Telia: Telling the Tale of MGNREGA

Moving from ignorance and non-participation to active involvement in planning and implementing, the women in Kesla are determined to develop their villages, conscious not only of their rights and entitlements but also of their roles and responsibility in developing their villages

P ao Hembram is happy now that her two daughters are regularly going to school and doing well. The elder one is in Class VI and the younger in Class IV. Until three years ago, however, the condition was different; Pao, along with her husband Sanatan Hembram, would migrate to the East Midnapore region for the kharif and boro paddy transplanting and harvesting, leaving their two little daughters with their old parents. The children would frequently miss going to school.

In 2011, Pao excavated a happa (farm pond) in her land through MGNREGA and from that year onwards, she has been cultivating vegetables on her land, using the water from the pond. She has also tried growing fish in the happa. She happily announces that now her family not only sells vegetables but also consumes fish and vegetables in their diet. She says she plans to use the money earned from the vegetables for her children’s education and to repay her loans.

Pao Hembram is from Telia, a small village in Jhargram sub division of West Midnapore district in West Bengal. Telia has two hamlets—Babudihi in the west and Telia in the east. There are a total of 69 households in the two hamlets inhabited by the Santhal community.

Issues in Village Telia PRADAN first came to Telia in 2011; during discussions, the PRADAN team members were told that people found it difficult to make ends meet. Migration was quite rampant, especially during the kharif as well as during the boro paddy cultivation. During the season, the whole village would migrate to East Midnapore; the children and older people were left behind to fend for themselves.