A Solar Powered village who won 5 National Awards 

Situated amidst lush green trees and mountains, is a village named Mukhra K in Telangana which has gone massive transformation from a backward, remote village to five times national awardee. It has become a model village for nearby villages and the chief motivation behind it is Sarpanch Gadge Meenakshi - the lady with a vision. 

The Personal Story

When Meenakshi was a growing kid, she herself faced many challenges and lack of basic facilities in the village. She was able to study upto class 5 in the village and for further studies she has to go out. Most of the girls dropped their studies at that point those days. She somehow managed to study up to class 10th. To pursue her studies she has to walk for kilometres up to highway road to catch the bus for the school.

The Plight of Village

As per Meenakshi ,there was no proper drainage system in the village. Dreams overload on the Pathways making it difficult to walk. That created a breeding ground for mosquitoes and other microorganisms. People defecated in the open and doctors were not staying in the village for long. Littering was another bad habit prevailing in the village. There was nobody in the village to listen to the complaints as the Sarpanch was living far from the village. 

From Plight to transformation

The village remained in this pathetic condition till 2019 when Meenakshi was elected as Sarpanch of the village. The first priority under took by Meenakshi was to stop open defecation completely by building toilets in each household of village so that women should not get embarrassed as they have to go for defecation in the open fields daily. Gram Panchayat finally built toilets in all 210 households in the village under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Apart from it, she constructed soakpits in every house to prevent leakage of water on roads. 

The second important decision taken by her was collecting the waste from village and preparing vermicompost from it. Interestingly, now the village is earning lacks of rupees revenue by selling this vermi compost fertilizer. Gram Panchayat distributed two separate dustbins to every household for collecting dry and wet waste. 

From Solar Power to free Bus Service

The village has also installed two solar powered grids on the rooftop producing 6 kilowatts of electricity. This has made the village self sufficient in energy. Panchayat has installed solar lights in Anganwadi, schools, roadside and Gram Panchayat Bhavan so that the power bill has reduced to zero up till now.

A digital library has also been started by Meenakshi for the school going students so that nobody should get deprived from education due to lack of basic facilities. She has also installed 1000 connections of tap water under Central government's Har Ghar Jal mission scheme. 

She has been the mentor behind planting about one lakh fruit bearing trees along road side. She also encouraged people to use eco friendly cutlery in the weddings. Apart from it, she provided free bus service for pick up and drop for village students to the city so that they should not leave their studies in between. What a spirit!

Achievements

In this process of transformation ,she has used 36 crores of fund from Central and State government to implement various schemes and programs. The village has been awarded several times on national level with awards like Swacchh Sujal Shakti Samman, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Panchayat Puruskaar, Swacchh Sarvekshan Award and National Gram Urja Swaraj Award. Meenakshi Gadge is a perfect example of will power and spirit to serve the community which has transformed a village in plight to a role model.The society owe to them deep from their heart!