It can be said as a silent revolution to tackle AIDS in rural India. A remote village in Bagalkot district, Karnataka has taught the state administration how to take steps to restrict HIV cases in the state.

The state government is still planning to make pre-marital HIV test mandatory. On the other hand, the 4,000 residents of PM Budni village have been already shown their will-power to restrict the deadly virus from spreading.

The residents of Budni village have made it compulsory for every waiting-for-marriage boy and girl to undergo an HIV test first.

No one can marry before undergoing the HIV test in the village. The village has been lost 11 adults and four children because of AIDS during the last five years.

Srikanth Kolur, a panchayat member, said;

The village girls were married off to men from Mumbai, Kolhapur, Goa, who had contracted the virus. The girls would come back as widows afflicted with HIV.

At the same time, girls from other villages were spreading the virus to males of this village. So we decided to make the HIV test mandatory for everyone.

For this purpose, the village Panchayat has already passed a resolution to make the test mandatory.

The people of this village do not know the meaning of development, as there is not even a primary health center in this village. Hospital is as like as a dream for the villagers here. There are no roads or drainages and no high school. Most of the families live in mud houses.

Despite total lack of development, the residents of this village have shown a complete developmental approach by taking this positive step.

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