cause for deficit of development in the village. With the onset of the Forest Right Act in the Keonjhar district, the organization has played a crucial role to devise the FRC in the village with the presence of Sarpanch & forester in 2008, the organization has taken a step ahead to educate 15 FRC members to claim the forest right. With the assistance of the trained FRA field coordinator (Ranjan), total 93 claims was made demanding 198.87ac land at the same time community claim was made demanding 303.01 ac land. However, the engagement of project coordinator & field coordinator to each GP and disseminating the FRA process smoothly has made a positive impact on the villagers. Out of 93 individual claims 73 have received individual patta, although there was mistake done by the Government officers in printing the villagers name incorrectly, with the assistance of the field coordinator the pattas were send back to the Government officers to retrieve the actual names & amount of land claimed. The villagers are now waiting to receive the rectified pattas and joint verification for the community rights. One of the noble initiatives undertaken by Prakalpa was documenting micro-plan in the villages for land development activities under NREGA. The field coordinators were trained to prepare micro-plan with consultation with the villagers. This literally gave the villagers a scope to raise issues on water problem for cultivation and resolving it under the micro-plan. A Rain water management plan was then prepare with the help of village map & implemented for the first time in the Uchamadihi village. With full participation of the villagers and support from the Prakalpa staffs the plans are now been implemented successfully which is note worthy to be acknowledged. The villagers are now await to irrigate their agricultural field with the channelized water systems and save their crops during rainy season which is planned under the micro-plan, through this plan many will get benefit to cultivate more cash crops & vegetables.  The villagers have now planned to include other land developmental activities under the micro-plan in the coming days. The villagers appear to be optimistic about their village development & improving the socio-economic condition through the available NTFPs & program under NREGA. If such invariable facilitation is been provided to the village by the Prakalpa then soon the village will be recognized as a model village in the block. The there are now three SHG groups functioning in the village, one village education committee to check & balance the school drop outs, Gaon Kalyan samiti to discuss the village development issues and a Forest right committee to claim forest land. With the support from Prakalpa these committees are now more organized & functioning in regular manner. The intervention of Prakalpa in the village has made a visible impact as many are train to calculate the rain fall density, aware on Government schemes, legal ways to handle land issues & other income generation activities.