Indra’s Drishtikona (Viewpoint)

Dr. Trehan’s Prescription for Rural India

Posted : September 30, 2005 at 10:23 pm [IST]

I know Dr. Naresh Trehan of Escort Heart Institute, as he was one who carried out my bypass cardiac heart surgery in January 2000. When I was coming home, I asked him how long my repaired heart would work efficiently. His reply was very convincing. “Mr. Sharma, You are from automobile background. When you replace a cylinder head after regrinding the valve seat for engine overhauling, how much life you guarantee to your engine? Does that not depend on precaution you take while driving and periodic servicing?” Dr. Naresh Trehan is a big name in medical world of the country.

In a special series ‘India empowered’ in ‘Indian Express’, Dr. Naresh Trehan, the famous cardiologist heading Escort Heart Institute has made some very practical way out to empowering the rural India. India can’t be empowered unless rural India, where 70% of the population lives gets empowered.

“More important is to take charge of the second India: the rural population. It is essential to first create healthy villages. The definition would be: clean drinking water, sanitation, public toilets, waste disposal, hygiene education, vector control and schools, are essential to eliminate the disease burden on the rural population.

A model already exists. Hero Honda, CII and Escorts Heart Institute adopted the village Joniavas. Joniavas has 2500 residents and abuts the back wall of Hero Honda’s Daruhera plant in Haryana. Joniavas was adopted as a pilot project.

The audit undertaken showed it as any village you may have been to. The sewage from the village dwellings flowed freely in the front and back lanes, in between homes. The backyard of each home was the garbage dump and the hand pump from which the whole village used water was right in the middle of the sewage dump. There were several water bodies replete with mosquitoes breeding. The school had no wall around it. There were no toilets for the children. The girls would not go to school because of the fear of having to relieve themselves in public behind bushes. The road leading to the village had slush that was six inches thick.

After the audit, work was carried out with finances from Hero Honda; Escorts Heart Institute and CII provided technical knowledge and supervision. Over a two-month period, a pucca drainage system, garbage disposal system and a potable water pump was installed. A wall was built around the school. Toilets were provided for the children. A compacted earth road was built going into the village. The primary health centre was activated with constant motivation and supervision. The total cost was Rs 12 lakh.

The responsibility for maintenance was undertaken by the sarpanch with two volunteers. There is a monthly supervision by Hero Honda, CII and Escorts Heart Institute. Now multiply this 100,000 times over and we have a beginning for a healthy India. By reduction of the disease burden on the rural economy, this could have a great multiplier effect. To induce industry to do this: the rural population then earns more, they spend more and the whole economy moves forward.

It must be made mandatory that every major industry must adopt a village close to their factories and manufacturing plants, where a large proportion of the beneficiaries will actually be their own employees and their families. This is not a one-way street. Industry will feel the benefits.”

1. Can you imagine what this suggestion can mean to rural India, if the leaders of industry accept it? Let us talk of the country’s 500 largest corporations whose cumulative revenues added up to Rs12, 50, 000 crore in 2004-05. Can’t each of these corporations voluntarily adopt one village each and transform the village through empowering them into a model village? Will it be too much for them to do with resources available with them? Will it not give them a feel of actively participating in building a poverty free society? Many villages around them will start transforming themselves on their own.

2. Can’t some of the institutes of national importance such as IITs, IIMs, IIsc, ISB and BITS again adopt a village in its vicinity and build them as the model for the world community? Will it not be one of the remarkable experimentations of the world?

3. Why can’t the top 500 private schools and colleges carry out an exercise of transforming the rural education level by adopting school/s of one village each in rural India?

Rural India can’t be transformed by charity and subsidy. It is to be brought into the mainstream through empowering the people there in productive engagement through their skill building, education, and through motivation for self-employment and entrepreneurship.

- Indra

Category: Rural development |