Neeru Yadav, sarpanch of village Lambi-Ahir in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan is known as Hockey Wali Sarpanch in nearby villages as she formed a girls' Hockey team in her village. For the last two years, she has been giving her salary to arrange facilities like a dedicated playground, hockey kits, uniforms, and a hockey coach for the team.
๐ฌ๐ผ๐๐ป๐ด ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฝ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฐ๐ต ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ธ๐ ๐ผ๐๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐ผ๐ ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐น๐ผ๐ฝ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐
A post-graduate in Maths and now pursuing Ph.D. in geography, Neeru (32) is one of those young sarpanches in Rajasthan who are making headlines with their out-of-the-box thinking for the development and well-being of their panchayats.
"Hockey is our national game and I felt that it should be promoted so I decided to form a team of girls and am delighted that our team has played upto the district level in the recently held Gramin Olympics in the state," said Neeru, who originally belongs to the state of sports, Haryana. She was born and brought up in Narnaul, Haryana and got married to an Engineer Ashok Yadav of Lambi-Ahir village where she was elected as the first lady sarpanch in 2020.
๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฎ๐ ๐ฎ๐น๐๐ผ ๐ต๐ฒ๐น๐ฝ๐ ๐๐ถ๐น๐น๐ฎ๐ด๐ฒ ๐ด๐ถ๐ฟ๐น๐ ๐๐ถ๐๐ต ๐ฒ๐ฑ๐๐ฐ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ธ๐ถ๐น๐น ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐น๐ผ๐ฝ๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐
Besides motivating the village girls in sports, Neeru helps them in their education and skill development. She said that 10 girls in her village are working in good companies after the skill development training and a new batch of 15 is about to start in a few days.
She also runs a Farmers Producers Organisation (FPO) in her village and claims that she was the first lady sarpanch to start FPO in the country. This FPO promotes the Moong and millets like Bajra.
๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฎ๐ ๐ฎ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฑ '๐ฆ๐ต๐ถ๐ธ๐๐ต๐ฎ ๐ฆ๐ต๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฒ' ๐ฏ๐ ๐ฅ๐ฎ๐ท๐ฎ๐๐๐ต๐ฎ๐ป ๐ด๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ป๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐ ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ถ๐ป๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐
In her recent initiative, she has started a unique campaign in her village for garbage-free marriage functionsโ. Under this, the panchayat provides steel utensils for cooking and serving for free in marriage and functions in her village and a team of volunteers collects the food waste and converts it into manure for selling at piecemeal rates to farmers. "The purpose of this is to reduce the garbage of disposables, plastics and bottles for keeping the village clean and utilize the natural resources at its best by recycling the food waste," said Neeru.
The Rajasthan Government has awarded her with โShiksha Shreeโ for renovating the Government School of the village by spending above seven lakhs from her savings.
