A sarpanch who turned a village around. He believes the real luxuries are far away from the cities.
With a population of 1,747, Raj-Samadhiyala now grows three crops, including an amazing 18-20 varieties of vegetables. It garners Rs 5-6 crore annually (over twice the income of neighbouring villages), with its 300 families netting in anywhere between Rs 50,000-Rs 12 lakh per year. And all this in a drought-prone region.
Raj-Samadhiyala is lush with 60,000 trees. Harnessing every drop of the area’s 20-30-inch rainfall are 45 check dams, percolation tanks, farm ponds spread across 2,800 acres. Add those to well-maintained houses, well-kept streets, piped water supply to every home, well-appointed health centres, cent per cent enrolment in primary education, an impressive 300-litre milk trade everyday and zero crime rate.
Jadeja began in 1978 by forming an observation committee to plug the communication gap between the panchayat and the populace. After he became the sarpanch in 1983 a village development committee (VDC) of various community leaders replaced the panchayat and has since harmonised local passions to call the shots in deterring defiance, violence and pilferage. Today, littering, axing trees, consuming liquor or gutka, gambling, promoting witchcraft, bursting firecrackers at public places or not casting votes elicit fines. Water tankers are anathema. So is plastic, already banned at local kiosks. Rules also mandate prompt incineration of product packaging.
But the village’s real success lies in rainwater harvesting. For instance, in the last 25 years, over Rs 2.5 crore from government grants have been spent on watershed projects. Jadeja ensured that the funds were properly utilised. Hence, today the investment equals benefits the village reaps in a year. A sagacious Jadeja even obtained satellite pictures from isro of the area’s dikes and lineaments (water barriers and carriers) to excavate and open up aquifers, boosting recharge by a whopping 125 per cent, making water tables as deep as 250 metres history. Improved irrigation in this village of 18 tractors and 200 borewells has let youth off agrarian toil for exploring entrepreneurial avenues.
The VDC collects over Rs 1 lakh in taxes annually and saves around Rs 45,000 in fixed deposits, making it the country’s only profit-grossing local body. With demonstrably effective use of money, the VDC has inspired 100 per cent tax recovery over the past decade. It clearly owes its single-mindedness to Jadeja, known to have shortened a temple porch in the dark of the night to widen an arterial road without inviting public wrath and helped a backward class family of beggars open a provision shop to qualify for government aid (this family even owns a car today).
"I’ve only wanted to change the way people think and behave," says Jadeja, who lives with his brothers in a 2,000-sq m house, sports the choicest gizmos, zips around in any of his four spanking four-wheelers. "Democracy is misused in India. There’s no development without discipline, which comes only when people genuinely want to make a difference."
Jadeja can be contacted at: Raj-Samadhiyala, via K.B. Dham, Rajkot district, Gujarat—360020. Tel:(0281) 2785246/9426911102.