The writing on the wall; for a good cause

The other day I went to Subbayyapalli village in the Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation limits. The village is located on the outskirts of the urban part and surrounded by greenery with paddy fields.

It can be "semi urban-semi rural" if one goes by the development aspect, but model to many if one goes by the uniqueness it possesses. The village welcomes any newcomer with a modern writing on the wall. That wall displays: "This village attained total prohibition". Yes! It is uttered with guts.. and the village rejoices in its achievement.

Subbayyapalli like many contiguous parts of Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation (GWMC) is located within the 10-km radius of the Warangal city. It has got about 500 households and the population never surpassed 2,000 mark. It means the village has even achieved the family planning targets in its flexure.

About three years ago, the village was frequented by the youths of the urban part for week-end picnics and parties and the villagers subsequent to this used to experience certain unwarranted excesses.

There were some belt shops too in this locality during that time. And the village working class use to visit those shops and ultimately, they are subjected to health issues. There was a talk that two boozers of this part Uppalayya and Komurayya lost their lives addicted to the liquor consumption.

This inevitable result has prompted the villagers to repent and the youths of this part, including one Ravi have guided the remaining families to discourage liquor consumption as an addiction in the village.

Subbayyapalli is one such part where the women in particular have formed into groups to create awareness among their family male counterparts to desist from taking to liquor consumption as their prime habit. The village women, members of self-help groups have taken up the task of closing the belt shops located in their locality and the four belt shops which were catering to the needs of weekend boozers were forced to down their shutters at the inspiring call of the village women.

Of course, the death of two village farm labourers has prompted them to take to this initiative and this move has now taken the village on the top of the list of the Warangal Urban district with the unique title of "Liquor-free locality".

(This is the first part of the article. The concluding will be published tomorrow)