Imagine a rustic habitation where everyone drinks water treated at a reverse osmosis plant, villagers relax in a swimming pool at an entertainment zone, get 'home-delivery' of cow fodder, and avail medical facilities at an integrated medical complex that offers super-speciality treatment.
This is Dharmaj for you, a village of around 11,000 people near Anand in Gujarat's Kheda district. Inhabitants here claim that it is one of the richest villages in the country. According to estimates, the 13 banks at Dharmaj sit on deposits of around Rs 800 crore. The source of wealth, of course, is remittances from non-resident Indians (NRI), quite commonplace in Gujarat's villages. What is perhaps unique about the Gujarati Non-Resident Indians (GNRIs) is the manner in which they have pumped wealth into community development initiatives.
The well-organised village square at Dharmaj looks like a European village with a huge clock tower surrounded by a commercial complex, banks, an ancient banyan tree with a paved chaupal, parked taxis and a neatly fenced government hospital in the distance. What impresses me is the absence of garbage on the roads.
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Vijaybhai P Patel, the sarpanch of Dharmaj, tells me, "We have two tractors that are fitted with street-sweepers to clean the roads every day in the entire village." He also explains that apart from the regular funds that the panchayat is entitled to from the government and the taxes it collects, there is a steady flow of donations from GNRIs. "If there are around 11,000 residents in this village now, more than 20,000 live abroad. At least one person from each of the 3,000-odd families that live here is settled overseas," he says. Most of the 'Dharmajians' (as they like to call themselves) live and work in United Kingdom, while there are others in Australia and Africa. There is even a Dharmaj Society of London (Dhasol) that was formed in 1968 by Dharmaj residents who had arrived in the UK mainly from Kenya.
Dhasol has undertaken several community development projects in the village, including erection of hospitals and installation of water purification plants. Darpan Patel, who runs a snuff manufacturing factory at Jawahar Chowk in Dharmaj and whose father and brother live in London, says, "Most of the infrastructure here, including the first English medium school in this region, has been built through GNRI initiatives." He too holds a British passport and, interestingly, has a UK flag printed on his visiting card. "I have an overseas citizen of India card, and hence do not need a visa to stay here," he adds.
Most people who left Dharmaj have never returned home, but continue to maintain close ties with their village. "Migration started from Dharmaj around 1895," says Rajesh Patel, who heads the Anand chapter of the Gujarat State Non-Resident Gujaratis' Foundation (NRGF). Such is the clout of GNRIs in Gujarat that the state government established NRGF "to further the common interests, concerns and historical ties that bind the people of Gujarat to GNRIs or people of Gujarati origin living outside Gujarat, in other states within India as well as places outside the country with a firm belief that the contact and friendship established through programmes of the foundation can go a long way towards generating mutual benefits for the people of Gujarat as well as GNRIs." The government runs an NRI division under the General Administration Department to deal with issues related to GNRIs.
As I look around Dharmaj, I realise why the state government accords such importance to its diaspora. Darpan Patel takes me to the H M Patel English Medium School, of which he himself was a student. Set up in 1978, the school moved to its current five-acre campus around 1983. The school can give any urban educational institution a run for its money. It is equipped with a language laboratory, a computer and biotechnology lab, boarding facilities (both for teachers and students), and is soon to start an e-library. The school charges a nominal fee from its 1,700 pupils, and runs on donations from GNRIs.
The Surajba Park, with a boating area, lawns and a swimming pool, was built again with GNRI funds. The panchayat maintains it with the money it earns as entry charges. Nearby is the medical complex, developed with funding from the Jalaram Janseva Trust, that has facilities for pediatric, maternity, orthopaedic, dental and ocular treatments. Some GNRIs also run a small cancer and tuberculosis hospital off the highway that leads to Dharmaj, apart from an old age home. The residents aren't complaining about the 70-bed government hospital either. Dinesh Dalwadi, who runs a taxi service in the village, says, "The government hospital has young doctors and the facilities are decent, but if someone wants more personalised care, they can opt for the private hospital too. As such, the villagers can afford private healthcare."
At the banks, senior officers tell me, after requesting anonymity, that most of the older banks in the area have deposits in excess of Rs 100 crore each. "In all there would be deposits of at least around Rs 800 crore in all the banks," confides a banker.
Darpan Patel prides in the fact that the villagers have "developed most of the infrastructure without government support and are running the show well". But is this a healthy trend to be emulated across the state, or perhaps the country?
K H Patel, a former bureaucrat and now head of the Ahmedabad chapter of Non-Resident Gujaratis Centre, argues, "The government alone cannot ensure the improvement of infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country. Citizens have to come forward to do their bit." He says the GNRIs are an inspiration to other states too and a team of legislators from Karnataka had met him recently to understand how the government could play a role in establishing close ties with the state's diaspora.
Some classic examples of GNRI-developed villages in Gujarat include Malataj near Anand and Madhapar near Bhuj in the Kutch district. Like Dharmaj, these villages too have modern facilities and good public amenities. Rajesh Patel claims that 20-25 per cent of the 18,000 villages in Gujarat have benefited from NRI remittances, and the major NRI belts in the state are the Charotar region (Anand and Kheda district), Kutch, Mehsana, Surat, Valsad and parts of South Gujarat.
According to some statistics available with the GNRI Centre here, around 900 villages in North Gujarat have been helped by funds from abroad. Around 465 in Central Gujarat, 390-odd villages in South Gujarat and around 500 villages in the Saurashtra-Kutch region too have received funding from GNRIs. In all over 2,300 villages across Gujarat have received contributions from GNRIs, which effectively means that one in every eight village in the state has benefited in some form from NRI remittances.
The road ahead, however, lies not only in developing infrastructure with the remittances, but in also effectively managing government funds at the panchayat level. Like the GNRI villages, Punsari near Himmatnagar too has schools with air-conditioned classrooms, optical-fibre broadband and Wi-Fi, a mini-bus transport system and over 250 CCTV cameras across different junctions in the village. It achieved these through innovative management of finances received under central and state developmental schemes.
Perhaps the next step would be for the GNRI funds to be deployed to train villagers, specially those engaged with the panchayats, in money management and civil planning. The villages then would not have to rely as much on regular infusion of foreign funds.
