BENGALURU: Contrary to the usual image of a village — no street lights, non-functioning schools, and low network connectivity or no network at all — eight villages under Doddajalla panchayat, have all the necessary amenities and are quite at par with cities.
This is thanks to Gangaram, Panchayat Development Officer (PDO), of Doddajalla panchayat, who has brought RO water plants, solar streetlights, and CCTV cameras to the villages. Two villages — Navaratnagrahara and Doddajalla — even have free Wi-Fi. The remaining six will soon get it. That’s not it, each village has waste management processing units and magic soap pits where detergent water is purified and clean water is let to percolate underground.
Gangaram and two other PDOs were honoured at the Institution of Engineers’ national conference on ‘Agriculture and Smart Village for Sustainable Division’. The other two PDOs are Rajesh H R of Rajankunte gram panchayat and Kumar of Bashehatti gram panchayat. Interestingly, all three started their careers in Bengaluru and were later transferred to villages as PDOs. There is a healthy competition between them to attain new heights.
“We received a lot of cooperation from gram panchayats and villagers, and now the villages have attained national recognition. The villagers are smarter than those living in cities as they know the importance of natural resources and their conservation,” said Gangaram.
Rajesh said that it is a wrong perception that gathering funds is challenging. “It is not that difficult because funds come in the form of donations and are accumulated. They are utilised under various government schemes and even villages contribute to funds for new projects. It is good to see that villagers know the importance of money and how to utilise it,” he added. B Nijalingappa, Director, Jalamrutha, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj said, while smart city is being implemented in urban areas, smart villages is a new definition. It is the mindset of using resources wisely and working towards contributing to it.