Bhopal:Friday, October 29 : On the second day of Vanvasi Samman Yatra today the Chief Minister visited forest village Bagda early in the morning. This is a tribal dominated village in Khalwa Development Block in Khandwa district. The village is around 100 km away from the district headquarters. Nobody knew the Chief Minister will visit this village. There was no limit to the surprise of the villagers when they saw a caravan of motorcade of the Chief Minister. After reaching the village Shri Chouhan went to the house of adivasi family Ratanram. A cot was brought there for the Chief Minister to sit. The news of the Chief Minister’s surprise visit spread like wildfire and within a few minutes almost all the villagers surrounded him for a glimpse. Shri Chouhan was happy to see that the development works are being implemented in the village.
Immediately after waking up Shri Chouhan had asked for a list of villages in Khalwa development block. He marked on the name of a village and said he wanted to go there. The Chief Minister had night halt at forest village Aonlia. Village Bagad was about 20 km from there. After reaching there Shri Chouhan asked people if they were getting benefit of the government schemes. He called the people who are benefited of the schemes and asked them one by one. “Did you get full amount under Kapildhara?” A tribal youth came nearer to him and answered that he got Rs 75 thousand. Another beneficiary, Shivram, said that he had received Rs 1 lakh 19 thousand. Why the difference of amount in the same scheme, Shri Chouhan wanted to know. The officers informed the Chief Minister that the first case was pertaining to the year 1980 and the second one is of this year. They said that there was no complaint about mismanagement or embezzlement of the funds. Shri Chouhan talked to even children and women. He wanted to know about child birth assistance, Chief Minister’s Mazdoor Security Scheme, Anganwadi, mid-day meal scheme etc. The chief minister came to know that four girls of the village have passed Class V and are going to other village for further studies. Out of the four only one girl has received cycle. The officer informed that sufficient number of cycles has reached the district headquarters and the remaining girls will also be given cycles. Shri Chouhan directed that the girls should get the cycle within a week. He was informed that text books were given to all students and uniform to the girl students of the village.
By this time the villagers started to come near to the chief minister and spoke about problems faced. One of them said that out of the two teachers, one attend the school only once in a while. The chief minister immediately asked to dismiss him and appoint another one in his place. Since the middle school is very far away and the children find very difficult to go there, Shri Chouhan announced to open a middle school in the village. “What else do you want for the village?” After thinking a little the villagers said they would like to have a community building and a lake. Shri Chouhan announced that their demands would be met. Some villagers requested the Chief Minister for supplying set of utensils to be given at the time of marriage of girls. Shri Chouhan sanctioned this from the Chief Minister’s fund. When Shri Chouhan wanted to leave the villagers tried to persuade him to stop there for more time. But Shri Chouhan promised them to visit again and left. While leaving the village Shri Chouhan commended about the efforts of the villagers for conservation of the forest.
