(d). 4th Posting - PIREP, Nayagram, Midnapore

I joined PIREP or Pilot Intensive Rural Employment Project, at Nayagram on July 15, 1974, and had continued till the project was wound up on March 31, 1976. 

PIREP was a central sector pilot project taken up in the backward areas at the rate of one for each state. In West Bengal, it was Nayagram, the most backward area of the state with a large concentration of tribal population (40.01% by the 2011 Census). 

It was a multi-disciplinary project designed primarily to provide rural employment while creating rural assets in various sectors like Roads and Tanks, Forestry, Soil Conservation, Animal Husbandry, Fishery, etc. Besides overall supervision of the Project, the Project Officer was responsible for the execution of Road and Tank schemes. District-level departmental officers executed schemes in other sectors through their designated officials. Departmental officers were posted at the Project level to oversee the execution of Soil Conservation and Small Irrigation schemes. The Project officer was to provide labourers for the other departmental schemes under PIREP. In that way, the project office also acted as an employment exchange in a limited sphere.

The project headquarters was situated at a small place called Kharikamathani in a rural backdrop. The Block Headquarters was at Baligeria, a place 1.5/2 Km away, and the Police Station was at the Nayagram, almost an equal distance from Project Headquarters, on its other side. The population of Kharikamathani was meagre. There used to be a weekly haat at Kharikamathani, where villagers from around brought commodities for sale.

There was hardly any suitable accommodation to stay at Kharikamathani. My predecessor in office, a batchmate of mine in service, had lived in a two-roomed house in a barrack-type structure, which also accommodated some other officers and offices in side-by-side rooms. I occupied the house vacated by my predecessor. There was a compound wall enclosing the rear side of the house. Nayagram had no electricity or water supply. Dug wells were the only source of potable water. We had a ring-well, fitted with a hand pump for our exclusive use on our premises. Nayagram, being in the laterite zone, had good-quality water. Summers in Nayagram were severely hot and dry. The sun would be fierce and parched the earth. I used to send my wife and child to my eldest sister-in-law’s house at Bulbulchandi, Malda, during the summer to save them from the scorching heat.

The Subdivisional headquarters Jhargram was located at a distance of about 80 Km from the Project office. We had to visit it now and then to draw cash from the treasury and related work. To reach Jhargram, we had to cross the river Subarnarekha at Kutighat, 25/30 Km off from the Project headquarters. We crossed the river with the vehicle on a raft. There was no bridge over Subarnarekha at Kutighat in those days. During the rainy season, when the river was in spate, we had to detour via Baripada in the border state of Orissa for a distance of 230 Km to reach Jhargram2. On one such occasion, when I was returning from Jhargram after some official work, I could not cross the river Subarnarekha at Kutighat owing to a sudden high spate in the river and had to spend the night in Hatibari Forest Bungalow. I had my family, including my younger sister-in-law, with me. We had to detour through a stretch of Orrisa, including its forest areas and the forest area of Jhargram, to reach Hatibari. The next day, we returned to the Headquarters via Chatinasole, the Block Headquarters of Gopiballavpur.

Once, while driving along the Kharikamathani-Kutigaht road to Jhargram, I ran over a Billy goat sprinting across the road. It was early morning, and the goat suddenly came running out of the roadside bush and fell in front of the car. There was no way to save it. That was the only accident involving the loss of life while I was steering a vehicle.

There was an All India Conference on PIREP in New Delhi on Feb 22, 1975, which I attended along with other concerned officials from West Bengal.

While in PIREP, I had a short course training on Agriculture Labour at the National Institute of Community Development, Hyderabad (later named  National Institute of Rural Development), in January 1976. At that time, I visited Golconda Fort and Hassan Sagar. The security warning system of the fort was demonstrative of the high skills and the technological knowledge of the people of that age. The sound of claps at the security post at the entrance reverberated through its hollow columns and was heard at the watchtower, a few hundred feet above, and vice-versa.

At that time, I also visited Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad. The Salar Jung Museum is the third largest museum in India, housing the biggest one-man collection of antiques in the world. It is well-known throughout India for its prized collection belonging to different civilizations dating back to the 1st century. The museum building had 38 galleries spread over two floors. The exhibits on different subjects were displayed in separate galleries. There were Aurangzeb's daggers belonging to empress Noor Jehan, emperors Jehangir and Shah Jehan, the turbans and chair of Tippu Sultan, furniture from Egypt, and paintings on display. Among the sculptures stood out the world-famous statue of Veiled Rebecca by G.B. Benzoni, an Italian sculptor who had made it in 1876. Rebecca's beautiful face was visible hazily through a marble, gossamer veil. It was a great experience to view this matchless work of sculpture. It was so lively that it made one wonder how such an animated form could be carved in marble. A bewildering variety and array of clocks greeted the visitor in the clock room. There were ancient sundials in the form of obelisks to huge and modern clocks of the twentieth century. Others in the range varied from miniature clocks which needed a magnifying glass to imbibe their beauty and complexity to stately grandfather clocks from as far away as France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Britain. A visual delight was the musical clock Salar Jung had bought from Cook and Kelvey of England. Every hour, a timekeeper emerged from the upper deck of the clock to strike a gong as many times as it was the hours of the day. There was a separate gallery for paintings, where paintings of renowned artists, including those of Jamini Roy's famous ones, were on display. (Background info Source: Wikipedia) 

I had also undergone a short course training at the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, sometimes before my above training atthe National Institute of Community Development

A national event with far-reaching consequences occurred during my tenure here. It was the “Declaration of the State of Emergency in India”4 promulgated on June 25, 1975. There was already an emergency due to external aggression of 1971 in force when it was declared. Some of the causes for the declaration of the 1975 emergency were inciting calls to the military and the police not to obey the orders of the government and interrupting the normal functioning of the government and the Legislature, violent political activities to stop the democratic functioning of the government. There was even an attempt on the life of the then Chief Justice of India. Although emergencies brought discipline in public services to some extent,  there were too many excesses and oppressions in various spheres of public life. People did not approve of it. Finally, on  March 21, 1977, the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi lifted the emergency.

The project was wound up on the 31st of March,1976. An officer from the DM, Midnapore's office, took charge of the documents and the assets on the afternoon of March 31, 1976. I left Nayagram on the 1st of April 1976. 

I enjoyed working on the project even though the place lacked the amenities of urban life, and I had to take the additional trouble of sending out my family every summer. The project allowed me to work with tribal people and know their way of living.

Nayagram was a backward Development Block in the undivided Midnapore district. It lacked the bare necessities for a decent life. The most glaring of its deficiencies was the absence of basic health needs. The place had no pharmacy or hospital except a Primary Health Centre at Nayagram. If my child fell ill, Jhargram was the nearest place to take her for treatment. Fortunately for us, we had no severe illnesses during the period of our stay here. I was, however, attacked with chickenpox while working here. 

The place did not have electricity, a potable water source, a source of entertainment, or any social or cultural life. 

It is praiseworthy for my wife to have stayed at a place like this for nearly 2 years without even a murmur and that, too,  with a small child and at the prime of her married life.

Before I end this chapter, I  reiterate that the special pay attached to the post here was at the cost of all comforts and amenities of civilized life.  

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