Not an expensive win for him

By T. Ramakrishnan

CHENNAI, OCT. 22. Elections these days are a high-cost affair. Posters, handbills, festoons, and in some places, cut-outs, are all essential components of campaigning.

But, Mr. R. Ilango (40), who has been re-elected president of the Kuthambakkam village panchayat (about 35 km west of Chennai), has done it, virtually spending no money.

Only a 12-page pamphlet was issued, detailing his plans for development of the village panchayat. Even this was possible because of a friend who volunteered to produce the pamphlet.

Though, in the last five years, Mr. Ilango earned the reputation, among administrators and developmental experts, of being a forward-looking panchayat president, he struggled hard while canvassing for votes.

He was allotted the ``light house'' symbol with which the Kuthambakkam electorate was not much familiar. ``I explained to them what it meant,'' he said.

Mr. Sambandam, a village school teacher, and Mr. Dasaratha Naidu, an agriculturist, say ``the symbol was not very prominent in the ballot paper and we had to search for it. Still, the people voted for him''.

This time, the poll percentage was 70 and Mr. Ilango, a Dalit, won by a margin of 600 votes, defeating a candidate who was backed by the Puratchi Bharatham, an ally of the AIADMK. Compared with 1996, the margin was up 200 votes, in a Panchayat with an electorate of 3,000.

However, Mr. Ilango does not seem to be carried away much. He is very much conscious of the tasks that he has to carry out in the next five years.

Since 1996, Kuthambakkam witnessed laying of link roads and concrete roads, installation of streetlights and overhead tanks. Its Samathuvapuram, providing homes to 100 BPL (below poverty line) families, was built on a low-cost basis. On the social front, illicit liquor brewing was banished, thanks to support from the district administration and the police.

One of his immediate plans is to have a high school in the village. ``There are two primary schools in our area, having a strength of 520. At present, students have to go to Poonamalle, about 10 km from the village. The bus services are poor. So, the dropout rate is extremely high,'' says Mr. Ilango, who quit his job in the Central Electro Chemical Research Institute (CECRI) six years ago to take up social work.

As 45 per cent of the population in the village comes under the BPL, he wants to make Kuthambakkam a hunger-free village. A number of schemes are being undertaken in this direction.

For rural development, Mr. Ilango is emphatic in saying that Gandhian economic philosophy holds the key. ``Unless villages are self-sustaining units, no programme will succeed.''

To elaborate this point, he says that a survey undertaken by the panchayat revealed that Kuthambakkam now consumed rice worth around Rs. eight lakhs every month. ``When people here themselves are involved in farming, why should we buy rice from Chennai?,'' he asks.

So, the local demand for major commodities can be met through local production. ``Whatever is left has to be shared with neighbouring villages,'' he says, pointing out that there are plans to form a rural economic zone comprising Kuthambakkam and surrounding villages Nemam, Gudapakkam, Vellavedu, Melmanambedu and Padur.

Asked whether the voters in his village understand the concepts he is propagating, Mr. Ilango said: ``They critically evaluate what I say. A telephone connectivity scheme, envisaging free local calls, has been mentioned in my manifesto. They asked me how it was possible when it took several months for getting a telephone connection. (Incidentally, the village panchayat does not have one). I replied to them that it was possible with technological progress and explained about wireless loop system. Only then were they convinced.''

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