Balkishan Khawaas, Baldani Devi’s husband had been disowned by his family for some reason. The event forced him to migrate to Punjab in search of employment and financial security. In the absence of any bank account, every time he had to travel back home, he used to carry all the hard earned cash with him. Many a times, he was robbed in course of the journey. Then, Soochna Seva Kendra informed him about the existence of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). PMJDY is a National Mission on…

Ravi Kumar was busy herding the cattle in the rough grassland when one of the Soochna Seva team members spotted him. They were on the way to Matiyariya village in Gaunaha block of West Champaran, for one-to one meeting with the villagers. They noticed that Ravi was unable to walk properly as his feet were bent outwards and also he stooped while walking. The team stopped their vehicle and moved forward to interact with Ravi. They came to know that Ravi was born with distorted legs and it took…

This story is of 72-year-old Doli Bai, wife of Dhan Singh, who lives in Tajpur village which falls under the Gram Panchayat of Bhidra, Madhya Pradesh. Doli Bai used to receive her old age pension regularly until suddenly the payments ceased in February 2015. Due to lack of information and repeatedly filling the application incorrectly, or leaving some information incomple, the woman had to face disappointment every time. In June 2015, she happened to meet a Soochna Sevak, Nagma, and narrated…

There is a village called Nizampur in Khatakiya panchayat where there are 50 households but a population of 600 people. Harijan and Kevats reside in this village on the banks of river Parvati, which is suitable for growing khareef crops like soyabean and corn; and rabi crops like wheat, gram, coriander and some vegetables. Therefore, most people in this village own agricultural lands or work on these lands as labourers. When Soochna Sevak Naval Kushwaha visited this village once to create…

It was a usual day like any other day for Soochna Mitras. They had two separate engagements at Bahera village of Sikta Block one they had to undertake soochnapreneur survey as well as Cattle Vaccination camp. During activity Soochna Mitr stumbled up on Shri. Dukhram Mahato (C/o 09006056983) who foresaw Soochna Mitra as grievance readdresses mechanism. After inquiring the, credentials, Shri. Mahato narrated the following incident – On Aug 17, 2016 Shri Mahato went to Block Office to submit…

During a survey in Lohrati village, Barmer (Rajasthan), Soochna Seva team met Rajaram. He is 35 years old, married and has 3 kids. Two years ago, in an unfortunate accident, Rajaram lost his one leg. The accident not just crippled him but left his whole family shattered as he was the only breadwinner for them. In the event of finding no employment, the family financial situation went so grim that soon affording medical expenses of Rajaram became impossible. The Soochna Seva team helped…

Soochna Seva Kendra Pidhari centre was inaugurated on September 3, 2016 and since then Satyaprakash Ram is looking after the centre operations. Shri. Ramchandra Shah (Cellular Number 09572614690), a Pidhari resident was curious about the centre’s core functionality. He paid a visit to the centre and asked Satyaprakash about the centre’s activity. He was glad that centre is providing Digital Services and Digital Literacy to help villagers in facilitating GES and also assist in resolving…

Thirty-year-old Itiyo Devi lost her husband Rupa Ram a few years, and has been raising her child alone since then. It’s not been easy for her as the little embroidery work that she does is barely enough to earn the mother and the child two square meals a day. Further, her problems aggravate during the monsoon when her straw hut begins to leak. Sometime ago, she heard from a relative about the Rajasthan government’s Karyashala Yojana under which BPL families belonging to the Scheduled…

Kavita Devi is a 35-year-old widow who lives in Baitu Bhojpi village of Barmer district in Rajasthan with her two girls and one boy. After Shyamlal succumbed to cancer, all Kavita had to support her family was a monthly widow pension of Rs. 500 and a meagre wage as farm labourer (or whatever is her other source of income). This was extremely insufficient to ensure both food and education for the children, and eventually the children were forced to drop out of school. Due to lack of awareness,…

Rukma Devi lives in Dabri village with her family, Tehri Garhwal and her husband Brahmpal works in a hotel in Pune, Maharashtra. He has one son and two daughters. Her 5 year old daughter Radhika is eligible for the Nanda Devi Kanya Dhan Yojana, launched to empower the girl child in 2011.  Under the scheme, a girl child born on or after January 1, 2009, to BPL parents will receive Rs 5,000 as fixed deposit, to be utilised on the condition that the girl completes 18 years of age and also…

It was one of theusual day for 63-year-old Dhan Lal Pita, a laborer by profession. Being aware of a camp organized by Soochna Seva team his village-Pathar Colony, he thought to visit. He hopefully expressed his state, ‘I don’t get pension, what should I do?’ On checking his identity card and ration card, the team was surprised to know he hasn’t got pension for 3 years besides him being 63. The team on 29 April 2016 quickly rushed to fill a request in the village panchayat. After…

Anadu and her husband Azeem Khan live in Baytu Bhopji village of Rajasthan where she has been struggling to receive regular benefits under the old age pension scheme. Though Anandu was enrolled under a pension scheme, a few monthly ago, she stopped receiving her monthly pension. Despite several visits to the Panchayat office, there was no relief or response. When she was about to lose all hopes, somebody directed her to reach out to a Soochna Sevak who helped her register a complaint on the…

Jasim Kuraishi is the sole earning member of a ten person family in Targari village. He is engaged with the brokers who are involved in goat-business. He finds customers for them and in return collects is commission after completion of the deal. Though he has a good livestock with him, yet they are not in good health that can be traded. As a result to feed his family he sought other alternatives to earn money. It is a herculean task for him to take care of his entire family, especially since…

PAN or Permanent Account Number is 8 digit number issued by Income Tax Department and is one of the most important document these days. Primarily, it is used as an identity proof to avail the benefit of some public schemes and entitlements in the rural areas. People from the villages have to travel to Guna block for generating pan card and were forced to invest high amount including travel, a day wage and bribe. Soochna Seva Kendra in Umri Panchayat, Madhya Pradesh paid heed to this concern…

Kanti a village in lakshmanpura panchayat is about thirty five kilometers from Raghogarh Block. This village is a Bhil village. Shri. Parmal Singh, aged 45 is one of the residents of this village. He and his five member family is simple minded people. In the month of January 2015, people were eagerly opening accounts under PMJDY scheme. Parmal Singh who was inquisitive about this eagerness among his neighbors wanted to know more about the scheme. He learnt that everybody is opening her account…

Based on the stands social organizations often takes they are labeled as anti-govt. However these days this perception has changed and a mutual understanding between the two has developed, though it swings between positivity to negativity as per the situation and conditions. Since the nature of Soochna Seva’s work is in line with Government’s social arm, cooperation between the two is natural and will strengthen each other. Bearing this in mind, Soochna Seva was looking for mutual…

Rinku Devi (21) is a resident of Parsouni village in Ramnagar block of West Champaran. Devi, who belongs to a poor family, was unable to pay for medical treatment required during her pregnancy.   The Soochna Seva team met her during their one of their door-to-door visits. After knowing her ignorance about the government scheme available for maternal and natal care available in government run health centres, the team took an initiative to help her.   The team connected her…

Mohan Shah, a resident of Parsouni village, approached Soochna Sevaks to get his land back from a local goon. Shah contacted the team en route to Parsouni village outside the Parsouni Police Station. Initially, the team could not comprehend his problem but after a few dialogues they understood that the police was not helping him to sort out his problem. As he and his wife were thrown out of their house by hooligans sent by Asim Khan. Komal Kumari, block coordinator of Soochna Seva, expressed…

Soochna Seva team met an elderly beggar Bhagni Devi (75) during their visit to Parsouni village in Ramnagar block of  West Champaran district. She has been a homeless for last four years. She had been on her own after her three sons abandoned her. Hell broke loose when her eldest son died an unnatural death and she had an additional responsibility to look after his young children.   She was devoid of any personal identification documents such as her husband’s death certificate,…

Nag Yadav, 65, is a resident of Singpur village, West Champaran. He belongs to a poor family and have to work hard even at this age to make ends meet. After knowing about the social security scheme, Old Age Pension scheme run by the government for elderly people, he applied for monthly pension to support his family in managing financial expenses. He filled up the application form for the old-age pension a few months ago and has the acknowledgement receipt for the same but he could not get the…

The government has initiated various schemes and policies in order to provide sustainability to the under-privileged people. The irony is, majority of the rural population are devoid of the benefits earned from these schemes and the reasons behind this backlog are ignorance and lack of information. The Soochna Seva team experienced one such case of ignorance when they conducted a camp in Sivir village in Narendra Nagar block of Tehri Garhwal district. The team met Purushottam Singh; he was a…

Jhono Kerketta (35) lives in Bagdhara Patra village which comes under Kundi Panchayat of Itki block in Ranchi. She has two sons and a daughter of age 16, 14 and 10 respectively. Her husband usually works in a brick kiln but for few months only, as he spends rest of the months at home. Farming is the primary source of income for Jhono and her family. Due to poor irrigation facilities the produce is usually less therefore to facilitate the daily needs and run the household chores they began…

Simon Tirki was once a flourishing farmer of Semra village in Itki block of Ranchi district. Due to his old age he stopped going to the field so and began keeping livestock to generate some income to survive. Problems sneaked into Simon’s house when his goats died and he could not do anything to save them. He had no knowledge about seasonal diseases and the precautions that were meant to be taken care of. Soon his woes came to an end during a vaccination camp conducted by the Soochna Seva…

Sunita Bhandari is a resident of Pipleth village in Chamba block of Tehri Garhwal district. She is a graduate but lacked computer education which served as a barrier for her to get a good job. Due to her poor financial conditions she could not attend computer classes in Chamba because that is very expensive. After meeting the Soochna Seva team in one of the camp she received information about the digital literacy programme being provided at the centre. Since her husband passed away, she was…

The Guna Soochna Seva team was returning home after completing their monthly meeting at the Soochna Seva Kendra (SSK) at Chanchoura block when they witnessed an accident that took place a few meters before the Parvati river on the National Highway 3.This road connects Guna and Chanchoura and  prone to accidents due to poor road conditions. The victims were severely injured and needed immediate medical assistance. The Soochna Seva team spotted a Janani Suraksha Vahan and asked the driver to…

Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) is a safe motherhood intervention under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) being implemented with the objective of reducing maternal and neo-natal mortality by promoting institutional delivery among the pregnant women. JSY integrates cash assistance with antenatal, intranatal & postnatal care. Soochna Seva team was explaining about Jannani Surakshya Yojna in Devpur, a small village in Raghogarh Block on April 26, 2015. After the session was over, Ram…

Samsa Khatun is a happy woman today. When Shri Sanjay Kumar Pandey, Block Development Officer of Mainatan block in West Champaran, assured her that the installments which had stopped coming under the Indira Awas Yojana will again resume within a couple of days, she felt the pall of gloom lifting off from her. And she has only the Soochna Seva team to thank for this miracle. Merely a few weeks before she met the BDO, it was a different story for Samsa Khatun. Samsa lives in Pidri with her three…

कल्याणपुर पंचायत से 19 कि.मी दुरी पर स्थित डोली राजगुर्रा, डोली कला का राजस्व ग्राम है जिसमे लग-भग 2000 लोग निवास कर रहे है जो विभिन्न जातियों मे विभक्त है जैसे राजपुरोहित, विश्नोई, भील, मेघवाल, सुथार, लौहार, राजपुत, देवासी, दर्जी, नाई, गोस्वामी, सन्त, ब्राह्म्ण व हरिजन आदि I इसी गांव मे बस स्टेण्ड से लगभग 1 किलोमीटर की दूरी पर मेघवालो कि बस्ती है। इसी बस्ती मे गिरधारी राम मेघवाल (विकलांग) का घर है जो बिल्कुल हाईवे से सटा हुआ है। इनके परिवार मे एक वृद्द माँ, पत्नी, दो बच्चे व तीन बच्चियाँ है।

Soochna Seva project aims to deliver basic computer skills among the rural population. So a center is set up in rural pockets and students from the villages are enrolled in it. In Chanchoda block of Guna district, a centre was setup last year.  The Soochna Seva team began introducing the activities that are carried out in selected panchayats. The hard work paid results and 32 students were enrolled within 20 days. Mr. Ramnarayan Ahirwar was strolling on the streets when he spotted some…

Akshara is a 5-yr-old girl from Dabri village and lives with her parents. She spends most of the time with toys and her younger brother, Vansh. The prime focus of her parents is her education and proper upbringing. Since, they stay in a small village, work opportunity is limited. Therefore, Amit Kumar, father of Akshara, works in Delhi as a migrant labourer. Whatever he earns in a month is too less because most of the money is spent in household management. After marriage, the couple is unable…

पप्पू साहू एवं कल्याण कोरी गुना जिले के देहरीकला गावं के रहने वाले है I यह दोनों एक मामूली किसान है, इनका पूरा परिवार जीवन यापन के लिए खेती पर निर्भर है I राजपाल केवट (सूचना सेवक) देहरीकला गाँव से ही है तथा सूचना सेवा मे जुड़ने के बाद से अपने गाँव की भलाई के लिए कार्य कर रहा है I एक दिन पप्पू साहू ने सूचना सेवक राज पाल केवट से संपर्क किया, और विद्युत विभाग मे बिल की राशि जमा करने से सम्बंधित किसी योजना के बारे मे पूछा I पप्पू साहू ने पिछले तीन साल से बिजली का बिल जमा नहीं किया था जिसके कारण बिल की राशि रू. 27775 हो गयी है इसकी वजह से वह काफी परेशान है I

In Uttrakhand, only 58% people have a bank account, out of which 20% are above 50 years of age. Ram Charan Singh is a 60-yr-old farmer from Dabri village of Thauldar block in Tehri Garhwal. He did not have a bank account and was always in this perception that one needs lots of money to open one. So after the launch of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, he opened an account on October 20, 2014. Ram Charan is a widow and has three sons. The eldest son is 34-yrs-old and four years ago met with an…

In January 2015, Soochna Seva team of Chanchoura helped Pream Ahirwar of Meriyakhedi village to open up an account under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna. He also took Soochna Seva team’s assistance in availing Aadhaar card in March 2015. Soochna Seva team and Meriyakhedi residents were waiting for the Aadhaar cards. Usually Aadhaar cards reach an individual’s house through post within two months. But the wait continued for three months and all the applicants were desperate to receive their…

Kukarbagi is a small village that is 10 kms away from main Chamba city and comes under the Bhatusain Panchayat. In the village almost 10 families belong to Schedule Caste category. This story is about Sangita a 13-yrs-old girl who is from one of those SC families. She performs extremely well in her studies when compared to the performance of her siblings. During a visit to this village, Soochna Seva team came across her and her family. Her father, Mr. Balveer Singh, works as a labourer and is…

The Soochna Seva team is making efforts to digitally empower the under-privileged children by providing computer training in their Soochna Seva Kendras. They have taught many children so far and have been continuing their work for about a year. Recently the team met Padam Singh, a young boy of 21-yr-old, in Meriyakhedi village of Chanchoura block. He expressed his desire to learn the basics of computer so that he can use his free time and learn something worthwhile that can help him in his…

The residents of Chilka village in Guna district were facing grave issues related to hand-pumps for several days. Every day villagers would gather around the hand-pump that was functioning properly and would stand for long hours to fill their vessels. To make matters worse, people quarreled with each other and this caused loads of commotion within the community. So, the locals complained in the PHE (Public Health Engineering) department on June 20, 2015 and waited for the officials to begin the…

Soochna Seva team has been working extremely hard towards the betterment of society by making people aware of the rights and opportunities provided by government for making one’s life sustainable. One such effort came into light from Kuship village of Ramdev Nagar block in Barmer district. Here Soochna Seva team helped Gabri Devi to obtain Pension Plan Order (PPO) card for Old Age Pension Scheme that she has applied three months ago. Gabri Devi Meghwal is a 50-yr-old woman and she married…

This case story is about Ruchi Kirsali. She has been living in Dabri Village with her 3-yr-old daughter since her marriage. She was not aware about the government schemes until she met Soochna Seva. Our team informed that her daughter is eligible for Nanda Devi Kanya Yojna. As, Dabri is a very tiny village in Thauldhar Panchayat of Tehri Garhwal, Uttrakhand and is situated at higher altitude, access to that area is extremely difficult. But our Soochna Seva team walked miles to reach the…

The woes of Jitu Lohar (64) and his wife Geeta Devi (60) did not end even after the death of their elder son. While they were still busy bearing the brunt of their loss another setback followed when their daughter-in-law left the house to work in a brick kiln in a different state. Clouds of grief, hunger and loneliness hovered over Jitu’s head and therefore to feed his family Jitu began working as a blacksmith with a meager of 500 rupees per month. As, Jitu’s elder son was the sole…

  Pooja Urain (38) who resides in a small village of Bedo block in Ranchi district has been living a miserable life for a long time. She was overjoyed when she received a BPL (Below Poverty Line) card after a long wait, because this will serve as a ticket  to her dreams to own a house through Indira Awas Yojna. She wanted to break free from the dilapidated condition  of leaking roof, make-shift walls and tiny rooms. The dream of a ‘pucca’ house gave her wings to believe that…

Soochna Seva team reached Dabri village in Tehri Garhwal district of Uttrakhand on January 7, 2015. It was their door-to-door visit to deliver information about government schemes to the community when they met Anju Devi. Anju Devi is 28-years-old and lives with her in-laws in the village. Her husband, Azad Singh, works in a hotel in New-Delhi, earning an average income sufficient enough to feed his family. Anju Devi says, ‘When Soochna Seva team visited us, we were ignorant about…