Dr. Heera Lal Patel, IAS

India has already shown the way through villages like Ralegan Siddhi and Hiware Bazar. What they teach us is that a village can transform itself when its people come together around a shared goal and have honest, committed leadership from within.

A grassroots intervention becomes sustainable when three conditions are met. The community must own the agenda, so the plan is theirs and not a project imposed from outside. There must be local leaders, changemakers who stay in the village long after the officer or the NGO has moved on. And there must be an economic engine, because a village that cannot earn cannot sustain anything.

Short-term pushes fail when they depend on one officer, one grant or one event. In a career with many postings, I have seen this again and again. What survives a transfer is what the people have made their own. That is why I keep saying that the solution must sit with the community, not with the administration.

Model Gaon grew out of what we tried in Banda, and it rests on three pillars that I believe can guide any village.

The first is the village manifesto. Villagers decide their own development agenda, whether it is increasing income, creating self-employment, reducing migration or building toward model village status. Every villager should have access to it.

The second is the changemaker. In every village there are people who are ambitious, creative, willing to take risks and genuinely want to help others. We identify them and help them grow into trusted social leaders who carry the village forward.

The third is turning agriculture into an enterprise through Farmer Producer Companies. It is not good to remain stuck in loss-making farming. When farmers come together they gain bargaining power, can add value through sorting, grading and processing, and can deal with the market on better terms.

Underneath all three is the idea that a village's development should be financially viable, socially equitable and eco-friendly at the same time. Inspired by Gandhi ji's Gram Swaraj and Dr. Kalam's PURA, Model Gaon tries to bring together technology, people, traditions, skills and entrepreneurial spirit. If one of these is missing, the model is incomplete.

I often talk about the idea of Do Maa, two mothers. One is the mother who gave birth to us and the other is Mother Earth, our water, forests and land. If we serve the first, we must also serve the second. When people see it this way, sustainability stops being a distant global issue and becomes a personal duty.

Climate action becomes real when it enters everyday routines. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as observer for Anandpur Sahib in Punjab, we tried to show that even an election can be green. We set up Green Booths where voters received saplings, reduced single-use plastic in EVM training, dispatch and collection, and asked candidates of all parties to plant a sapling every day before going out to campaign. Our slogan was a free, fair, transparent and environment-friendly election. I was happy to see the idea later picked up elsewhere.

Governments can build such small green habits into routine processes. Institutions can lead by example. Communities can protect their own ponds, trees and soil. And each individual can start with one tree, one less plastic bag, one bucket of water saved. These small steps, repeated by millions, matter more than any speech.

Development and conservation are not enemies. The mistake we made for many years was to treat water as unlimited and nature as free. Bundelkhand paid the price for that.

The principle I follow is simple. Respect the water budget of a place, and reconnect people with their traditional water sources. If we hold the rain where it falls, recharge the ground and revive our traditional wells and ponds, we can meet our needs without draining the future.

In Banda our campaigns, Bhujal Badhao Peyjal Bachao and then Kuan Talab Jiyao Abhiyan, were built on this. Ponds were desilted, wells revived, contour trenches dug and rainwater harvesting promoted, mostly through people's participation. Groundwater began to respond.

So any development plan should ask a few basic questions. Does it respect the water budget of the area? Does it revive or destroy traditional water bodies? Does it involve the people who will live with the consequences? If we answer these honestly, the balance usually follows.

Innovation in government does not always mean technology or large budgets. Some of the most effective innovations I have seen were low-cost or no-cost ideas built on people's participation.

Governments should actively encourage innovation in three areas: how they reach people, how they involve people, and how they use what already exists. In Banda we tried this across water conservation, jail reforms, malnutrition, education, elections and agriculture. In the 2019 elections, for instance, creative voter awareness efforts helped lift turnout in the district significantly. We also organised a Startup and Innovation Summit so that young people and rural entrepreneurs could bring their ideas forward.

What helps a good idea move from concept to implementation? A clear purpose, a small pilot that shows results quickly, a team that believes in it, and leaders willing to give officials room to try. Accountability and innovation can go together if we are transparent about what we are doing and why. I have also found that technology works best when it serves participation, not when it replaces it.

An interesting idea stays in a presentation. An impactful idea finds owners.

From what I have seen, the ideas that last have a few things in common. They solve a problem that people themselves feel, not one that only an outsider sees. They are simple enough to be copied in the next village without needing me or any officer there. They cost little, so they do not collapse when funding stops. And they can be measured, the number of wells revived, the rise in water level, the increase in voter turnout, the income of a Farmer Producer Company.

Most importantly, they connect with people's values. In Banda, water conservation became a people's movement when it was linked to faith, pride and the future of their children. That emotional connection is often the difference between a project and a movement.

So when I look at an idea, I ask: who will own it after we leave? If there is a clear answer, the idea has a chance.

Citizens are not just consumers of public services. They are partners in governance, and in many cases they are the real solution.

When the people of Banda's gram panchayats came out to dig trenches and clean their ponds, they were not helping the government. They were helping themselves, and the government was supporting them. That is how the relationship should be.

Responsibility can be shared quite naturally. The government should provide direction, resources, knowledge and a fair system. Communities should set their priorities and protect what is built. Civil society and organisations like Model Gaon can train changemakers and connect villages to markets and schemes. Corporates can contribute through CSR, as ICICI Foundation has done by supporting Model Gaon. And every individual can take responsibility for one thing in their own surroundings.

When everyone holds a small piece of responsibility, communities become far more resilient than when everything is left to the state.

Development must be measured by how it reaches the last person, not by its averages.

Institutionally, we need systems that go to people instead of waiting for people to come to them. Field visits, village meetings and simple, local-language processes matter a great deal for those who are poor, illiterate or far away.

Socially, we must ensure that the voices of women, small and marginal farmers and the poorest families are heard in village decisions. In Farmer Producer Companies, for example, the rules require that at least one director is a woman and that half the members are small or marginal farmers. Such provisions are important, but the spirit behind them matters more.

Behaviourally, the biggest change is empathy. Those of us in positions of authority must see the person in front of us as someone with dignity and potential, not as a problem to be managed. My own work on issues like jail reforms and malnutrition taught me that people at the margins respond remarkably when they are treated with respect.

Public service taught me that leadership is less about authority and more about trust. People follow you when they believe you are sincere and that you will stand with them.

Integrity is the foundation. Without it, no plan, however clever, will survive. Patience is equally important, because real change in a village or an institution takes time and it rarely moves in a straight line. Accountability means owning the result, good or bad, and not hiding behind procedure.

On decision-making, I have learnt to listen widely, decide clearly and then involve the team fully. Teamwork, foresight and dedication count for much more than individual brilliance. Many of the successes credited to me in Banda were really the work of countless officials, panchayat members and ordinary villagers.

All of this applies equally outside government. A company, a startup or a social enterprise also runs on trust, integrity and the ability to bring people together around a shared purpose.

Resistance is natural. Whenever you challenge the status quo, some people will doubt you and some will oppose you. I have learnt not to take it personally.

What helps is starting small and letting results speak. When people see one revived well or one improved booth, scepticism softens. In Banda the 2019 general elections came right in the middle of our water campaign. Afterwards we took it forward in a second phase, with even more speed. Setbacks like that are part of the journey. You adjust your timing and your method, but you keep the purpose.

Limited resources can actually be a strength. They push you towards low-cost solutions and people's participation, which are often more durable than expensive ones.

My motto has always been to champion change one step at a time. You do not need to win every battle on the first day. You need to keep moving in the right direction and keep people with you.

Young Indians are the biggest resource this country has. They have energy, ideas, comfort with technology and, very often, a strong sense of fairness.

In governance, they can be watchdogs, volunteers and innovators who help systems work better. In climate action, they can lead tree plantation drives, water conservation and plastic reduction in their own neighbourhoods. In social innovation and rural transformation, they can become the changemakers that every village needs, starting enterprises, forming Farmer Producer Companies and bringing new knowledge back home.

Institutions must open the door for them. That means internships and fellowships in government, platforms like startup and innovation summits, learning tours to model villages, and real responsibility rather than token roles. When we trust young people with meaningful work, they usually exceed our expectations.

Begin where you are, with what you have.

You do not need money, influence or connections to start. Pick one problem in your own village, colony or college that you genuinely care about. Talk to the people affected by it and listen carefully. Then do one small thing that helps, clean a pond, teach a child, plant trees, help someone access a government scheme.

Learn continuously. Visit places where change has already happened, read, ask questions and find mentors. Be creative and willing to take some risk. Communicate well, because bringing people along is half the work.

Above all, be patient and consistent. Resources and recognition tend to follow genuine work done over time. Many of the most respected changemakers in rural India started with nothing but commitment.

I hope the next generation inherits an India where villages are not places people leave, but places they want to stay in. Villages with good income, clean water, healthy children, quality education and opportunities for young people. Where farming is a profitable enterprise and not a burden.

I hope they inherit a country that has learnt to live in harmony with nature, where our rivers, ponds, forests and soil are healthier than they are today. And I hope they inherit institutions that people trust, where governance is transparent, participatory and genuinely focused on citizens.

To move closer to that vision, we must start today. Revive our water bodies. Plant and protect trees. Make every village write and follow its own development agenda. Invest in local leaders. And make empathy a basic quality of everyone in public life. The India of 2040 is being built by the choices we make in 2026.

Keep people at the centre and trust them.

Whether you are an administrator, an entrepreneur or a citizen, the best solutions come from the people closest to the problem. If you involve them, respect their knowledge and give them ownership, they will surprise you with what they can achieve.

I would add one more thing: serve with empathy. Positions, budgets and powers are temporary. What remains is the difference you made in someone's life and the trust you built. That is the real measure of public service.

If the problem is with you, so is the solution.

Do not wait for someone else to change things. Start with one step, however small, and bring others along. Change is not only possible, it is necessary, and it begins with you.

I would like to share one more thought. In Banda, people once believed that drought was their fate. Within a short time, through their own effort in reviving wells and ponds, they began to believe that water could return. That shift in belief was the biggest achievement, bigger than any number we could report.

This is why I believe every village can become a model village. It needs a clear agenda written by its own people, a few committed changemakers and an economy that rewards hard work. Model Gaon exists to support exactly that.

And finally, let us remember our two mothers, the one who raised us and Mother Earth who sustains us. If we care for both, we will rarely go wrong.