The lifestyle of Gundri Village people

About Gundri Village

Gundri is the hill, a small village located at kadambur hills in Sathyamangalam forest range, Erode district. Kadambur hills are connecting Tamil nadu and Karnataka states. It is on the North West border of tamilnadu. Kadambur hills are the extensions of Western Ghats Forest in India. The Gundri hill is one of the top most hill of kadambur hills. Nearly 8000 peoples are scattered over 22 hamlets. The nearby town of the gundri village is sathyamangalam.  THe Gundri is a remote village in the erode disctric, totally isolated forest village, a beautiful  location, opted place for tours and holiday enjoyment place. In this article, I am sharing various points which I noted in my first gundri visit.

Livelihood of Gundri Peoples

The important problem faced by tribal communities in India is how to earn and sustain livelihoods. There are varieties of livelihood practices by the tribal communities in different parts of India and elsewhere, such as the daily wages, pastoralist and 100 days working scheme who live in different environments.

Many changes have been taking place with regard to land use, access, control and utilization of their resources and these changes in turn have largely affected the sustainable livelihoods of the people without emphasizing sustainable replacement.

It is recognized that shifting cultivation is the key to the livelihoods of many ethnic, indigenous and tribal groups in Gundri hills. In Gundri hills, most of the people were working in knitwear companies for a few months. Knitwear companies will be located in Tirupur. So most of them were shifted from their native place with their family and assets for a few months. During this period, children may lose their education and help their parents. Once they have earned enough money, they will return back to their natives and live their life with their consanguinity.

Mother Tongue

Communication languages play a vital role to define the culture of the particular community. People’s culture and mother tongues are interrelated with each other. The Gundri hill peoples speak three languages. Since, there are several hamlets with more than 50 families, people reside in various hamlets in Gundri village.  The language is the only entity to differentiate the hamlets. Tamil, Kannada and Telugu are the languages which define the people’s cultures.

People’s Education

The development of the particular community is directly dependent on the children’s education. In Gundri hill, a middle school provides such a wonderful service up to eight standards. In later courses, most of the students are not able to continue their studies even up to higher secondary level. The nearby higher secondary school for Gundri people is government higher school, sathyamangalam. This school is 30 km far away from the Gundri hill. The lacking of transport facility, safety from the animals, economic situation, there are more than 80 percentage of the students are drop out the school studies.

Once the people come out from the hill, there are 1 Engineering College, 2 Arts and Science Colleges and 2 polytechnic Colleges available in a researchable distance. Our College, Bannari Amman Institute of Technology is one of the engineering colleges which is very close to the Gundri hill. But very few of the students that are measurable count in single digit joining higher education due to their economical situation.

The Tower Point

The telephone and Internet facilities are very important for the next level of communication and e-services nowadays. There is no flexible mobile and internet connection. The mobile network is captured only on certain points. In general, the tower point is the place where people can see the entire hill area which is locally called as view point. But in the Gundri hill, the tower point is the place where the mobile network is available. If  somebody wants to make a call, he/she has to come to that specific place and then he/she is able to call. In critical situations, it is very difficult to make a call on their living locations

Transport facility

One of the major issues in Gundri village is transportation. They don’t have a proper transport facility. Only one government bus is available from Sathyamangalam which is also not connecting the nearby cities like Erode and Coimbatore. Very recently the government put a thar road from sathyamangalam.

Healthcare

In Gundri hill, the government of tamilnadu provides visiting doctors and mobile medical services. There are nearly 8000 people living in the gundri. So, the government may plan for the permanent Primary Health Center(PHC) for the benefit of the Gundri hill people.  Even though 108 Emergency health service is available from kadambur hill, the telephone service is not available in the gundri hill. There are no mobile phone signals in the entire hamlets in the gundri hill. This is the main issues which people are facing.

 Business Opportunity

• In Gundri hills, most of the people are making brooms-stick. These brooms are made from a plant called broom corn. Broomcorn is a type of sorghum plant. It is different from the corn that people and animals eat. This plant is easily grown in that area during water resources. Bamboo Handicrafts training and tools equipment is provided by the Forest Department to the tribal beneficiaries particularly the women SHG. The SHG is provided with a revolving fund under NRLM. The bamboo handicrafts produced by SHG are provided marketing support through the Project Officer (NRLM). Thus, there is convergence of funds, technical expertise and social mobilization.
• Country chicken has been distributed to the tribal beneficiaries by the Forest Department, Egg incubator is provided to an SHG of 50 women members. This egg incubator provides a facility for incubating eggs to raise chicks at a rate of Rs 5/ egg and is being used by tribal people raising poultry.

 Banking Services

The banking service is one of the necessary elements to define the livelihood of the people. Nowadays, both the central government and state government are following only the bank account transfer methods for certain schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Marriage Assistance scheme, integrated child development scheme, etc. Not only for getting free utilities but also for getting payment of sales of wood items. There is only one bank service available in the gundri hills. So, this village peoples are suffering lot of issues to visit the bank for business transaction, housing loan, educational load and extra.