GROUP DISCUSSION

CASELETS FOR CHAIRPERSONS DISCUSSION

You are the District Collector of a district in which a road

project has been commissioned to join 4 villages.
However, the project cannot be completed because a
key bridge is needed and the MP, who can sanction the
money needed from his MPLADS, is holding up the
sanction. Some say, the MP is delaying because the
villages voted for his opponent. Others say that the MP
will agree if the Dist Collector makes a direct request,
but this will imply favours in return. You have called
your officials to discuss the situation as to what to do.
You are the District Collector of a district where a road
project is planned. The women in one of the villages on
the planned route oppose the route and have asked for
an alternate route. However, this is not acceptable to
the local influential farmers as the road cuts through
their field and your own officials opposed it because
they thought the land acquisition would be expensive.
You later found that the women opposed the route
since they used the area for open defecation and the
traffic would affect their privacy. You have called for a
meeting of your officials to discuss the case.
You are the Manager of a rural bank tasked to help the
local industry develop. Your area has several
carpenters who service several villages. You have given
a loan to two of the carpenters to buy power hand
tools. Their business has flourished and they are paying
back the loan. However, you have received information

that the other carpenters, who your bank had ruled

unsatisfactory and as loan risks, are in dire straits and
are on the verge of ruin. They have appealed to your
regional office and your RO has asked you to review the
case. You have called a meeting of your staff to discuss
this.
You are the Managing Director of a state corporation
offering an energy efficient stove, sourced by you from
abroad. You conducted a market survey and the results
are mixed. The women like the fact that the stove is
energy efficient and smokeless but say that the stove
has a narrow opening and the rotis get cooked only in
the centre. But R &D people say that any change will
reduce its efficiency. Another reason as also because of
its elongated shape, they are presently unwilling to buy
the stove. You have called your Heads of Departments
to discuss the issue.
You are the Sarpanch of a village. The government is
making available a certain amount of funds for your
village which may be utilized for any one important
project decided upon by the Panchayat. There are
number of pressing issues like building toilets for the
use of the women in the village, building a community
hall, clean and safe drinking water provisions,
electrification of village and construction of one school
for primary children. You decided to call for a meeting
of Panchayat to discuss this issue.
As the Headmaster of the village high school you have
come to know that a significant number of girls are
dropping out of school because of marriages at an age
earlier than which was prevalent in the villages around

as also for various other reasons like young girls being

lured by touts with false promises of better life and
marriages with city dwellers. You called for a meeting
of all the teachers to discuss as to how to resolve this
issue.
You are the leader of a Self Help Group (SHG). It has
been brought to your attention that few of the female
members have been facing domestic violence of
varying degree. These are the members who have also
been defaulting with their payments to the group. You
called for a meeting of the SHG to discuss all aspects
related to whether and how the Group should react to
such cases of domestic violence against their members.
You are the Project Manager of a company that is
setting up an industrial unit in a village but the villagers
are opposed to setting up of the unit. You are aware
that such a unit will benefit the area, but some of the
land will be acquired at the same time. You are aware
that the industrial unit will cause certain amount of
pollution and greatly increase traffic flow in the region.
You have called for a meeting of the senior members of
your project team to discuss how you can win the
villagers over to accept your proposal.
The NGO you are heading is working in an area that is
deeply divided along caste lines. Cases of violence
have been on the rise following upon run away and
inter-caste marriages. Few cases of very poor families
having even sold their children have come to light. You
have decided to intervene through some programme to
counter such opposition to inter-caste alliances and
other issues. You have called for a meeting of the

senior functionaries of your organization to develop

ideas for this program.
You are the Project coordinator for a Watershed
development project in a typical drought prone village.
You are informed that there is Rs 30 Lakhs available for
the project over 4 years for taking up works on soil
conservation,
water
harvesting
and
livelihoods
promotion. You have the challenge before you to
ensure the equitable utilization of the resources and
funds including the landless and women. You have the
challenge of pressures from the big farmers and
contractors to plan the works that suit them. You have
convened a meeting to discuss the situation and take a
decision with your project team.
You are the head of an NGO working with tribal
community in a forest area. The tribal community has
been surviving through collection of Minor Forest
Produce and shifting cultivation. The Forest Officials
object to the practice of shifting cultivation and argue
that it results in deforestation and ecological
imbalance. They insist that the tribal community should
give up shifting cultivation. Whereas the tribal
community feels they cannot give it up nor leave the
forest as it is their habitat. You are chairing a meeting
with your staff to discuss and to resolve the issue.
You are the District Collector of a district where there is
a new irrigation project planned that would benefit
farmers and agricultural workers in 10 villages. But this
would also submerge two villages completely, most of
the habitants being small and marginal farmers and
landless agricultural workers. Government proposed a

resettlement and rehabilitation policy in which houses

will be constructed for them with school and medical
facilities about 50 km away. Cash compensation is also
proposed at the prevailing government rate, which is
only one fourth of the actual market rate. The villagers
of the submerging villages are not prepared to leave
the villages. You have called for a meeting of the
district staff to resolve the issue, which should be
beneficial for all.
There is a minor irrigation tank in the village where you
are the panchayat president. There are multiple users
of the tank such as farmers who have irrigation under
the tank, farmers whose bore wells get recharged by
the tank, fisher folk, livestock rearers, farmers who
cultivate the tank bed, etc. The tank requires some
urgent repairs and the funds made available by the
Government are meagre. You have to mobilize the
funds for the repairs and holding the meeting with the
users who also have conflicts in the use of the resource.
The challenge before you is to convince the different
users and mobilize the resources for repairs in cash,
kind or labour. You are holding a gram sabha to discuss
the same.
The municipal workers continued strike and agitations
continued for more than a week now creating
unhygienic conditions in the colony. However the
matter of resolving the workers strikes is with the
municipality and the workers union, which might take
some more time. In fact the workers are on strike for
the third time in the last 6 months. The residents of the
colony and as the President of the residents
association you are also concerned with the situation.
You have planned for a meeting with other members of

the association to evolve a permanent solution.

You are the President of the local Agriculture
cooperative society. Traders in the market became a
syndicate and reduced the price of Onion and Tomato
produced in the surrounding villages. Farmers were
upset and threatened of huge losses. You would like to
deal with the problem and have convened a meeting
with other Board of Directors of the society to find a
solution to the problem.
A new national park is being planned to protect the
tigers and a few other endangered species. The
creation of the park requires the relocation of many
tribal villages around the forest. While some villages
are willing to relocate as they have been promised
large compensation, others are refusing to leave their
villages. You head a NGO working in this region and
feel that this is a ploy to acquire the land to be
subsequently used for mining purposes by some
unscrupulous MLAs of the district. The district
administration is silent about the whole matter. You
have called for a meeting of your senior workers to
discusses and solve the issue.
It is being reported in the local newspapers that many
hospitals and clinics are performing sex-selective
abortion in the district. The census shows a serious
imbalance in the sex ratio. The district administration
has issued strict warnings in the newspapers and also
written to the hospitals. Though the hospitals deny
that they have ever done any such abortion, the
problem continues. You are appointed as the head of a
committee to look into this problem. You called for a

meeting of your committee to discuss and suggest

remedial measures.
A bottled water company plans to set-up its processing
unit in your village. The village people primarily depend
on the water from the wells for meeting the agriculture
as well as their domestic water needs. A social activist
organisation realises that the projected water
consumption may lead to a drying of existing resources
of the entire area making a direct impact on
agricultural production. But the company will provide
lot of jobs. As Sarpanch of the biggest village you called
for a meeting of all other heads of neighbouring
villages to discuss and resolve the same.
Very close to your village is an ancient fort which the
government has declared as a heritage site. The road
to the fort passes through the village and through
several other villages. The inflow of visitors has
increased considerably resulting in an increase in the
waste that litters along the roadside, pollution and
noise and accidents with speeding vehicles. Small
hotels have started mushrooming. Crime which was
earlier negligent is now on the rise. Villagers are deeply
uncomfortable about the situation. You are the head of
the this village and have called for a meeting of heads
to all other affected villages to discuss the issue.
This year a deadly epidemic has spread in the villages
around a tribal belt. Villagers are fleeing the villages
fearing that the calamity has struck due to the wrath of
the village goddess. Some of the villagers who continue
to live in the village invite a spiritual person from a
distant unaffected village to resolve the problem. The

person advises human sacrifice to calm the goddess.

Villagers feel this as a last resort and are planning the
sacrifice. You as a District Magistrate have called for a
meeting of your departmental heads to discuss a
solution.
A well established multinational seed company is
offering high yielding seeds of some crops to farmers in
your village free of cost. The company is also willing to
purchase the output at competitive market price. As a
head of an NGO you have come to know that the
company is offering genetically modified seeds which
can adversely affect the soil quality and requires lot of
water. The effect on human and animal health in the
long run is unknown. Your NGO has started campaigns
and meetings to sensitise farmers but still some would
want to go for the seeds since the offer is a lucrative
one. You have called for a meeting of your
departmental heads to discuss and solve the issue.
PMRDF Selection Coordination Committee