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Chhavi Rajawat, MBA sarpanch makes affect at UN meet

Chhavi Rajawat is an Indian politician, Chhavi Rajawat was an MBA sarpanch, who made affect at UN meet. Chhavi Rajawat is the sarpanch her village Soda, 60 km from Jaipur. Checkout here more details like who is Chhavi Rajawat ?, Biography and career.

Chhavi Rajawat was born in Rajasthan. 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 the sarpanch of Soda village. 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 Rajawat is an alumna of Rishi Valley School, Bangalore, Lady Shri Ram College for Women (University of Delhi) and a management graduate from Indian Institute of Modern Management, Pune now known as Balaji Institute of Modern Management 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 by providing water, electricity, toilets, schools and jobs. We have no outside support no NGO help, no public or private sector help,” she shared at the UN meet.

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.”

Chhavi Rajawat left her corporate job and city life to join politics. Chhavi Rajawat grandfather Brig Raghubir Singh was the sarpanch of the village, from which she too was elected.

But today, as Chhavi heads NREGA meetings in her village dressed in jeans and T-shirt, she is fast emerging as the changing face of rural Rajasthan. “It should change. There is so much one can do,” she says.

“In fact, my business management degree is helping me take care of the village better. It is a sort of social work that runs in my blood,” says the woman who became sarpanch on February 4.

Rajawat says she waded into politics, backed by the villagers. “There was an uprising against the sarpanch. The villagers did not want him and though I was pitched against his wife and another woman, I managed to win. The villagers see me as the daughter of the village and wanted me to contest,” she says.

Chhavi Rajawat, the corporate girl-turned-sarpanch from Rajasthan, says she’s used to rural life. “I am used to it. I grew up playing with kids of farmers. Besides, my parental house is in Soda, so I spend time there and don’t miss anything. I am pretty comfortable,” she says. Besides being sarpanch, she also tends to a hotel that the family owns in Jaipur and the numerous horses that are part of her riding school. “It’s a passion,” she explains.

She’s also trying to change mindsets. “Villagers have got used to not working and taking partial payment for NREGA. I have to change that. I go on surprise visits and give them a scolding or two if they are not working,” she says. “But my focus is on bringing safe drinking water and increasing job opportunities in the village by involving NGOs,” says Rajawat.

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