Community participation & Collective action- Why is it disappearing?
Community participation & Collective action- Why is it disappearing?
I hail from a coastal village
on the right bank of Krishna river, downstream of Vijayawada. Floods was a
common phenomena for the villages on both left & right banks (Prakasam
Barrage at Vijayawada to Avanigadda, river joining Bay of Bengal) till
Nagarjuna Sagar dam coming into existence in 1965. Karakattas (raised earthen
dams) are existing to protect the villages from floods.
The floods were very frequent and almost severe floods atleast once
in three years. The villagers used to gather on Karakatta with gaslights, sand
bags, crowbars etc. Any signals of breach used to be attended immediately and protect
villages. It used to be 24x 7 operation and community cooking was common.
Sometimes it used to take 10 to 15 days for the river waters to recede. As a
child it used to be big fun for us and used to look forward for more such
occasions, as we did not know the seriousness.
There used to be minimum bur effective support from Government in
terms of gas lights, some implements etc. As the community participation is
more of preventive, the cost involved used to be bare minimum.
In recent fast, when I happened to be in a village during rainy season,
there was a tank breach. Had the crowd gathered there participated immediately,
the breach could have halted with few man hours labor contribution. Instead they were trying to get cell contact
of JE/AE/AEE of Irrigation, ZP, Panchayat Raj etc. Before they identify the
engineer concerned and lodge a complaint, the breach became large & damaged
few roads & houses. Temporary arrest of breach, tendering, contracting,
structure, inauguration etc should have
taxed exchequer atleast 100 times more
than possible immediate community participation.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR SOCIETY? WHERE ARE WE PUSHING
OURSELVES IN THE COVER OF PROGRESSIVE
DEVELOPMENT?
BGR
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