Popatrao Pawar: The Sarpanch of 60 Millionaire Villagers

BANGALORE: A major part of the country today still resides in rural areas. Every day, we come across stories of how social entrepreneurs are investing in the development of business and standard of living in India. But very rarely we come across a person who has changed an insolvent state of a rural village into an example of development. Popatrao Pawar is one such personality who has brought about this phenomenal and ground-breaking change in his village, reports The Logical Indian.

This 52 year old man has transformed his drought-prone village into a place which now has all the necessary amenities like water, electricity and educational opportunities and healthcare. The village is blossoming on Self-governance and Self-reliance.

Pawar when returned after graduation, people from his village proposed him to contest for panchayati elections. The line of developments were witnessed in the village as he was made the sarpanch of own village.

Upgrading the school education system and extending the standard to class 10 was amongst his very first initiatives towards development in the village. Following this, he started a water conservation project, banned tube wells and brought the exploitation of ground water under control by instructing the villagers to make use of water from open wells. 40,000 groundwater reservoirs were created and he encouraged cultivation of cash crops that consumed less water. He encouraged aforestation and the villages is said to have planted close 10 lakh trees in a decade. The village was also introduced to Adarsh Gaon Yojna in 1995.

The village, Haware Bazar, is now counted as one of the most developed villages in the nation owing to its decision making body- Gram Sabha.

The village was eventually transformed into a developed model village for the initiatives taken for better education, financial returns, family planning and HIV prevention.

Surprisingly, the village has prospered so much that it proudly boasts of having 60 millionaire residents. The efforts of Popatrao Pawar has borne results for the villagers and made it popular nation-wide.

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