RURAL DEVELOPMENT

INTERVENTION

TOPIC: MENACE OF OPEN DEFECATION AT RAJA-DIH

(VFS VILLAGE)

SUBMITTED BY

SAIKAT GHOSH (P37159)

SECTION - B
A BRIEF BACKGROUND ABOUT THE VILLAGE

Raja-Dih urf Salempur village is located in Sonpur Panchayat of Katra Block of

Muzaffarpur District of Bihar. It is located 35 km from the District centre and 100 km from the
state capital Patna. It is surrounded by the villages of Bakhri to the east, Shiudaspur to west
Deogan to the south and Dhanaur to the North.

As per 2011 census, the total population and households of Raja-Dih urf Salempur
village is 1430 and 313 respectively. There are people of two religions, namely Hindu and
Muslims. The Hindu population is primarily divided into four castes Ram (Chamar) , Paswan,
Musahar and Halwai (Sah) . Ram (Chamar), Paswans, and Musahars belong to SC category
and Halwai belong to OBC category. There are 2 castes of Muslims Ansaris who belong to
OBC category and Sheikhs who belong to General Category.

Caste-wise distribution of population, households and BPL households

[SOURCE Census 2011, Mukhiya]

LITERACY RATE

[SOURCE Census 2011]

The major occupation of the villagers is that of Migrant workers to various states of Gujarat
,Maharashtra, West Bengal , Punjab , Tamil Nadu etc .Few are involved in agriculture all are
marginal farmers with less than 2 acres of land and also as farm labourers in the neighbouring
villages. Some of the villagers are involved in animal husbandry cows and goats. Few have
small shops in the village and at Dargah chowk market nearby. There are three teachers and
one Anganwadi worker and two rural medical practitioner as well.

THE PROBLEM
One major issue which disturbed me and two of my fellow batch mates a lot during our VFS
was the menace of open defecation in the village. Only about 30-35 households of the total 313
houses of the village had toilets remaining households of 280-290 defecated in the open.
The three kilo-meter stretch of the PWD road passing through the village, starting from
Dhanaur to Bhadaichowk , two of the adjacent villages could be found littered with human
excreta at any point of the day. We had to walk past this road every day to reach Raja-Dih from
Dhanaur .We were put up in Dhanour by our host organization simply because we couldnt
find a host family who have Toilets in their house in Raja-Dih. Based on the conversation we
had with the villagers of Raja-Dih e found it costed around INR 20,000 to build a decent toilet
in the village .They thought it was not worth spending that much amount of money given their
meagre income. There was no presence of Swach Bharat Mission in the village. Under Swach
Bharat Mission the villagers could reimburse up to Rs.12000 spent towards building of the
toilet. But first the villagers need to built the toilet themselves with cash which was scare.

We realized that it was not a behavioural problem but predominantly a monetary issue .The
villagers genuinely didnt had the resources to build the toilet all by themselves. There was no
assistance of any sort from the local panchayat administration. The Mukhiya of Sonpur
Panchayat admitted that they have not received any assistance till now under Swach Bharat.
The Muhiya of the panchayat belonged to Sonpur village while Raja-Dih had only one ward
member representing the village in gram sabha. All the major initiative of the government be
it MGNERGA, INDIRA AWAS, SWACH BHARAT were missing from the village.
As most of the men of the village where working in outside states as migrant labourers mostly
the woman, old and children where left behind in the village. Based on our primary survey we
found negligible representation of the villagers in the Gram Sabhas. The village had about 12
SHGs formed under BRLPs (Bihar Rural Livelihood Programs). Most were less than three
years old and just two of the SHGs had been linked to the nearby Uttar Bihar Grameen Bank.
The women had taken loan mostly to set up small tea kiosk, buy farm inputs to grow vegetables
to sell in the nearby market , few have also bought one or two goats from the loan availed from
their SHGs. These loans were small in amount usually less than INR 5000 and was inadequate
for them to build toilet using the loan money.
The men usually send money to support their families back in the village. Based on our primary
research we found most of the men didnt have permanent jobs and usually had work for six to
seven months of the year. They made about INR 5000- 7000 a month a contract labourers.
They could send back not more than INR 2000-3000 a month to their families.
Against such Political and Economic backdrop we as students of Rural Development decided
to do what ever little we can do on our part. We got women and children from 55 households
to sign or put their thumb impression on a letter to the Prime Minister Office requesting to help
these households get a toilet. What we did might sound nave but we felt sorry for these women,
children and old who suffered the most particularly during the night, rainy season and winters.
I have attached the Letter sent to the PMO and its subsequent reply at the end.

The Solution
The solution has to be designed together with the villagers. It has to follow a participatory
approach to Rural Development Intervention. Based on our field work we observed the village
is divided in four Tolas Muslim Tola, Paswan Tola , Ram tola and Musahar Tola . There was
a strong social bonding among the residents of the respective tolas. Many of them were also
related. The women formed SHGs usually with women of their own Tola. There was a lot of
bonding among these families.
Under such social condition it might be thought of creating Community Toilets along the lines
of Sulabh Sochalaya (Pay per use) to be built by the SHGs for the members and also managed
by the members themselves.

Most of the Tolas mentioned above has 60-70 households, with Muslim tola being the largest
has about a 110-120. If for every 10 households one community facility with five toilets can
be built, so a tola will have 5-10 such facilities based on the size of the tola. The women
members of the SHGs have to be involved in deciding the location of the facilities within the
tola. A mutually agreed amount of 1-2 rupee could be fixed towards usage fee which would be
collected daily/weekly/monthly as deemed fit by the members of the SHGs.

There can be a convergence of Swach Bharat Mission with BRLPs for this particular context
.Swach Bharat Mission can provide a Health and Sanitation Fund to these SHGs through
BRLPs at zero interest rate and which can be paid back as weekly/monthly instalments by the
SHGs.

CONCLUSION
In his book Putting the Last First Robert Chambers has emphasized the importance of
involving the community to solve their problem. Designing solutions with the local community
using local resources often yield far reaching impact than the usual top down approach. In this
particular case the villagers of Raja-Dih should be empowered to design solutions to their local
problem which in this case is the menace of open defecation.

Below is the letter sent to the PMO :

We got another mail communication around mid of March stating that the District Official has
been intimated to look into the matter and necessary action would be initiated.