REPORT OF THE VISIT TO KAMDEBKATHI, THE SELECTED VILLAGE OF NORTH 24 PARGANAS IN NOVEMBER, 2000

REPORT OF THE VISIT TO KAMDEBKATHI, THE SELECTED VILLAGE OF NORTH 24 PARGANAS IN MARCH, 2001

(Prepared by Meera M Hira Smith, member of Bay Area Prabasi and Director of ProjectWellUSA)

On 4^th March the author and one member of the local NGO, Loka Kalyan Parishad (LKP), visited the target village, Kamdebkathi and had a meeting with the President and few members of Aikya Sammelani Club of Simulpur. The discussion was mainly about formation of beneficiary committee and consent of the village people. The two members of the Club, Mr. Samir Roy and Mr. Ranjit Biswas agreed to attend a meeting at Calcutta.

The final meeting was held on 12^th March 2001 at office of LKP. It was focused on the administrative set-up of ProjectWell of West Bengal. Basically new persons were introduced to members of LKP.

2-3 PM – Meeting with the two field coordinators, Mr. Samir Roy and Mr. Ranjit Biswas. During this meeting Meera Smith explained the responsibility and the plan of work to the village coordinators. Discussed the formation of beneficiary committees, the pattern of health survey, enlisting the name and basic information of individual beneficiaries in registers and the schedule of construction of the dugwells, health survey and the monitoring of the water analysis during the whole one-year period for the five dugwell pilot program.
3-4 PM - Introduction of Mr. Protap Chakraborty, a recently retired geologist. Mr. P Chakraborty has offered his service as the director of ProjectWell-West Bengal. He worked in the office of the department of Geological Survey of India, West Bengal. He has a good knowledge of the geology and arsenic mainly of the target areas.

At the meeting the role of the local director, local field coordinators, the coordinator of LKP and the role of LKP in the ProjectWell program were discussed.

4-5 PM – The budget and the accounts were discussed. The field coordinators were not present during this discussion.

On 17^th March met with Dr. DN Guha Mazumder and Dr. Allan Smith to discuss the questionnaire for the health survey of the beneficiaries of the five-dugwell program. The health survey is to record any kind of stomach disorder that the consumers may develop during consumption of the water from the dugwells.

The construction of the model dugwell was started at site number PW9/SMP1 on 4^th May 2001 and an inaugural ceremony was held on 3^rd June 2001. The detailed report of the construction and the results will be available shortly.