Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Apr 13: PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) International Ltd., headquartered at New York, will develop village Budhi in block Barnoti of district Kathua as a “Model Village”.
This was disclosed here today by Union Minister and Lok Sabha MP from Udhampur-Kathua-Doda constituency, Dr Jitendra Singh, when the International Chairman PwC, Robert E. Moritz, currently on a visit to India, called on him and formally handed over to him a Vision Document outlining the salient features and the various levels at which the upgradation of the village is proposed to be done by the PwC. Pertinent to mention that even before formalizing the final plan, the PwC has already undertaken work on construction of additional class rooms and toilets at the local school in village Budhi.
As per the Vision Document prepared by PwC, Village Budhi in Barnoti block has been identified as a case study for a model village and subsequently, the same experience could be replicated at other places as well. The development of the village, as per the document, would be based on an understanding of the major issues and needs of the local community and was finalized after conducting structured interviews with community members across three villages of Budhi, Nagrota and Mearth of Barnoti block as well as group discussions with the village Panchayat members.
The PwC members, in recent months, also held a series of meetings with Government officials from Department of Water, Sanitation, Irrigation, Skill Development, etc. to understand the challenges and constraints in the implementation of the project.
As a result of thorough research, while 10 priority areas have been identified, the most crucial and the first priority pertains to drinking water. The access to drinking water is a primary issue in the village and not only lack of water availability or shortage of required water, but in certain areas, water from hand pumps is also perceived to be unfit for consumption, whereas about 11.24% of households receive untreated water.
The PwC document states that village Budhi with the present population of 3,655 people has a water requirement of at least 43,860 Gallons per day if the per-capita daily requirement is considered to be 12 Gallons each. This issue will sought to be resolved by collaboration with the district administration and resource funding from PwC.
Sanitation is another area of concern with 49% of respondents in the survey revealing that they practice open defecation. In addition, respondents also reported infrequent bathing and washing clothes due to distance between their homes and external source of water. In this case, the document suggests that the State Government of J&K can be persuaded to spend all the available funds for Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat campaign instead of letting these funds go unspent or lapsed.
The third area of focus in the PwC plan would be generation of employment and employability. The survey conducted by the expert team revealed that there is poor implementation of national schemes like Udaan and Mudra and there was also high requirement for skilling interventions in the sectors of agriculture, textile, handicrafts and handlooms.
Dr Jitendra Singh hoped that PwC, with its human resources and funding capacity will be able to undertake work of construction of tube wells, initiation of water management programme, designing targeted programs for local employment opportunities, etc. and also hoped that the State Government would offer all the cooperation required.
Robert Moritz assured Dr Jitendra Singh of continuous constant follow-up by his team and said, the model village developed in Kathua would become a model to be followed in other villages.
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