KHUNTI: With the Patthalgadi movement’s influence waning at Khunti and other adjoining districts, more people have started reaching out to their local administration for development of their villages in Jharkhand. Villagers of Chitramu, Hatudami and Kurkutta have already replaced the old stone plaques and replaced them with messages appealing their fellow residents to send children to schools, to conserve water, to keep their village clean and to use toilet at their homes.
Earlier, ‘Patthalgadi,’ an age-old tradition of installing monoliths in the name of ancestors on entry points of tribal villages, had become synonymous with protest against government rule in the interiors of Khunti, Chaibasa, Simdega and Seraikela-Kharsawan.
“We had no idea what we were doing. But, of late, we realized that something has gone wrong as we were left without government welfare schemes and our children were unable to apply for government jobs,” Hatudami village gram pradhan Dashrath Kacchap says. “When we understood that a blunder was done, we decided to replace the old stone plaques and replace them with positive messages following a decision taken in the Gram Sabha on September 6.”
The gram pradhan says the local administration extended all cooperation to villagers.
Another villager, Lakhan Munda, claims the district administration immediately organized ‘Vikas Mela’ and passed benefits of government welfare schemes to the villagers. Soon, the administration proposed to set up a gram sabha bank and a central office of ‘Adivasi Shiksha Board’ to be run by tribals themselves. “Several other gram pradhans came to us asking support for making similar changes, but we told them to first get their plan approved by gram sabha,” says sub-divisional magistrate Pranav Kumar Pal. Currently, three villages in Khunti Block have joined the list of habitations benefiting from developmental schemes.