'Helping hands' set to make a difference in Haryana village

A village in Haryana that earned accolades for reversing the gory trend of declining child sex ratio, on Thursday announced its latest community endeavour that would eventually lead to a “chain reaction”, generating scores of helping hands for common good.

Inspired by the recent Bollywood flick Jai Ho, where lead actor Salman Khan practices a 1 to 3 model of helping people, Bibipur adopted a similar model in which one villager will form a chain of at least three persons whom he would help in one way or the other.

Each of the three persons will in turn form another chain of three villagers whom they would help, for example, in getting medical aid.

 Sunil Jaglan, the 32-year old village sarpanch told Deccan Herald that Bibipur had called a gram sabha on Thursday where a unanimous resolution to adopt this concept was passed.

“In some time, the number of helping hands in the village will be abundant because of the chain reaction. Every gesture of help will encourage brotherhood and harmony in the village,” Sunil Jaglan said. The men or women who will help the maximum number of villagers will be felicitated from time to time for their good work.

At least 70 persons, who had received help from nearly a dozen persons in the village at some point in time, were identified and called for the meeting.  Sunil said each villager can help any three persons for various jobs including cleanliness, hygiene, old age pension, documentation, last rites, employment, medical assistance.

Bibipur has a history of initiating projects with a mission. The child sex ratio in Bibipur village nearly doubled in one year, from a deplorable 561 girls to every 1,000 boys in 2012 to 1,114 girls in 2013. Its panchayat, instead of having a chief guest for this year’s Republic Day function, chose a woman with a girl child to hoist the tricolour.