Village Meeting - The Beginning of the Sanitation Programme :

A village meeting was held at Kodipuram on the 25th of March 1994. This meeting was attended by 40-50 people; the staff took pains to ensure that members of all castes including their leaders, were present (the Village Chief, the Ex-Karnam, and the earlier troublesome leader were also present). The villagers were informed about the programme, and their active participation was sought in the planning and implementation of the programme. For the first time, the villagers were receptive and agreed wholeheartedly to participate.

The very next morning, (26th), another meeting was held with the villagers, and a Village Sanitation Committee constituted. Before constituting the Committee, MYRADA staff explained to the villagers the role that the Committee would be expected to play, which was as follows:

a) To monitor the implementation of the entire programme in order to ensure quality work and people's participation as agreed upon;

b) To make all necessary payments for the works undertaken, and to assist with purchases.

c) To establish and supervise a maintenance system after completion of the works.

The villagers were then asked to suggest persons to be on the Committee. It was spontaneously decided that there should be representatives from each `street', and the following list was quickly drawn up:

A discussion was next held on the various tasks that would need to be performed, and responsibilities were assigned as follows:

After all this was finalised, a `Village Transect' was conducted. By this time, the Panchayat Union Engineer also joined in. The whole group walked around the entire village to identify all stretches along which drains were necessary. The first rough estimate, according to the Union Engineer worked out to over 4 lakhs which was far beyond the available budget. In consultation with the villagers, it was decided that certain stretches which did not immediately need attention could be dropped for the present. It was decided that for the SC colony, a main drain would suffice as the side streets were small and quite flat. The SC members present also appeared to agree.

The U.E. then took back the details of all measurements with him and worked out the plans and estimates. In order to avoid delay, he suggested that the whole works be treated as 14 separate works (with an upper limit of Rs.20,000 each) so that a higher official's sanctionwould not be required. This done, the final proposal was submitted at the Collectorate on the 29th of March 1994. By mid April, the first installment of Rs.90,000 was released to MYRADA.

Box type drains had to be constructed as this was the only type approved by the Government in Tamil Nadu and for which standard rates of payments were available. This was also the preference of the villagers. The entire excavation work was done free of cost by the villagers, as this was agreed upon as their contribution. This activity was supervised by the Committee which ensured that all the families on each of streets along which drains were to be constructed, contributed labour.

Once excavation was completed, the Committee worked out contracts with masons of nearby villages to take up the construction. The construction works commenced and proceeded smoothly and efficiently with the Committee holding regular review meetings (around 12 meetings in the two month period). During the meetings, the progress of the works was reviewed, a statement of accounts shared with everyone present, plans and decisions made, and based on the estimates worked out, a requisition given to MYRADA for the next installment of money.

Before commencement of the works, an S.B. Account had been opened in the name of the Committee, with Anantapadmanabhan and Sridhar as the Co-signatories. MYRADA kept transferring amounts to this account as per the requisitions submitted by the Committee, throughout the works. The Committee maintained clear accounts, as also minutes of each of the meetings held.

Two of the Committee members - Shivamallappa and Ramachandrappa - did exemplary work. A few members like Eliyas and Jayaram Shetty did not exhibit much enthusiasm, and very often were not even present at meetings. One noteworthy feature was the interest and hard work shown by Mahadevappa, who was not a member of the Committee (he is the Secretary of the Mahadeshwara Sangha). Mahadevappa agreed to help with keeping attendance, maintaining vouchers, making payments etc. and did the same very well throughout.

Problems with the SC Colony

In spite of members of the SC Colony being present during the initial planning exercise, at the very beginning of the implementation itself, they began expressing dissatisfaction because a few stretches inside their Colony had been left out. (These incidentally were not the same stretches as had been deliberately left out during the planning; these stretches had never been pointed out). On the 20th of April, a separate meeting was held with the SCs where MYRADA staff assured them that the matter would be looked into after completion of the programme, and if possible taken up with MYRADA funds, as itwas too late at this stage to be included under the DRDA activity. A map was also quickly drawn up and an estimate made. The SCs however were adamant and insisted that their stretches be taken up first because there was no guarantee that they would be taken up later.

While excavation on all stretches was completed, the SC part had not even been started. When the Committee pulled them up during a meeting on 26th April, the SC representatives simply stated that there was no point having the main drain without the side drains. At this point, MYRADA firmly told them that there was no question of taking up their work unless the work that had already been started was completed.

After this, they began to participate but continued to create problems -complaints, small delays etc. Finally, the Project Officer himself had a meeting with them where they were asked to clearly express what their problems were. When directly confronted like this, most of their grievances turned out to be imaginary ones. Having cleared the air, the P.O. once again assured them that the stretches pointed out by them would be taken up after the DRDA works were completed. After this meeting, the SC members started to behave in a more responsible and mature manner.

A few delays were also encountered during the implementation because materials were in short supply in the market and also transportation had to be across the State border. The DRDA part of the work was finally completed on 28th June 1994 after which the stretches in the SC area were taken up. At this juncture, a new problem arose.

Due to technical reasons, it was decided that the drains from the SC area would be connected to the drain on Doddahatti Street which was a Lingayat Street (See map - Annexure). The Lingayats refused to allow this! MYRADA decided not to have anything todo with this new problem - it was just made clear at a Committee meeting that technically what was feasible had been suggested but if the villagers had objections to that, they were welcome to arrive at their own solutions, (a drain in any other direction would have been against gravity), but any additional funds required would have to be raised on their own. The Committee members then discussed this among themselves, and managed to convince the Doddahatti Street people to allow the SC area drain to join theirs. Once this was sorted out, the new drains were also completed. The amount saved out of the funds sanctioned by DRDA was utilised for these additional works; in addition to this amount, Rs.5000 from the KVK SC/ST programme was utilised.

In May, the DRDA transferred the II and III installments of money (together) to MYRADA. After completion of all the works, the DRDA settled the bills with MYRADA according to the standard rates available with them. This amounted to a little more than had actually been spent, which meant that the Committee had undertaken the work at costs lower than standard official rates. From the savings, MYRADA transferred Rs.5000 to the Committee as `maintenance fund'.

Details of Work Undertaken

The Additional Collector visited Kodipuram for the second time, when the work was almost completed. He walked round the village inspecting the work, held informal discussions with people, and also held a formal meeting with the Village Sanitation Committee members.

Initially, it was decided that 2 persons (one for the SC Colony and one for the other areas) would be employed for the maintenance of the drainage system. To pay for the wages, Rs.2/- would be collected from each family of the areas concerned. This arrangement soon ran into problems. The person engaged to clean the drains (belonging to the Dhobi community) in the non-SC area was threatened with ostrasization by his community because he was taking up such a lowly job. Afraid of this, he promptly backed out.

Following this, the Committee contacted a scavenger at Talavadi to come in regularly and clean all the drains. This has been done once already. In the meanwhile, with the onset of monsoons, the rains have been taking care of the problem. It is to be seen how this arrangement works out in the long run.

Evolution of the Village Sanitation Committee into the Village Development Council :

The Committee's role in the management of the programme proved to be very effective and it was realised that it could provide a good forum for the discussion and management of a variety of issues and activities concerning the whole village. The Additional Block Development Officer who attended one of the Committee meetings had a discussion with the Committee about the new `Family Credit Plan' scheme launched by the Government (along the lines of IRDP). He requested the Committee to assist in the selection of eligible families. Following this, at another meeting, the Committee conducted a very effective Wealth Ranking exercise of the village - the process was so thorough that the ABDO who was initially sceptical was clearly surprised and impressed towards the end. The Family Credit Plan scheme became one of the points of discussion at the meetings from then on.

The Committee is now referred to as the `Village Development Council'.