Four journalists stay in and report from the heart of rural India in a Governance Now and ANSA-SAR project to study the impact of sustained reportage on implementation of welfare schemes

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uilding a house has drained Tuna Patra off – he says as much. Patra, a migrant construction worker in Surat seven months a year and a farmhand in his village for the rest five, is painting his two-room, concrete house in Takarada village of Sheragada block of Odisha’s Ganjam district to save costs. After sinking Rs 35,000 of a Rs 48,500 (for Maoist-affected areas) grant under the Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY), received in a bank account he holds with the Sheragada branch of Andhra Bank, and another Rs 1 lakh he raised as a loan from the village moneylender, he is unsure if it was a good investment at all.

“I have three daughters to marry off. Besides, my son is still in school. I should have saved something for them. But instead, we have a house now,” he says. His neighbours console him saying that a pucca house would leave a favourable impression on the prospective in-laws of his daughters. One of them points at the ornate light-vents Patra has put up and there is soon a loud debate on the merits of having it at all. The soft-spoken new house-owner looks more beaten than proud. He looks at the vents and seems lost in a silent listing of all the “extravagance” that has gone into the less-than-modest dwelling of a labourer. “You can always mortgage the house to pay for your son’s education,” someone offers a well-meaning advice.  

The last breaks Patra’s reverie. “I am already in debt. Nakula (the moneylender) is charging Rs 2 per Rs 100 lent every month. The two tolas (1 tola = a little over 10 g but less than 11 g) of gold that my wife had got when we got married is with him, as mortgage,” he answers. A back-of-the-envelope calculation and one finds out that he has to pay a whopping Rs 24,000 every year as interest alone!