Village women say; We won the battle…

Confidence never bent down. Hard work with strong confidence brings success, proved by the village women of Baharana of Banakhandi GP of Gop Block (Puri Dist).

When the women of Baharana village came to know that Pallisabha is the meeting of all the electorates of a revenue village & they have the right to participate in it, which should be held in their village at least once in a year and more on demand. But till yet no Pallisabha has been organized in their village since some decades.
The team of village women demanded at Block office for a Pallisabha in this village. As per their demand BDO of Gop Block directed concerned official & GP to organise Pallisabha of that village on dt.07.07.08. The Pallisabha was organized on that day & strangely only hundreds women of that village joined in this pallisabha & taken part in different discussion. On that day they came to know that the only village road of their village is going to be constructed very soon by the Gram Panchayat itself. They formed a village Inspection team to supervise the road work & demanded for the estimate copy of the road work. But the Sarpanch played double stranded with them.
They start demanding for the estimate copy each day & stopped the road construction work which was started by the GP within this period. The Sarapanch and the GP Secretary told that the road work has not been pre-estimated but started in advance for the benefit of villagers. They threatened that if the village women will disturb, the road construction work will be cancelled. Then the local touts & contractors started to scold and intimidate to stop their movement. Even they threaten to give false police cases against the women leaders. Also the Sarapanch & local touts used the male villagers to threaten their wives not to take part in this movement.
But the women are never bent. They deposited 5 RTI applications at Gop Block to get the estimate copy of this road work & demanded BDO to postpone the road construction till supply of the estimate copy. After all, the Sarpanch handed over the estimate copy today (08.09.08). The village women have decided to ensure qualitative construction of their village road.
Bhabeni Malika, 72, is an old lady of the village told, “at last we won the battle”.