Urban Village : Punsari (Gujarat)

Sometimes just a vision for change can create an ocean of a difference.  The Vision of Himanshu Patel, sarpanch of the village, changed the fate of Punsari

Punsari is located at Sabarkantha Himmatnagar, approximately 85 km from Ahmedabad, Gujarat. In 2006 there was no sewerage connection, no street lights, no pucca roads and, of course, no source of income for Punsari except the grants and funding from various state and Union government schemes.

Today this village flaunts a wi-fi and optical fiber broadband network, classrooms with CCTV cameras, its own mini-bus transport system. There is an RO water treatment plant that supplies 20-litre cans to houses for a token cost of Rs 4. It has a school bus to ferry wards, and that too on clean RCC roads.

The gram panchayat also provides facilities of loud speaker covering entire village, gutter project, clean primary health care center, 8 kinder garden schools, banking facility, toll free complain receiving phone service, among others.

Villagers can buy ticket of Re 1 to use the mini bus service. For female students, bus service is completely free. Women come to deposit milk to milk bank couple of times during a day through this bus.  Cost of running the service is managed through ticket sales.

Punsri has 120 loud-speakers covering each corner of the village. Villagers listen to prabhatiya in the morning and bhajan and bhakti songs in the evening. Also important announcements like telephone bill, power bill, results of 10th and 12th are made through these speakers.

The village received an award for being the best Gram Panchayat from the Ministry of Rural Development in 2011.