Team Blitz India
AHMEDNAGAR: A village situated in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, named Hivre Bazar, is known as the richest village in India due to the high number of millionaires residing there. There are 305 families living in the village, of which 80 are millionaires. Additionally, 50 families earn over Rs 10 lakh annually.
The village has a total population of over 1,250. Interestingly, the main source of income for the villagers is agriculture. The village once suffered from poverty due to severe drought in the 80s and 90s which forced the villagers to migrate to cities in search of livelihood.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised Hivre Bazar village in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme on April 24, 2020. He appreciated the villagers’ sensitivity towards water and how they changed the cropping pattern to deal with the water problem. He also praised the village for banning the sowing of crops that require more water.
The people of Hivre Bazar came together and formed a committee called the Joint Forest Management Committee in 1990. Under this committee, they started digging wells and planting trees in the village through shramdaan.
They also banned the sowing of crops that required more water. The result of their hard work and solidarity is that now there are more than 300 wells in the village. The ground water level has also risen to 30 feet due to the completion of the tube well. All the families in the village earn their income from farming only, of vegetables. The per capita income of Hivre Bazaar village is twice the average income of Rs 890 per month of the top 10 per cent rural areas of the country.
