NCERT Solutions for Class 5th The World Around Us Chapter 2 Role-play as Sarpanch or Municipal Corporator — Activity 7

How to organise the role-play:

1. One student is the Sarpanch (or Municipal Corporator). Others take roles: a farmer, a shopkeeper, a teacher, a doctor, an elderly person, a person who uses a wheelchair, a cattle owner, a police officer.
2. Arrange the chairs in a half circle. This is the gram sabha or ward meeting.
3. The Sarpanch opens the meeting: “The rains begin next month. Today we decide what our village will do.”
4. Each role speaks for one minute about what worries them.
5. The Sarpanch then announces the plan under the four headings below, and one student writes it on the board as the minutes of the meeting.

The plan the Sarpanch announces:

1. To prevent flooding

• Clean every drain and culvert in the village before the rains, so water can flow away.
• Desilt the village pond and the canal, so they can hold more rainwater.
• Plant trees along the river bank and on the bare slopes — trees slow the rain down and help the soil soak up water.
• Stop building and dumping rubble in the low ground and the natural water path.
• Repair weak spots in the river embankment now, not in July.

2. To prevent damage caused by flooding

• Keep sandbags, ropes, ladders, torches and two boats ready at the panchayat bhawan.
• Mark the school on high ground as the relief centre; store rice, drinking water, ORS and medicines there.
• Set up a warning system — a loudspeaker and a WhatsApp group with the block office.
• Tell every family to keep documents, grain and important things on a high shelf or upper floor.
• Fix and announce the evacuation route, and hold one practice drill before the monsoon.

3. To keep elderly people and people with disability safe

• Make a list, house by house, of everyone who cannot move quickly by themselves.
• Give each such person two named helpers who live close by — a buddy system.
• Move them out first, before the water starts rising, not at the last moment.
• Make the relief centre reachable — a ramp, a ground-floor room, a working toilet, chairs.
• Keep their regular medicines, spectacles, hearing aid, walking stick or wheelchair with their bag.
• Announce the warning in more than one way — by loudspeaker, by phone, and by knocking on the door — so that a person who cannot hear or cannot see is not left out.

4. To keep animals safe

• Untie all cattle before the water arrives. A tied animal cannot save itself.
• Fix one high, dry field as the cattle shelter, and stock fodder and drinking water there.
• Paint the owner's name and phone number on a tag around each animal's neck.
• Ask the veterinary doctor to visit the shelter after the flood, because animals fall ill in wet, crowded conditions.
• Do not leave dogs, goats or poultry behind; take them along or leave them free and untied.

An emergency kit is one bag, kept ready and in one known place, that your family can pick up and carry in a minute. Everyone at home should know where it is.

How to make it:

1. Take a strong bag with a shoulder strap, or a backpack. A waterproof one is best.
2. Put the things in the list below into it. Put papers and matchboxes inside a sealed plastic pouch.
3. Keep the bag on a high shelf near the door — high, so it stays dry; near the door, so it is quick to reach.
4. Check it twice a year. Change the food and water, and test the torch.