RURAL DEVELOPMENT INTERNSHIP

REPORT
Village: Durgwadi
Taluka: Chiplun
Division: Konkan
District: Ratnagiri
State: Maharashtra
Introduction:
The Internship to Ratnagiri’s durgwadi was absolutely a very good initiative of the Core UBA
department of Rajiv Gandhi college. This internship which based on the rural development
improved may of my soft skills. The some of these skills are interacting with people and managing
people. My quality of convincing people also flourished. This internship has definitely resulted in
my overall development. Therefore, according to me this internship was worthy of my time spent
on it.
DESCRIPTION OF DAILY ACTIVITIES:
Day 1:

The UBA team left from CSMT at 7:10 AM. The Team reached Chiplun at around 1:30 PM.
There was a training held for the cataract detection at the primary health centre (savarda). This
training session began with introduction of Dr Patel, which was done by Mister Ram (member of
Samta foundation). The team, then reached Durgewadi by 6:00 PM. There on the first day we had
an informal talk with the sarpanch.
The details of the training are as follows:
/* day1 training details form kishan’s laptop*/
Day 2:
The day started with our visit to the so-called school 2. This school included students ranging from
class 1st to class 7th. The count of students was then noted my me. Along with that I tried to take a
note of the interests of the students present .The day we visited the school ,it was the reopening.
There were many sequences of events conducted at the school. The Team attended the event where
the students were welcomed with flowers and even. The two new admission students in class 1 were
felicitated with an Arti (an Indian ritual) and even Professor Madhura mam was asked to do the Arti.
The following event was that of Text Books distribution. Afterwards, the Team was then given the
dais and Professor Madhura mam addressed the students and teachers about the missions of UBA.
Later, I introduced myself and the UBA and took over the dais for the Science Experiments.
Afterwards, I explained the concept of twinkling of stars along with the movements of earth and
moon around the sun. I even tried to explain about eclipses. Those who were interested in science, I
tried to tell them about the Fibonacci series (by making them count petals of flowers) and also about
importance of mathematics in science. This was followed by the sports events which were the
lemon and the spoon and musical chairs. All the students were very contended and happy after all
events. While, leaving the Team distributed the books, sketch pens and the biscuits.
The overall the first half of the day was grand success.
During the second half of the day, Durgwadi team was divide in two halves. The first half included
Professor Madhura mam, Ajay Arjunwadkar and Lajri Lohar. The second half included Kishan
Tripati, Atharva Kantak and Harshal. The former was responsible for ERP and Cataract campaign
promotion along with book distribution to the balvadi students, whereas the later carried out the
solar street light survey.
/*info from atharva and kishan, harshal about the survey*/

Day 3:
The beginning of the day was at the school number 1(balvadi). This school had students ranging
from class 1st to class 4th, along with nursery for younger students. The team went to this school
with the sarpanch madam. The fun events like Lemon and spoon along with passing the parcel were
held at this school by the team. In passing the parcel, the student who used to have the parcel when
the music stopped were asked to do certain activities. The activities included singing, dancing,
poem and storytelling. These events helped students to gain confidence and every student over there
enjoyed the event.

The team then went to the panchayat’s office to collect information and also to make them aware
about the current government policies and schemes. The professor Madhura mam introduced the
crowd about the UBA. I, then tried to reach out to the people by talking to them at the individual
level. The team member Harshal then gave the presentation on the government schemes on the
laptop. There was load shading, so the projector was not working. There was some sort of
misunderstanding which lead to criticism at the end of government schemes presentation.

Afterwards, I explained the cataract test to find possibility of cataract. I also introduced the crowd
about the SAMTA foundation and their social work. The team, then informed about the timings of
the doctor at the closest primary health centre(savarda).
/*info from atharva and kishan*/
The day 3 ended successfully and the team was contended and satisfied at the end.

Day 4:
The team was given a farewell by the sarpanch and we left for the Chiplun bus depo.
The train arrived Chiplun station at 7:10 PM and team left for Mumbai.

Interpretation/Observations:
Day 1:
• The nature of people is very helpful and kind.
• The network issue is a major problem, the network is available in very small patch of the
village.
• The water crisis is also at its peak, since from nine days before the team arrived there was no
water. The villagers had to travel down the village to get water.
• The villagers also have live stocks like cows, bullocks, hens, etc.
• There is no proper drainage system in village, but they have closed toilets outside every
house.
• The villagers still use wood and have stocked branches of trees in their houses for the
cooking purpose.
Day 2:
• The water in the nearby river was completely dried out.
 • The life of students was quite difficult as the schools were at long distance and there was
lack of transport. The students even cleaned their schools daily and were asked bring the
goods from nearby shop.
• The majority of students were interested in Marathi and English. The knowledge of students
related to science is scarce.
• The students are more focused and excellent in sports and few of them participated at the
taluka and district level.
• There were three new teachers which included principal madam and only four teachers were
there in the school.
• The parents of the students are mostly farmers or they settled in some metropolitan cities
like Mumbai and Pune.
• There are many trees like mango, cashew nut, jackfruit, Carissa Carandas(karvanda), black
plum(jamun).
• There is presence of the calcite stone in vast quantities.
• The solar lights which have their batteries above the light were in working conditions. The
other lights which had batteries close to bottom were damaged.
• There are 11 functional bachatghats and 2 non-functional bachatghats in the village. The
each bachatghat had approximately 15 members.
Day 3:
• The school 1 had only two teachers. The one was for the balvadi and other for all the
remaining standards.
• The one of the reasons for the criticism was due to rumour that there were additional charges
200 rupees for the presentation. So, beware the rumours spreads like wildfires in this village.
• The villagers were very conscious about their health and also about cataract, because few
villagers had already gone under the cataract operation.
• The village panchayat already had a software for bachatghat that used to calculate the price
of the commodities including GST.
• The gram panchayat officer also had some knowledge of type of land suitable for farming of
different crops.

Conclusions and Recommendations:

• The villagers should be asked to hire a person from the village to collect fruits and others
natural resources(calcite) from the entire village and their own house and pay him some
amount. This would help them earn extra income and side by side increase employability.
• The natural resources are not used at all. There should be an implementation of the biogas
plant here, as there is lots of natural waste like leaves, fallen branches of trees and rotten
fruits, Cow dung, etc.
• The solar lights are also not in good condition so, it is of high priority to repair them.
• The next time the UBA team should conduct basic course on electric and plumbing for
villagers as there is lack of professionals to do so. These professional charges them high
rates, hence they should at least know basic plumbing and electric maintenance.
• There should be even a water harvesting facility, as they face water crisis during summers.
• The scope of food processing is very high in this village, so we should implement food
processing projects in this village.

This my opinion that next time we visit the village, it should be for some kind of
implementation. The reason for it is some villagers might possibly lose patience, if implementation
is not conducted.