With teacher vacancy in government schools in rural areas of the district hitting 36.83 per cent, many schools are facing staff crisis with students at the receiving end.
In Madhya Pradesh’s Shahpur Khurd village, Kavita Singh is busy cutting her freshly harvested
sikiya variety of rice, which stands tall at 1.5 metres on her three-acre field. Judging from the heavy-looking grains and tillers (stems produced by grass), Kavita predicts this is going to be her best-ever harvest in terms of yield. The high yields are also reflected in her other crops, including maize, mustard and chickpeas.
Her situation, she says, was very different three years ago. At that time, she was growing only rice in a cramped space and shallow water, just like other farmers in the Panna district region. While she was planting more seeds per square metres in the conventional method, the yield was less than what she gets now.