Chhavi, an ex-student of Rishi Valley, Bangalore

A jeans-clad young woman hardly fits the bill for a sarpanch in rural Rajasthan. And so, Chhavi Rajawat, an MBA, had raised eyebrows last year for literally riding her way through the panchayat election and becoming thesarpanch of Soda village, 60 km from Jaipur.

A year later, Chhavi raised the same kind of awe at the 11th Info-Poverty World Conference held at the UN. The two-day panel discussion at the UN held on March 24 and 25 was to highlight how civil society can implement its actions and discussed at length the role of society in fighting poverty and promoting development.

Chhavi, an ex-student of Rishi Valley, Bangalore and Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi showcased the changing face of rural Rajasthan at the meeting.

"If India continues to make progress at the same pace as it has for the past 65 years since Independence, it just won't be good enough. We will be failing people who dream of having water, electricity, toilets, schools and jobs. I am convinced we can do it differently and do it faster," said Chhavi, who pursued her business management in marketing and IT from Pune.

"In the past year alone in Soda, the villagers and I have brought about a radical change in the village purely through our own efforts. We have no outside support no NGO help, no public or private sector help," she shared at the meet.

From a village largely known for its water bodies, Soda was losing them as one after the other water body was drying out. But, after becoming sarpanch, the first task that she took upon herself was to desilt an old water body. The number of people who joined her in the task voluntarily was another instance of her popularity there.

Perhaps the only MBA village head in the country, Chhavi spoke of the necessity to re-think strategies for including new technologies like e-services in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in an era where resources are becoming limited.

"I thank United Nations Office for Partnerships ( UNOP) which had deputed its senior adviser in India, Babu Lal Jain, to visit Soda and extend support to open the first bank in the village. That made all the difference," she said adding, "In three years, I will transform my village. I don't want money. I want people and organisations to adopt projects in my village as often projects fail owing to lack of a local connect and that is what I am here to provide a bridge in that gap."

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