Life is difficult, and so has been mine.
I was born and raised in the western Odisha town of Rourkela. While growing up, I had never imagined that I would ever live in a village, or become a sarpanch serving some 7000 people.
But then I got married and moved to Nuapada, some 400 kms away from my hometown.
Life got difficult for me. More than three decades ago when I came to live in Nuapada, there were hardly any roads, electricity or other facilities. After dusk, we would remain confined to our homes.
Over the years, the place has developed and changed for the better. But there are still pockets where development seems to have still not reached.
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I am currently the sarpanch of Baleswar gram panchayat. There are seven villages under it.
One of them – Bhuktapada – has no road connectivity. Twenty-five families live there, but they have to walk several kilometres through forests and farms to reach the panchayat office.
During monsoons, it becomes impossible to walk through the slippery slush.
The plight of the Bhuktapada villagers always moved me. But I could do little earlier, when I was a Samiti member, or was the deputy sarpanch. Being a woman, I did not have much room to raise grievances.
Even my own family members asked me to generally keep quiet, lest I get into arguments.
But then I became the sarpanch in 2022. Now, I have the voice to speak about the issues that bother me. It is hugely satisfying that I am able to work for the villagers.
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As a sarpanch, my prime focus has always been that every person in the village is benefitted from schemes for them and that no one is left behind.
I have always tried to make sure that we reach out to people if they are not able to reach us.
In the case of Bhuktapada village, even the village representative found it difficult to reach us. There was also a differently-abled person in the village who always struggled to visit the panchayat office on his wheelchair to collect his pension.
His plight bothered me, and I decided to make life easier for him. I discussed with my son, and then we decided to buy a small drone – an unmanned vehicle that can fly distances and carry light loads.
Since the panchayat had no provision, I spent rupees 60,000 of my own money to buy a small drone with a carrying capacity of 300gms. It is good enough to carry medicines or pension cash.
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The idea is that those who are bedridden and cannot reach the panchayat office, the drone will be used to deliver pension and medicines to them.
So, last month, we did that. We used the drone to deliver Rs 500 that was due for the month to Hetaram Satanami – the wheelchair bound resident of Bhuktapada – under the Odisha government-run Madhu Babu Pension Yojana.
It took barely five minutes for the drone to travel the distance and deliver the cash. But it bridged a huge gap that bedevilled Bukktapada for decades.
Pensions are normally transferred directly to the bank accounts of beneficiaries. But the nearest branch of a bank that deals with pension funds is 15 kms away from the village and well beyond the reach of someone like Satanami.
So, I decide to give Satanami his pension in cash instead. And the drone made a precision delivery, dropping the money in an envelope to a waiting Satanami looking skywards.
Now, we want to use the drone more often, as and when people need services to be delivered at their doorstep. The possibilities are enormous and I feel the sky is the limit.
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Aishwarya Mohanty is an independent journalist based in Odisha. She reports on the intersection of gender, social justice, rural issues and the environment. She is also a Rural Media Fellow powered by Youth Hub.