Hivare Bazar is a small village located hundred kilometers from Pune in the district of Ahmadnagar in Maharashtra. It faced many a famine from 1972 to 1989. These famines put extreme financial pressure on the villagers, who started to desert the village to move towards Pune and Mumbai. Ninety percent of the population of this village went below the poverty line. Every household was making alcohol and the people were uneducated and alcoholics. There were warring groups that constantly fought and people
killed each other. Visit of Police was a common feature of this village that was full of vice.
In 1989 a group of young boys got together with a mission to change the face of the village. They selected a boy, named Popat Rao Pawar, who was studying Masters in Commerce at the Mumbai University, their Sarpanch.
They then approached the elders of each of the warring groups of the village and requested that Popat Rao Pawar should be named as the Sarpanch of the village. The elders scoffed the young boys but just to humour them they decided to choose Popat Rao as their sarpanch for a period of one year, who had promised to change the establishment.
Popat Rao had a single point agenda that whatever he did, the decision to do work would be taken jointly by all people of the village and not by him alone.
According to government rules, meetings of two gram sabhas, on 15th.August and 26th January, were mandatory in a year. However, he started to call meetings of gram sabhas every week of the month.
On every problem he would call the gram sabhas, deliberate on the issues that beset them and would find a solution, acceptable to all concerned Sabha members.
Some dramatic change started to take place. In 1989 the average yearly income was Rs. 840. Today the average income has risen to Rs.28000/- per year. In other words, if there are five members in a house hold, its income became Rs.140000. For a village this is a huge sum of money.
Now, there are good metal roads. The people who lived in slum clusters earlier have good clean houses to live. There is a village hospital and an excellent school. There is no theft of ration because it is a transparent operation, where the ration is unloaded in front of people and distributed to people who need it. While every household earlier was brewing local alcohol, now people do not even talk about alcohol. In last five years not a single police case has been registered. Self governance has brought in a
transformation.
Popat Rao was made sarpanch for one year by the people of the village. What is interesting that he has become so popular that he is now sarpanch for last twenty years because the people are totally satisfied with his work.
No one stands for the post of sarpanch against him because he is chosen sarpanch without opposition and no one can beat him in election. The biggest reason for all this is the participation of people in the process of governance of the village.
Popat Rao does not have a personal agenda but his agenda is the agenda of the people of the village. His decisions are the collective decisions of the people.
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