A TINY seaside village in Valsad in south Gujarat seems to have stolen a march over the Government in putting in place an identification mechanism for its citizens. Though lacking official endorsement from the district authorities, the 28 year old Sarpanch of Nargol village in Valsad has not only made identity cards mandatory for residents but also ensured that residents go through a background check and furnish a permission letter.

Barely 150 km from Mumbai, Nargol put the practice in place in the wake of the 26/7 train blasts, to monitor the influx of visitors, mostly Parsis and weekend tourists, to this tiny fishing village. The district authorities, meanwhile, admit that though it is not officially endorsed, it’s a good move.

“We initially devised an identity card plan for all the villagers. However, it took me a lot of time and effort to built that kind of awareness required in this sleepy little village untouched by the ills of the big city. If an outsider comes here for any business, they have to fill up a form where in they have to state names of at least two prominent persons from the village and two prominent persons from the outsider’s village or two prominent persons from the native district,” said sarpanch Yatin Bhandari, displaying the form that also demands a copy of the driving licence and any other document issued by the government.

Valsad Collector R B Dave lauded Bhandari’s initiative to identify potential threats from outsiders. “This is completely the Nargol Sarpanch’s initiative. If it is good work, the question of extra constitutional step does not arise here in case of issuing identity cards for the people visiting the village,” Dave said. Valsad SP D J Patel, while taking cognizance of Bhandari’s efforts, said, “However, we still have not asked for any information that he claims he has about outsiders in Nargol as hardly anything happens in the village.”

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