Location: Puranpura Village, Mehsana District, Gujarat

Puranpura is a village in Visnagar taluka located in the Mehsana district of Gujarat. Visnagar
and its adjoin region was founded by king Vishaledo from Ajmer Dynasty in around 953 A.D.
on the auspicious day of 'Akhatrij'. Visnagar became the first town in North Gujarat to have an
underground water supply and sewerage system. Visnagar district has produced many freedom
fighters during the time of British Rule. In the 1930s, three families from the Karva Patidar
(Patel) caste migrated largely from a village called Pilrai and few from a village called
Balodhera to the village Kada. They bought fertile lands from the villagers of Kada and formed
a new village called Puranpura.

Today, the village consists of only three Patel families with a total of 180 households and about
900 villagers. Puranpura is a true depiction of the dairy cooperative movement. People in
Puranpura are mainly involved in dairy business. The village is well connected to nearby
villages and towns with pucca roads. Public transportation system, like busses, are available
regularly.
Agriculture

The agricultural practice in Puranpura can be understood better by knowing a typical farmer of
the village as depicted herein.

We met Madhav Lal Patel, aged 65, who is a resident of the village and earns his living from
agriculture and dairy. He has 1 buffalo and 6 cows. The cows, on an average gives 20L of milk
each day while the buffalo gives 25L. The milk is sold to the Puranpura dairy cooperation. He
has around 5 bigha (1.26 Ha) of land, major crops grown is similar to the whole village. The
current standing crop in his field was Chicory and Fennel. The following extract provides the
insights about the agricultural crops, their productivity and income parameters that we gained
from him.

The major crops grown in the village is shown in the following table

Seasons Crops
Rabi Wheat
Carrot
Fennel
Tobacco
Rye
Fenugreek
Throughout Chicory
year
Kharif Jowar
Cotton
Castor
The village faces a shortage of agricultural labourers. All the families in the village belong to
the same community- Patel. They are very conscious about the casteism and the activities they
perform. Hence no individual of the Patel family offers the service of an agricultural labourer.
The labourers arrive in the harvesting and sowing seasons from the different parts of Gujarat,
mainly from the Kutch, Baroda region. Most of these labourers are from the tribal
communities. The labour expense for per day of field work is around INR 2000 per bigha with
10 labourers, which comes out to be INR 3200 per acre. The land is kept fallow for two months
after the harvesting of Rabi crop. Apart from the above cropping pattern the villagers also
dedicate a part of their land for the cultivation of forage crops, such as cowpea, to provide
fodder for the cattle. Cow dung and other animal wastes are used for manuring the land. The
cow dung is converted to manure by open heap method and the manure is ready to use in the
field after one year.

The agricultural inputs are obtained mostly from various sources. The seeds are obtained from
the traders, who also buy the produced crops from the farmers. Chemical fertilizers and plant
protection inputs obtained from the fertilizer vendors, located at the nearest town, Visnagar.
The long-term relation with these vendors help the farmers to procure the required inputs
easily. In case of any disease outbreak, the farmers obtain guidance and suggestions from these
vendors about the appropriate chemical inputs to use. There is very less interaction with the
state agricultural department. Most of the agricultural practices the farmers follow, are their
own gained knowledge from their ancestors.

Agricultural loan is easily available in the form of Kissan credit through the two prominent
banks in the region- Dena bank and Bank of Baroda. The credit is given based on the standing
crop. Loan is repaid after the harvesting of the current crop for which the loan is taken, with a
maximum period of one year.

There is no other cultivation for commercial purpose. Some minor production of vegetables
and fruits are there which is for self-consumption.

Climate: Semi-arid climate with average rainfall of around 330 mm during the rainy season.
(Source: GOI Metrological website, 2015).Irregular monsoon with recurring droughts is also
prevalent.

Water: A total of seven tube-wells were located on the map towards the South of the village.
Groundwater levels reported to be with TDS ranging between 700 to 1200. Water harvesting
structures like check dam, tube wells, percolation tanks, farm ponds was observed to be a
common practice among the farmers to meet the water demands. Trickle drip irrigation was
also seen as being adopted by certain farmers.
Puranpura Village

Administrative Structure

The village has a well-developed administration system. There is a panchayat which initially
was associated with the panchayat of the neighbouring Kada village but was separated in the
year 2000. Currently Samras Panchayati system is followed in Puranpura. The village
panchayat receives an amount of INR 5,00,000 from the central government as village
development grant. Under the scheme of Srisakthi Abhiyan, the panchayat receives a grant of
INR 8,00,000 from the central government if the sarpanch is a woman. Panchayat is alternately
managed by the three families. The current sarpanch is Smt. Jyotsnaben Kamleshbhai Patel
and Deputy Sarpanch is Smt. Vimraben Rajnibhai Patel.

Social Structure

There are 147 households in the village, all belonging to the caste Patidar. The village has three
temples with a priest, belonging to a Brahmin caste, allowed to settle in the village. There is
also a barber, from lower caste, who has been given permission to stay in the village. The
village has a well-developed infrastructure for educational purposes. There is an anganwadi
school established in 1985 which acts as kindergarten school (for children under the age of six
or seven). It is maintained by the village panchayat. The village has a primary school for
students from classes 1 to 6 which was established in the year 1957. The village panchayat
handles the operating and financial decisions of the school. The secondary and senior
secondary school is in the neighbouring Kada village. Even though there are good educational
facilities available for the students, there is a high drop-out rate among the students especially
the students who pass the class 10. Only 2-3 students out of a registered 42 students go for
higher studies after class 10. The major reason for this high drop-out rate is that the students
want to pursue business opportunities outside the village in the neighbouring towns and the
major cities such as Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar. There are temporary migrations from the
village for business ventures. (They go for business purposes but they dont settle down in the
cities and towns; they have houses in the village). The villagers who do not pursue business
outside the village take up farming and animal rearing (dairy farming) as their livelihood.
Demography

The main general caste in the village Puranpura are Patel and Thakur (60%) while the OBC
caste consist of castes like Chaura, Vankar, Rawal, Prajapati, Desai, Salat, Vagarhi. There are
some castes like Jain, which have moved out of the village to cities in search of work. The
main occupation of the village people is agriculture with 70% of people engaged in agriculture.
The rest of the people engaged in dairy and jobs.

There are 114 BPL families out of the total families of 1819 families.

Population Persons Males Females

Total 972 497 475

Womens participation is very active in the village with mainly in activities like sowing in
agriculture and milking in dairy. Along with this, they are also active members of self-owned
business in the form of self-help group that deals with packing of Agarbatti (incense syicks)
that come in six different fragrances. Agarbattis are procured from Ahmedabad dealer.

There are no such prevalent issues of gender biasness (women actively take part in almost
every activity in village). The literacy level of women is very high with families encouraging
their girl children to go to school (There are 2 primary schools and 1 secondary schools in the
village).

Literacy Rate

According to Census Data 2011, the village has 70.39% literacy rate. The male literacy rate is
77.53% and female literacy rate is 63.12%.

Self Help Group

Kalpana Agarbatti is a self-help group with 20 women members and one supervisor. This SHG
was established in July in the year 2016 and is running very well with an annual sale of 24000
cartons. The monthly wages given to workers (karigar) are around 8000 rupees while that given
to supervisor is 5000 rupees. This SHG works all days in the month and the packed material is
collected with a lead-time of merely two days.
Distribution of Working and Non-working population (Gender-wise)

100

90 24
28
33
80

70

60

50
64
40 61
57
30

20

10
11 12 10
0
Person Male Female

0-6 year old Working Non-working

Institutions

Puranpura village has one primary school but no primary healthcare. It also has one community
hall to organize various activities.

Infrastructure

Puranpura village has well-built roads. It receives 24 hour constant electricity supply under the
Jyoti Gram Yojana. It also receives 8 hour special three phase electricity for agriculture
purposes at farms. It has centralized water system. It has two overhead tanks and each has one
dedicated operator for all its operation. It also has proper drainage system in place.