This is a story of a small village Piplantri situated in the Rajsamand district of Rajasthan which has been celebrating the birth of a girl differently!
On the birth of every girl child, a total of 111 trees are planted in this village since last 13 years which has turned this barren land into green area with 3.5 lakh trees spread around. With this dense greenery, the water level in this town, which once stood at 500 feet deep, has now improved significantly.
In fact, the village also speaks a story of socio-economic transformation where there is zero per cent unemployment and no crime data available as each resident here is engaged in a creative task- a task for developing the village where each girl stands empowered and self dependent.
The credit for changing the fortunes of this village goes to Shyam Sundar Paliwal, who after losing his 16-year-old daughter Kiran, pledged that each parent of the daughter will now feel proud to be a father of girl child.
He loved his daughter and hence wanted her to stay with him forever.
In fond remembrance of Kiran, his daughter, he launched Kiran Nidhi Yojana on her name.
Under this scheme, he persuaded parents to get a fix deposit done on the name of their daughters so that they can pursue higher studies.
“My ultimate aim was to prevent the female foeticide, and to protect our daughters from child marriage while making quality education available to them, said Paliwal, who himself was class X pass out.
He also made the parents take pledge that they will never give or take dowry and to implement the pledge, he made them sign an affidavit to this effect.
“At this point came the idea to plant 111 saplings,” he said.
Over the years, this initiative became a regular ritual and parents are now sincerely depositing a chunk of their savings in their daughters’ accounts .
According to Paliwal, “August 21, 2006 came up as the saddest day of his life, when he lost my dear daughter Kiran who was 16 at that time.”
“She had returned from school with a stomach pain and was rushed to hospital, however could not be saved. With this terrible loss creating severe pain, I decided my daughter will always be with me,” he says.
With many schemes being for daughters, the parents of a girl child are providing complete formal education and are not marrying them before their legal age. As a result, village’s socio-economic and demographic condition has changed significantly.
They now enjoy all modern facilities, such as eco-friendly gas stoves, toilets, solar light, anganwadi centres, health centres, air-conditioned panchayat bhavan and modern schools to the village.
The village now has two million of Aloe Vera plants through which the villagers are earning their livelihood by selling gel, pickle and its juice. Every one is hale, hearty, happy and healthy here dedicated for a cause of making their daughters empowered–isn’t it an inspiration for the nation to follow?