Kuthambakkam panchayat
Where: In Tiruvallur district; 40km from Chennai, off the Chennai-Bangalore highway. Turn right after Queens Land Amusement Park.
Size: 36 sq.km.
Population: 5,000 people. 1,040 households spread over 70 hamlets. 55 per cent Dalits and 4 per cent Christians. Other major communities are Mudaliars, Naidus, Vanniars and Yadavas. One Muslim family.
Income pattern: Mostly from agriculture and cottage industries. A lake irrigates 1,400 acres; another 700 acres are rain-fed. Every family earns around Rs.40,000 a month.
Education: Reportedly, every family has at least one college graduate.
After the violent days came the panchayat elections of 1996. Elango contested as an independent and won hands down. In his first term as sarpanch, he travelled countrywide and studied several experiments in rural development. Slowly, alcoholism was reined in, and he ensured employment for all families that stopped distilling hooch. Low-cost, eco-friendly houses and health centres were made, roads and drains laid, street lights installed and rainwater harvesting structures commissioned.
Elango graduated in chemical engineering "When I said I wanted to do something for village development, Adigalar asked me to go to my village and work," Elango said. So, in 1994, he quit CSIR and settled in Kuthambakkam.
A must read , part of the article posted here, please read the full article in the link.
http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?contentId=15662215&programId=1073755753&tabId=13&BV_ID=@@@&categoryId=-210801
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