Man behind an educated village

The man behind 100 per cent literacy rate in Bakaram Jagir, a gram panchayat on the outskirts of Hyderabad — sarpanch Sudhakar Yadav is elated to receive the Saakshar Bharat Award from the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. The sarpanch had set a target of 100 days to ach-ieve the 100 per cent literacy target, with students from age 15 to 50.

“Everyone in my village can now read and write,” says a proud Sudhakar adding, “We selected 50 volunteers, each of whom taught around 6 people. We also had many self-help groups, based out of the village, coming forward to help. The villagers now realise the importance of basic education.”

Sudhakar had laid out a few rules in order to ensure that the villagers took the programme seriously. “Villagers will now have to sign in order to receive their monthly ration. Those who have retired are being asked to collect their pension only after they sign on the papers. In order to do this, they learnt to write their names first. We also cut off the cable connection for an hour daily — 7 pm to 8 pm — just so that the villagers could dedicate time to study and don’t get distracted with TV serials,” he says.

This was just the beginning. Sudhakar, with the help of government adviser Dr K.V. Ramanachary, organised cultural programmes every Sunday to drive home the message of the importance of education. “This motivates the villagers. We also reward those who attend classes for a week and study well. The gifts are not big, but it keeps them motivated.”

However, the programme did have several setbacks, foremost being lack of funds. “It was very difficult to organise programmes every week,” confesses Sudhakar. “It would cost us around Rs 15,000 a week and we wouldn’t have sufficient funds. I often spent money from my own pocket. It was also difficult to convince the villagers to take up education initially, but everything fell in place later.”

“I was very happy to know that we are receiving the award. We have struggled a lot and I felt that our hard work has paid off. President Pranab congratulated me. The villagers are also proud of this achievement and are now studying even harder,” he adds.