Turning Adversity to Opportunity: The ‘SUPER Village Challenge’
The CMGGA role is a kaleidoscopic experience that entails ambiguous situations, dynamic challenges and sharp contrasts. Having previously worked in the management consulting space, I am accustomed to setups that demand entrepreneurial thinking and support it in the form of resources and well organised structures.
At the beginning of my journey as CMGGA to Palwal , a predominantly rural, and one of the most under-staffed districts of Haryana, I was nervous about transitioning from 1) the private sector to the government, 2) urban to rural life and 3) a resource surplus to a resource constraint environment. In the early months of my tenure, I experienced a change of district leadership, i.e. a change of the person in the role of the Deputy Commissioner (DC), I instantly felt I had to gear up for what was about to come, a‘holy trinity’ of pitfalls.
While I was anxious about the new change in district leadership, I continued my regular work as a CMGGA. As time passed, I had the opportunity to work very closely with the new Deputy Commissioner. I observed his working style and learnt about his personal journey about becoming an IAS (Indian Administrative Services) officer. I realised that he was an excellent example of how one must not give up by adversities. He taught me how the only way forward, in difficult circumstances, was to turn adversities into opportunities. One day, out of curiosity, I asked him, “Sir, What helped you push your limits despite the hardships?” He calmly replied, “My teacher used to tell me that when life hands you coal, turn it into a coal mine.”
Motivated by this approach, I conducted several field visits and noticed a severe staff crunch in several departments responsible for rural development. Due to this, the last mile delivery of existing central and state initiatives was significantly below the anticipated levels. But as the issue of staff shortage could not be fixed immediately, as that involved several state-level administrative approvals, procedures etc. I felt a need to innovate methods to leverage the existing constraints in a unique way.
This time, I was haunted by another ‘trinity’. We identified that the efficacy of three agents was critical to push the last mile delivery of many rural development schemes/initiatives. These agents were — a) the village sarpanch, b) the district level scheme nodal officer and c) the front line workers for the department at the village level. For example, the Accredited social health activists (ASHA) for immunisation, anganwadi workers for Women and child development (WCD)schemes etc. Looking for a silver bullet, a mechanism that could align the interests of these 3 agents and regulate impact remotely, we developed a new ‘trinity of interests’ framework. This framework aimed at synchronising the interests of a), b) and c) in such a way that all strive towards common goals in a concerted manner. Through inter-departmental brainstorming sessions we prioritized certain flagship PM and CM initiatives aimed at strengthening rural development. We decided to focus on cleanliness, solid liquid waste management, environmental protection (Swacch Bharat Mission — Rural), women empowerment (BetiBachaoBetiPadhao program), digital literacy (PMGDISHA scheme), skill development (Rural Self Employment Training Institutes-RSETI scheme) and innovation (in areas of community welfare, technology etc.) at the village level, resulting in genesis of the ‘SUPER’ village challenge.
Once the themes were identified, parameters with clear tasks and definitions of success were drafted. To push speedier implementation, a competitive framework that put villages in direct competition with each other was recognized as an optimal model to leverage the new ‘trinity of interests’. Since the project had to be operated at a large scale from day zero, a digital platform -www.supervillagepalwal.in- was created to facilitate the entire competition. The district administration extended full support to the initiative and earmarked Rs 1.5 Crore (approx. $200,000), allocated from the District plan (D-plan) fund to reward top performing villages.
The competition was officially launched on 27th November 2017 and the results have been encouraging so far.
1)All 260 gram panchayats (GPs)of Palwal are now competing in the competition. Given that the participation is voluntary, participation has now reached maximum level.
2)All GPs have now been declared ‘Polythene free’ by the district administration.
3)100+ new Self Help Groups (SHGs) have been established and 20+ old women SHGs have been revived, mobilizing 1,200+ women as members and achieving financial inclusion of ~100% members.
4)100+ vaachanalyas (community reading rooms) for men and women have been established
5)100+ schools and Anganwadis(combined) have seen visible infrastructural improvements
6)5,500+ new student registrations under PMGDISHA scheme have been recorded and 2,500+ rural youth have attained ‘digital literacy’ certification
7)50+ entrepreneurship awareness camps (EAPs) under RSETI (Rural self employment training institute) scheme have had a cumulative participation of 2,700+ rural unemployed youth with 200 of them, already enrolled for training courses.
8)20+ foreign research students and professors (combined) from Case Western University in Ohio, UC Berkeley, California, USA and Northwestern university, UK visited Palwal and some graduates and PHD student(s) have submitted proposals to conduct research on the initiative.
As the competition approaches its first stage of completion on the 15th Feb 2018, I found myself, one sunny winter morning, sipping tea with DC Sir. As we spoke, he suddenly asked me “Abhinav, how did you manage to turn this project so smoothly despite so many challenges and stakeholders?” to which I replied “Sir, it’s simple when life hands you coal, turn into a coal mine”.
He smiled at this déjà-vu moment.
Please visit www.supervillagepalwal.in to understand details on parameters, points and the entire operating model of the tournament.
The tournament also has a dedicated page on social media- https://www.facebook.com/supervillagepalwal/
