REPORT ON RURAL DEVELOPMENT WORK IN MADURAI DISTRICT
J.C. Kumarappa
(9th June 1956. Source: Kumarappa Papers, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library)
I visited a large number of villages where work has been done under the Community Project Scheme, the Rural Development Programme and the National Extension Service Work at the Nilakottai Community Project Scheme, Athur Development Programme and Kallupatti Block.
As required, without presenting details, I submit my general reactions as to the quantity and quality of work carried out in these areas.
General: Most of the items taken up in these areas are non-productive, i.e., welfare schemes, medical or health units, educational and ameliorative works. As a rule the cost has been very high. The continuance, follow-up, maintenance and supervision after initiating the programme are very poor. The persons who have co-operated belong to a small section of the public, though moneyed and influential. The Harijans, who are notoriously neglected, still remain uncared for comparatively. So far, only the fringe of the problems has been touched. Much remains to be done.
Cooperation in these programmes has come largely from the well-to-do classes and so the works and amenities have mainly centered round their own sections of the villages. The poor are still standing apart suspiciously.
Water Supply: Wells have been cleaned and built up. Some new ones have been sunk. In some cases the surroundings of wells are extremely muddy and dirty because proper care has not been taken to dispose of waste water. It would be best, wherever possible, to provide for protected water supply. This can be easily done if storage tanks are built near the wells and arrangements made to fill these tanks by bullock lift and then people draw out water through taps fixed in the walls. A certain amount of co-operation must be obtained from the villagers to keep the place clean. As it is, even the new wells are not kept in good condition.
A few bathrooms near the wells have been provided and they are in use.
Drainage: A few villages have attempted to have well built gutters constructed. Disposal of the sewage has not been carefully attended to. The water is taken out, mostly to pollute the air and breed mosquitoes. Generally these gutters are not taken care of daily and in many places they serve as open latrines. Only in one or two villages the sewage is led into manure pits and utilized to prepare compost. In these places contracts have been given to prepare and sell the manure. This system should be more widely followed and carefully carried out. It is not good enough to have drainage built through the village. Satisfactory disposal is even more important.
Latrines: Where latrines have been built, the villagers have not taken to using them properly. People use the surroundings of the latrines rather than the latrines themselves. Wherever possible, trench latrines of the Wardha type should be popularised for family use. The soil conditions should be carefully studied before any particular type is decided on and the site should not be near any supply of water. I found some latrines built on the banks of tanks. This is objectionable. Here again the proper disposal of the nightsoil and urine have not been given due attention. The villagers as a rule do not appreciate compost making from such material. A considerable amount of education on the subject is needed and even then it is doubtful if the users of the latrines themselves will undertake this work. No paid scavengers should be employed on this work. Farmers should come forward to take up this work as a form of valuable manuring. Development work should not be introduced before the villagers are ready for it. Intensive adult education is essential if we wish to attain any degree of success in our attempts to advance the conditions prevailing in the villages.
Educational: Considerable interest has been shown in the field of children’s education. Basic education is not being spread as fast as it should. Until this is done we cannot expect whole-hearted support for improvement from within.
Much effort has been directed towards provision of school buildings. I am afraid that their enthusiasm has driven the people to extravagant ways of providing good buildings. In these matters, we must constantly keep in mind the capacity of the villagers to carry out annual repairs and keep them in proper trim condition. Elaborate and expensive structures will ultimately result in dilapidated buildings in a few years. These buildings should not be more expensive than the average house and should be on the model of schools in the Ashrams, costing about Rs. 5/- to Rs. 4/- a sq.ft. This limit should apply also to village public buildings like godowns, public halls etc. If more elaborate structures are desired, the expense of such constructions should be exclusively borne by the wealthier section and not spread over all the people by pro-rata contributions. Well built platforms round trees etc. to provide meeting grounds for radio listening and such like purposes is an extravagance which the villagers can now ill afford.
Animal Husbandry: Though veterinary aid has received more attention than medical aid for the people, yet, in most villages the cattle health does not receive as much attention as their importance to the requirements of the villagers’ daily activities would demand. Country stud bulls are being provided, which is a change for the better from the old mode of keeping foreign breeds and building up mixed bred herds.
This policy of encouraging and improving local breeds should also be followed in connection with poultry. Eggs and milk should first satisfy local needs before being exported to towns. Nutrition of children, rather than financial considerations, should direct our policy.
A good beginning has been made by introducing fingerlings in local tanks.
Tanks: Most of the Harijans depend on tanks for their water. This is an unsatisfactory state of affairs. All wells should be opened to these underprivileged people. The approaches of these tanks are not guarded against pollution. Many of these tanks do not hold water all the year round, thus placing those who depend on them in a precarious condition. Attention to the needs of these is not emphasized in these developmental schemes.
The irrigation tanks are as a rule silted up and eroded. Not much attention has been paid to these. Large parts of these are dry most of the year through. If these tanks are desilted four or five feet, much of the cry for water will cease and the farmers can get two or three crops a year where even getting one is a gamble today. Attention to these tanks will give us control over floods and reduce erosion. If properly advised and guided, I am sure, the villagers will gladly extend their cooperation in such schemes. This is one of the problems crying for immediate attention but is much neglected. This is a programme that will quickly raise the production of food several fold and thereby better village conditions in a very short time. The bunds and weirs need repair. The Public Work Department and Irrigation Department can do much in this direction.
Health: There is hardly any well organised provision for the care of the health of the people—preventive or curative. A few attempts at putting up dispensaries are being made, but the provision and supply of medicine is far from satisfactory. Well-trained medical personnel are more or less absent. Thanks to the public spirit of a few indigenous medical men—Ayurvedic and Unani—some relief is available.
A few good maternity wards have been built up at a cost much above the capacity of the villagers, but taking the existing need into consideration, their use has not been as large and wide as to help much. Well-trained midwives and dais have a very great field open to them.
Roads: More emphasis has been laid on road building, as it presents a spectacular appearance to visitors. While it is an improvement on the existing conditions, sufficient care has not been bestowed on the social and economic changes that follow the means of quick communications. Adequate information has not been gathered on this aspect of rural development. On the production side, raw materials for mills have been increased, while food production has yielded place to the cultivation of cotton, sugarcane and tobacco. Chuna making and the preparation of country tiles have been replaced by cement and Mangalore tiles and asbestos sheets. The old time potters and others engaged in house-building industries have been dislodged. Rice-milling is making inroads into the more interior parts and sugarcane cultivation is driving out paddy. These lead to serious deterioration in the pattern of the village economy and attract cinemas and coffee shops causing big holes in the villagers’ purses. It facilitates movement of village population towards towns as the buses and lorries approach nearer.
Road development along with transport facilities has shown a great tendency to commercialise rural life and urbanise their mentality. This will prove a dangerous trend if not checked immediately.
Many culverts have been provided but their construction has to be modified to bring them within the capacity of the villagers to repair them it ought not to be necessary to call in the engineer and an expert mason to set right minor damage to these structures.
Motor traffic should be diverted from the village site so as to avoid dust nuisance and other attendant evils. Bus stops need sanitary care.
Agriculture: While all the above items are good they do not further the economic condition of the villagers directly. Rural development must be essentially linked up with the planned programme of the country. It should, in fact, be the basis of all planning. At present, it appears as a spasmodic effort at decoration. It should be an integral part of the Planning Ministry. Such a change will give these schemes a complete reorientation and make rural development a fundamental feature of the country’s uplift rather than be a work of ornamentation.
At the moment, hardly any work is being done to enhance the economic condition of the rural parts other than occasional efforts at planting a few trees, or starting some agricultural demonstration centres by highly salaried staff. An agricultural demonstration centre must justify its name. Most of the men in charge are not qualified to give a real lead to the people. Their one qualification seems to be the holding of a degree from some agricultural college. This is hardly enough. Such men should be given an average farm with a pair of bullocks and asked to demonstrate in actual practice how such a farm can support a family. There should be no further help given to such workers other than what is made available to all other farmers. A salaried Agricultural Demonstraator is a farce. He is a standing monument of a parasite. Ordinary farmers should be attracted to his farm for inspiration as to what they themselves can do on the same footing. Today the Demonstrator only demonstrates how a man can live comfortable on an unearned income. This is not our aim.
There are no facilities for soil and water analysis. In the absence of thse no artificial or chemical manure should be used. Now such fertilisers are being supplied at favourable rates. They may prove ruinous in the end. At present the government seems more anxious to dispose of their fertilisers than to observe the evil effects of their use in the course of years of indiscriminate use on all kinds of fields.
Such Vignana Mandirs as have been started have no equipment or adequate staff.
As regards pests and diseases of plants there is hardly any provision to help the farmers in need.
We have already noticed the unpardonable neglect of the irrigation tanks. Their catchment areas have to be properly surveyed and the collected water should be conserved to supply at least three crops a year. Every farmer should be able to stock the needed seeds and drains for consumption for three years ahead at least. Until this condition is fulfilled agriculture cannot be said to be on a satisfactory basis.
Water supply depends on an efficient forest policy. The government is overanxious on the revenue production of forests rather than their being a conserving ground for water. Every village should have its common lands properly taken care of.
Agricultural prices do not provide for adequate standard of living throughout the year for all the requirements of the farmers’ family. These must not be fixed by speculative foreign markets but by the producers primarily, if the present exploitation of the rural population is to be stopped.
Hardly any efforts are being directed towards these ends. Ignoring these, any rural development will remain a mere costly hobby.
Till now public works and amenities have received much attention. In our country, where the essentials of mere existence are denied to the millions, any rural development programme that has not got its teeth into agriculture and village industries will remain only a superficial veneer and not be of much use.
Industries: Welfare of villagers rests on the occupations open to those who are not fully employed on the land. These industries provide the needed complement to work on land. A few stray attempts are being made to help with the Ghani, Khadi work, bee-keeping etc. But these are not considered an essential feature of the development and suffer from a lack of emphasis. At Chinnalapatti, the whole weaving industry depends on artificial silk yarn imported from Italy. This is a sad reflection on the impotency of the government to protect and safeguard a countrywide essential industry. All village industries will have to be resuscitated to put life into rural parts. The sooner government realises this fundamental fact the better it will be for the country.
Finance: The whole scheme is top heavy financially, what with highly salaried officials and expensive equipment. The costs of public works are high as a good deal of the material used is bought in the market.
Old time government officials used to expensive ways should not be employed in this rural work where their example to the younger generation is demoralising. The Revenue Department officials have introduced a regular gliding scale of illegal commissions in distributing grants etc. Summary steps are called for to stop this rapidly rising menace. A villager applies for a loan of Rs. 500/- for a pair of bullocks. It would take about nine months to materialise. He has to part with Rs. 200/- of it in various tips at different levels. He then spends Rs. 500/- on his bullocks. This state of affairs, of course, may be notable exceptions from honest dealing. However, a high handed method of dealing with this deplorable state is immediately called for.
Generally speaking, the atmosphere round officers and the Gram Sevaks is not one of love for rural people and their life, but one of their own employment and advancement. In a measure, these programmes have provided an opening for the educated unemployed. Much attention has to be bestowed in the selection of personnel. Administrative efficiency is not the only qualification.
General Remarks: On the whole, these schemes are faithfully carried out, but the general plan lacks careful coordination with the country’s overall plan. It needs the full-hearted support of the centre to make these schemes worthwhile. The possibilities are great, but it languishes for want of a goal and a purpose. We trust the government will take this work seriously and make this department serve the country to its fullest capacity. There is a great part women can play in it but at present their role is insignificant. The workers need proper guidance and the urge of an ideal and a compelling goal. Will these be too much for the government to provide?