A Village and A Villager!

What constitutes a basic level of public service delivery and what factors influence the provision of it, if we every citizen is entitled to it?

A couple of days ago, I wanted to see malaria prevention steps in action, so I decided to go around and see some villages in which malaria spraying was taking place. So I went to Munagalapudi in Y Ramavaram (Lower) Mandal. Although I did not find the spraying happening (details on malaria related issues in a later blog), I happened to have a chat with a villager who greeted me with enough smiles to self-invite myself for an extended conversation. It started with I enquiring if the village has been using the mosquito nets distributed to them last year. He told me that he has been using the net. By now, I have been become used to hearing that people have been using nets, but when asked to show their nets, they would show me brand new nets. I hoped that at least this villager would show me a net in use, but he also disappointed me.

Anyways, I started having a chat with him about his life and the living conditions in the village in general.  His village is located around 15 km away from the mandal headquarters Y Ramavaram (Lower). It is around 10 km away from the nearby main road (BT road), which connects Y Ramavaram to Addateegala. If he has to find an auto, he has to travel on foot at least 5 km by the gravel road across streams to reach the neighbouring village Burugupalem. There is no school in the village; so the three kids in his neighbouring house are not going to school, because their family feels that it is too troublesome to send their kids to a school 5 km away by foot one way. After all, they have a point, don’t they?

He has a family of four, with a wife and two sons. One who dropped out of school 10 years ago after finishing 7^th class and an other who is studying in a nearby ashram school.  When enquired why his son dropped out, he seemed to suggest no particular reason. In a sense, he did not care much about whether his son studied or not. Hopefully he does not let his younger son follow the same path and he assured me he would ensure that his younger son completed his schooling.

I enquired what they would do when someone falls sick. They don't have the "coin box phone" or any bsnl landline. So they have to walk 5 km and hope that they get an auto-rickshaw or 10 km and find one on the main road. They hire this auto to come to their village, pick up the sick person and take her to the hospital which is 15km from their village. If there's an urgency, the village is left with no choice than to carry the sick person through some means or the other and walk for 15km! I haven't seen any, but I just hope that at least one of them have motorbikes which they can use to ferry themselves to the main road and call for the public ambulance, which might not be readily available though!

He has an acre of paddy farm and around an acre of cashew nut farm. The assets are so low that he does not take any credit from the moneylenders, perhaps with a fear that he cannot repay. He lives in a mud hut, which is spacious, but not ventilated enough to keep the smoke out of their chimney away from the living space. So the roof of the hut and the supporting structure near the hut is completely blackened. I sort of pointed to him the health risks of not letting the smoke out and suggested him to create some ventilation. Let’s see what he does…!  His hut has essentially two rooms, one for storage I guess and the other a bedroom. In the open space, there are two cots (madatha mancham) of jackfruit flesh, one heap of cashew nuts, one heap of jackfruit seeds and two heaps of paddy being dried. It is interesting to note that the dried jackfruit flesh is used as a vegetable for curries, dried jackfruit seeds for making dal. The paddy is dehusked manually to make unpolished rice (dumpudu biyyam). The paddy grown in his one-acre plot is consumed internally by the family.

He tells me although he gets 35kg of rice per month in ration being a Konda Reddy (Primitive Tribal Groups or PTG in administration parlance), it is not enough and he supplements his produce to the ration. There is a strong opinion that tribals consume more than non-tribals, perhaps attributed to the strenuous physical activity that fills their lives while staying in these forest areas. Interestingly, some of the employers in Rajiv Yuva Kiranalu (the flagship programme of Andhra Pradesh State Government that provides employment to the youth), are wary of providing employment to the tribal youth because their food expenses are higher than normal!

I started enquiring about his weekly shandy purchases. He has to travel to the mandal headquarters, which is around 15 km. There is one auto rickshaw though in a neighboring village Burugupalem, which probably leaves only after some 10 or more passengers hop in to economise on trips. They take this auto to go to the shandy every Monday. This is also the day where they get their rations from Burugupalem. This is also the day where they had to get any of their work with government offices done. Of course most of the work they have with government offices gets done through a person in the village who is better educated than the rest of them. Because the village doesn’t have adequate travel/transport facilities, they try to economize on every work they have by taking it up on Monday itself. They hire a van to bring back their purchase from shandy as well as their monthly ration from the neighbouring village. Knowing how public service delivery works, it is more likely than not that the work in government offices doesn’t happen in a day and the ration shops hardly issue rations as per their intended schedule. Therefore, they are troubled with multiple trips. And it is not uncommon that they let go of their entitlements or revisit the shops or offices only after a week on the next Monday.

I asked him about the amount of purchases he makes every week. Apparently it ranges from Rs. 200 a week to Rs. 1000 a week depending on how much income he has in that week. In addition to his meager plots of land, he works as an agricultural labour and goes for NREGS work. The NREGS works does not seem to be happening in the village, as the wages are being given too late and therefore the people are refusing to take up NREGS works. Now this amount spent on shandy also includes the money spent on toddy. I asked him why spend on toddy at the mandal headquarters when he can get locally available toddy at his own village. He gave me quite a commonsensical answer that he drinks toddy while starting from his village, but becomes thirsty again by the time he reaches the shandy and doesn’t want to drink water, so the only option is buying toddy there.

I then turned to understanding what festivals they celebrate. They get themselves new clothes stitched for Pongal and Gangalamma Festival which comes in the month of May. Gangalamma festival is their hunting festival. Actually, the number and range of animals which are available for hunting have gone down, but their traditions continue! As part of this festival, they erect a jackfruit using four bamboos. It is believed that the male who hits that jackfruit using an arrow from a distance of around 150m would be good in hunting. Accordingly the hunting team splits themselves into two groups, where one group is just meant to make some sounds to lead the animals to a particular direction where the second group is already positioned. By the time animals approach the second group, they are positioned adequately to hunt them. Is it dangerous? Of course it is! Apparently, wild buffaloes come in couples and when they find humans they start hunting you back. Even if you climb a tree, one buffalo starts hitting the tree with its skull while the other buffalo waits to attack on you when you climb down. Apparently, you are forced to climb down when the tree starts shaking either because you are afraid that the tree might fall or you might get itching with the bugs on that tree falling on you. But fortunately, they were no human fatalities in the village recently, as part of this hunting.

Given that there are no assets at his home, I asked him how he spend his idle time. He told me it is spent chatting with fellow villagers or just sitting at home. There are only two TVs in that village of 25 households. So the village distributes itself and watches TV in those two houses. Apparently the villagers go and watch TV until they are done regardless of whether the family owning the TV is done watching or they are fast asleep. When the last villager is done watching the TV, he/she would wake up one of the members of the family that owns the TV and asks them to switch the TV off and close their doors. If they have a wish to watch a movie in a theatre, they need to travel some 75 km one way. I sincerely hope they find the tickets whenever they embark on such a journey! Ooh yeah, may be not in this village, as it is too interior, but screening movies on white screens in the “Swades” style is still pretty common in these villages!

Before leaving that village, I wanted to see if he needs anything from the Government for himself or for his village. If this were a village from the non-tribal areas, I am sure I will be given a big list of demands. Perhaps it is the tribal nature where they are mostly content with what they have, he gave me a simple answer (the tribal nature too is changing, but the more interior you go, the lesser you find a change). He told me smilingly that he is content with what he has; just that they have a problem with the drinking water availability in the village and someone from the government came and made a note of it. So he expected that to be solved soon. With that note, I said goodbye.

Come to think of it, this village is clearly cut-off from the rest of the world by lack of transport facility, schools, hospitals, telecommunications and every amenity we could think of. The village only has 25 households. So is the government right in not yet providing the village with the above facilities? Is every citizen entitled to such services? Or does entitlements depend on cost benefit ratios of provision? If it is cost benefit ratio, what is the maximum we are willing to spend to secure a specified benefit? What is the principle on which we decide which village gets transport, schools, hospitals etc.? I am sure if there was adequate transport and telecommunications facilities in the village, the village would have been on a different developmental stage. After all, who would let their little children walk 10km for attending primary school amidst hilly terrains across streams? So how should we decide who is entitled to what?