The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : A unique village worth emulating

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 24, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Others

A unique village worth emulating

By P. Ram Mohan

MANTHANI (NIZAMABAD DT.), NOV. 23. Their unity is exemplary and problems besetting many villages can be solved to a large extent if the residents of this remote village in Armoor mandal have been taken as a role model.

They have never waited for anyone's help, either from elected representatives or from the district administration and embarked on solving water scarcity faced by their village by showing a unique unity.

Contributions

They collected contributions amounting to Rs.50 lakhs from about 400 farmer families and started constructing a lift irrigation scheme to pump backwaters of the Sri Ram Sagar Project to fill two village tanks.

Their determination coupled with the cooperation from the Village Development Committee made the mission accomplished in a short time. A Hyderabad-based industrialist, Raji Reddy, supplied pipes worth Rs.20 lakhs required for pipeline on credit without charging interest.

Mr. Raji Reddy deputed engineers working in his company to chalk out the plan and also to work for the construction of the lift scheme free of cost when the farmers' plea was turned down by Irrigation authorities.

Prevailing drought conditions for the third consecutive year and resultant failure of borewells prompted the farmers to think why shouldn't they use the Godavari water, says Nakkala Sreedhar Reddy, a farmer.

The farmers' contribution varied from Rs.1,000 to Rs.20,000 depending on the size of their land holdings. The landless poor, however, were exempted.

The then MP, K. Ganga Reddy, and the MLA, K.R. Suresh Reddy, had been invited to attend the foundation stone function. They promised help from the Government. Later, the former became the Ditchpally MLA and latter Assembly Speaker.

Another farmer, N. Chinna Reddy, says no help has come so far from Government and hopes that Speaker, Mr. Suresh Reddy, will use his influence for the release of at least Rs.10 lakhs to be paid to pipes.

Eloquent testimony

While the LI scheme needs two power transformers, the farmers arranged themselves one and want the Government to sanction another. The construction of a godown on their own earlier is an eloquent testimony to the unity among the villagers.

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