This was written by me and one of my friend:-

            

The villagers of Malkheda earlier used to defecate outside in open. With the advent of JalSwarajya Prakalp, which was implemented in order to enable the villagers to solve their water supply & sanitation problems with the help of Govt. considering the principle of "Our Village Our Water"(“http://www.mahawssd.gov.in”), the village has now  become open defecation-free. This project had started in our village in 2004 and has completely changed the sanitation scenario of our village. Although triggered by an external agency (government) this required collective action on large scale from the part of villagers.

We thought of citing this incidence of collective action because for this project to be implemented all the decisions are to be taken in Gram Sabha which requires at least 40% quorum.

The aim of JalSwarajya Prakalp is to:-

·         Create a 100% open defecation free village

·         Solving problem of drinking water supply.

For implementing it, it required coming together of villagers from all the strata of society. Also it required action, consensus and collective monitoring to sustain the effect.

If the individuals were to solve the problem by themselves, it would have been implemented only at the household level which would not have served the purpose of project. Also only a few people would have participated voluntarily.

In the implementation of this project all the sections of society were involved in the action. People used to come at one announcement to the common meeting place to discuss things. As told by the villagers, there used to happen around three Gram Sabha every week and people used to participate enthusiastically. One astonishing fact was women’s participation in the gram Sabha, because in our village otherwise the participation of women in any social activity like Gram Sabha is almost nil.

Participation of people belonging to general category and their say in the decision making was high. SC and OBC population were although involved but did not have a larger say in the proceedings in general. But there were a few people even from these communities who were actively involved in the programme due to their good rapport with the fellow villagers.

The result of this community action was ‘benefit for all’. The benefits derived from construction of common wells and water tanks for clean drinking water, were not inclined towards a particular economic group or a particular caste.  No caste is outcaste or considered untouchable with respect to access to common resources.  Efforts were put in collectively as one village, for the village. Construction of toilets was an important part of the intervention. People, who could afford to build a private toilet adjacent to their houses, did build it. For those who could not, funds were obtained from village level organizing committee formed under JalSwarajya Prakalp, for construction of public toilets.  Every household had participated in the process and every household reaped the benefits.

All the groups of society feel good about this arrangement of coming together which has made their village a clean village. They are proud of the unity that they had exhibited during the implementation of the scheme. Even after six years of its completion, they still remember it as one of the important events in the village history.

During the implementation phase some households across all castes and economic groups were not ready to co-operate, but due to intervention by the key persons of the village they also came together.

The punishment and fine for violation of rules by any villager were decided in Gram Sabha and were agreed upon by every villager. If a person is found defecating in the open, in spite of public toilets being constructed, that person would be fined Rs.100/-. The fear of being fined forced people to use toilets. Apart from economic measures, defaulters had to face social alienation.

 A village level committee for conflict resolution called as the ‘Tantamukti Samiti’ was also formed during this period. The villagers believed in solving the matters in the village itself.  People belonging to different economic and social status are members of this committee. But usually the decision taken by the influential people, who are also the members of this committee, are accepted as decisions.

Participatory leadership was observed in the village during the project. Everybody came together and chose the members of the samiti who would head the project through Gram Sabha and they were respected and heard of by the villagers. A woman was made head of the committee and she participated very actively throughout the project.

This collective action had changed the village scenario. After the construction of water tanks in the village for household supply as well as for supply to the school, people got access to clean water for four days a week. The village earned the title of being an ‘Adarsh village’ or an ideal village in Jalna district and a sum of 2 lakhs was awarded to the village. This amount was utilized for covering the drainage lines of the village. A small documentary was made in the village and was telecasted on Doordarshan to show the benefits of Jalswarajya Prakalp.

 After this collective action at large level, the villagers understood the importance of coming together and cooperating for a community task. All the subsequent events which followed this event even on small scale in village saw greater participation of people.

According to our view, what triggered success of this collective action was the will of people to come together and bring a change. The win-win outcome which this project was to create also triggered people to participate enthusiastically. It was a programme which aimed at benefit for all and not for a single section of society. People also exhibited abundant mentality, e.g those who did not enough money to build toilets were funded by others.

There was also a sense of pride attached with it, when they got “Nirmal gram Puraskar” , which helped in successful monitoring years after the project was implemented.