Hyderabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with sarpanches from across the country via video conferencing on the occasion of National Panchayati Raj day. Among them were three women sarpanches who are doing stellar work in their villages to contain the spread of COVID-19 and also support the village folks in meeting all their requirements. Impressed by the assertive measures taken by these three women sarpanches, Modi said that such leaders are the need of the hour. The three women explained their methodologies and shared their ideas with the Prime Minister.
Priyanka Das Medankar
Priyanka Das, the Sarpanch of Medankarwadi, Pune, on the second day of lockdown itself made sure that the villagers were taking required preventive measures. Each and every corner of the village was sprayed with ‘Sodium Hypochlorite’ liquid, to avoid the spread of any virus and bacteria.
Under the ‘Skill India’ program, she selected a few women volunteers and got them trained in mask making. And then these stitched masks were provided to the villagers of Medankarwadi without charging a single penny.
She also set up a ‘Quarantine’ centre in the village, as a preparative measure for the epidemic.
She had further taken all the requisite steps to make sure that social distancing is being practised amongst the villagers. The ration/grocery stores and vegetable markets were set to open every alternative day in place of a daily basis.
She took the help of volunteers through whom vegetables were distributed at the doorstep for all those who cannot afford to come out of the house.
In addition to this, another good aid done by Priyanka in this difficult time is to provide sanitary napkins to women in the village.
Priyanka's actions have impressed the Prime Minister and he further advised her to see that the farmers get minimum support price through the National Agricultural Market (e-NAAM) Technology.
Varsha Singh
The village of Nakti Dei Bujurg in Uttar Pradesh is one of those villages in which the lockdown norms are being practised with perfection since it’s implementation. Singh has come up with a special plan to the rightful implementation of the lockdown in the village.
In order to bring all the villagers on a common platform, she had successfully utilized the services of the workers and volunteers of ASHA, Anganwadi and ANM.
Together with them, she went door to door explaining what precautions should be taken to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
She had personally stitched face masks along with others and distributed them to the villagers, free of cost.
She made sure that the poor and beggars are fed with the help of donors. When the Prime Minister inquired about the status of various beneficiary schemes such as the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana, PM Kisan Samman and Jandhan Yojana schemes, Varsha gave details regarding the exact number of beneficiaries in the village.
Pallavi Thakur
Pallavi Thakur is the sarpanch of Hara village in Punjab's Pathankot that lies on the Indo-Pak border. Thakur took affirmative action as soon as the lockdown began.
She set up a team of youngsters and joined them personally, to oversee the restrictions of social distancing and isolation being implemented in the village.
This team made sure that all the villagers stay indoors and that no people from outside the village enters the village.
It is the harvesting period in the state of Punjab and the farmers have been facing great difficulty in selling their crops, which made them quite distressed.
To counter this problem, Thakur got in touch with the sarpanches of neighbouring villages along with the buyers of the harvest and came up with a solution. She arranged tokens for the farmers to help them go to the market and sell their produce at stipulated timings. This way, social distancing was also practised, along with the farmers comfortably selling their products at the right prices.
The Prime Minister applauded the effort that was being put in place by Pallavi and others.
He also urged her to take measures to reduce the use of urea for crops, thereby making them organic. He further suggested that young village heads like Thakur should be a guiding factor to rejuvenate the farmer lives.
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