250 Gram pradhan give written support for demand of gramee
RANASI: Demanding the declaration of ‘Grameen Diwas’ (village day) the volunteers of Hope Welfare Trust, established by a group of students from different academic institutions for the well being of rural populace, submitted a memorandum signed by 250 gram pradhans (village heads) of eastern UP to the parliamentary office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Ravindapuri colony on Tuesday.
“Since 70% population of the country lives in villages, hence there should be a day -Grameen Diwas, dedicated to rural India recognizing the contribution of villagers in nation building,” said Divyanshu Upadhyaya, a key member of the campaign initiated two years back.
The Hope volunteers traveled to far off villages in different districts including Ballia, Gorakhpur, Ghazipur, Bhadohi, Chandauli, Mau, Azamgarh, Deoria, Mirzapur, Sonbhadra of eastern UP to apprise the village heads of the benefits of Village Day if declared by the central government. “We met 250 gram pradhans and collected their consent letters for the campaign,” they said adding that about 300 teams of youths had been engaged in this campaign.
Divyanshu said that the gram pradhans of many celebrity villages like Dhamupur of martyr Veer Abdul Hamid in Ghazipur district, Nagwa of the hero of first freedom struggle Mangal Pandey in Ballia district, Sitab Diyara of Jai Prakash Narayan in Ballia district, Lamhi of Munshi Premchand in Varanasi and Bhabhaura of union home minister Rajnath Singh in Chandauli district are supporting the campaign and have given their consent letters. The gram pradhans have also promised to go digital by uploading the works of villages in public domain so that anyone can see the progress report of the villages from anywhere in the world, he said.
Outlining the possible benefits of Village Day if declared, they said that it will not only make NRIs to do something for their villages but also attract foreign visitors. Besides, it will also bring transparency in government funding and improve the work culture of gram pradhans. “While working in villages we felt that the government development programmes and schemes take years to reach village, hence we decided to launch a campaign for Village Day,” he said.
A group of students of Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith and other academic institutions formed Hope Welfare Trust in January 2015, and started social works like serving old age people and cleaning ponds. Later they also adopted some villages with an objective to motivate people to lead a good life. And, all they are doing with their pocket money.