Covid Warrior: A conversation with Sanjukta Pujari — Sarapancha of R.Udaigiri in Gajapati district of Odisha
I met Sanjukta in September 2019 where she had participated in a two and half day learning lab organized by ‘She Creates Change’ initiative. During the lockdown, when ‘Political Shakti’ group was discussing to know how women politicians are handling Covid19 challenges, I just remembered her. We spoke for more than an hour and for few days continuously to understand how she is managing the lockdown challenges in her Gram Panchayat.
Her day starts at 7 in the morning. She goes around in the village to see if people aren’t breaking physical distance. Morning time is an important hour for the rural folks unlike urban settings. Villagers get up early to feed the domestic animals, clean their houses, cattle shed and streets outside homes where they tie animals. Her role as Sarapanch (head of the Panchayat) who is leading from the front starts with the task to ensure people do their works while maintaining safe distances from each other. The Gram Panchayat, R.Udaigiri in nature; is semi-rural, so a small town with many shops and a weekly Mandi can be found there. She checks if shops with essentials items as per the Govt. listing are open and not others. She had prepared a list of shops with safe distance that can be opened alternatively and all the wards have some shops to open. It helps people not to travel far for shopping essential items.
She comes back home for breakfast between 9am to 10am and retuns to Panchayat office before 11am. She along with her team distribute cash to construction workers, pension holders, distribute ration to those who aren’t registered yet like migrant workers etc. They also attend different training by district collector/BDO, Chief Minister Office, health department through video conference. Recently, Sarapanchas are given the same authority as the District Magistrate to take decisions on different matters. Now that the government has allowed migrants to return to their respective states by maintaining law and order situation in villages to prevent community spread of corona, it has to be channelized through Sarapancha — the lowest level of democratic processes (I would say the first level actually). These video conferences with the state Covid team, district level officers help them to understand their decision making power and the consequences. They learn, get trained and go out to implement everything to prevent their community from this dreadful disease. She returns home late evening. She is grateful that her daughter has come back home who is pursuing graduation and has now taken the responsibility of cooking and other household chores. Her spouse who works in a local court also helps his daughter in domestic work. Sanjukta feels blessed to have them in this situation with her, thus able to focus on her work whole heartedly.
There are two teams led by Sarapancha and Gram Sevak for this work. Each team has two ASHA workers, two Anganwadi teachers, one primary school teacher and G.R.S (Gram Rojgar Sevak).
At her Gram Panchayat, there are 40 migrant workers from Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal who work as hawkers and rickshaw pullers are now stranded and jobless. They couldn’t go back to their native places. There are also few families in the group. The Panchayat office has started a community kitchen for such communities- migrants and destitute. The families were given rations to cook. Sanjukta has also distributed pads for women in these families. Apart from migrants, people with mental illness and elderly people whose children aren’t staying with them get cooked food from kitchen. The team also gives special attention to ensure they are safe. Total of 104 people get cooked food everyday from community kitchen.
She is also vigilant about the children and their rights. Teachers have started distributing books of the upcoming academic years. Anganwadi teachers have already distributed the food items like chatua, chuda ladu, chana ladu, eggs (monthly) as per direction of ICDS program.
Students from 1st grade to 3rd grade have received 9kg rice, students from 4th to 8th have received 13kg rice as part of the mid-day meal program.
All BPL card holders have received ration for three months as per Govt. directives. Elderly people were given pension for three months. All registered construction workers received total of 2500/- (1500/- from GOI, 1000/- from state Govt.) and the ration.
She has distributed 200 masks to the people in her Panchayat. An SHG group called Mahalakshmi group is given an order to make another 400 masks for future use under Mission Shakti program.
Many unexpected problems arose like malfunctioning of water supply system where she had to talk to the authorities to get pass for the technician to go the market which is 70 km away from the Panchayat town to get the material for repairing. She had to face people’s agony for water scarcity. But somehow she remained cool and resolved the problem. That is because women are conditioned to deal with people in distress with a positive attitude. Undoubtedly, she is one of the very few Sarapancha who got recognized on the International Women’s Day in Bhubaneswar by NAWO Odisha chapter for her work.
She had taken up few issues not only as a Sarapancha, but as a woman and a daughter. It’s not hidden that most people in Odisha (including ministers, doctors, teachers, public servants) chew paan/tobacco. Lack of tobacco products became a severe issue for elderly people who were addicted for more than fifty years. They were hyper and crazy in these days. Many of them will come and ask for tobacco, not food. Sanjukta shares how an old woman would come to her house and cry for tobacco. She would request not to give food, but that tobacco only. Finally, she had to get it from some shops and distribute it to them (only senior citizens) at her own expenses.
But her biggest worry is the return of the migrants. Currently the isolation ward has 16 beds; one family (four members) who returned from a red zone district are kept there. A total of 166 people are staying outside of Odisha in cities like Surat, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, and in some cities in Kerala. 88 people have registered to come back. They are working towards converting a girl’s hostel of a local college into an isolation center. But she worries if intra-state migrants come back, it will become difficult to accommodate everyone. But she is hopeful to get it resolved with help of DM and CM office as they are in direct contact with her. She spoke to some migrant workers from her Gram Panchayat. She feels disheartened that her brothers and sisters aren’t getting any help from the respective state governments. She feels sad that she couldn’t help them but she ensured that their families in her G.P. aren’t deprived of food. They are taken care of through PDS system.
She has requested authorities to generate more jobs through MNREGA to help villagers. But before that she wants BDOs and other officers to ensure making weekly payments to the workers. As people don’t get paid on time and contractors get paid after months, people prefer to migrate than working in MNREGA schemes. She wants to focus on this after lock-down to ensure a sustainable livelihood for her people.
A Sarapancha receives 1880/- as a monthly incentive and 180/- per meeting (two meetings in a month), hence I wonder how they keep themselves inspired to work from morning to late evening, sometime mid-night. They aren’t even covered under health insurance. All health workers including ASHA didi, Anganwadi teachers, police, and journalists are covered. She is in all manners a covid warrior. Then why Sarapancha and ward/ council members aren’t covered by health insurance?
When I asked Sanjukta about her challenge on being a woman, she shared that “people think women Sarapancha are less effective. People don’t take us seriously compared to the male Sarapancha. But in reality, we are more productive. We are more concerned about people and their well-being. We want all needy people to get all the benefits. We don’t want to make money. We work day and night. I hope that people will recognize our efforts and respect us”.
Sanjukta is hopeful that her work and dedication will help her to become an MLA. I am also looking forward for it to happen as women are still underrepresented in our state assembly. Current Odisha Legislative assembly has just 15 women members out of 147. Women representation in our state assembly is just 10%. This is the status of a state that got applaud from United Nations for passing an ordinance to give 33% reservation to women in State Assembly and Parliament. Let’s hope for more Sanjukta to join politics and get elected to the state assembly because they deserve to be there.
