Sample – 1: Kolathupalayam and Kolanalli (Kodumudi Union)

As we decided the first step is just understanding the society, we decided to go to a place which is very convenient to start with. One of our own teammate, Mr. Karthikeyan BABL, helped our cause and took us to his village Karattur which is in Kolathupalayam – gram Panchayat, Kodumudi – Union, Erode – district, Tamil Nadu state. Interestingly, we are starting from the place where Tamil Nadu’s greatest social reformer ended. We were very happy to start our maiden research, the research which we believe will take us close to our dream, from the land of Periyar.

After going round all the places, we finalised our sample region as Kolathupalayam gram Panchayat and Kolanalli gram Panchayat in Kodumudi Union. Kodumudi Union (see Map) consists of 10 gram Panchayats and 7 town Panchayats. For govt. records, we visited Kodumudi Union, Block development office, kodumudi union Agricultural development office and for some records we visited Erode – Labour office.

Our team consisted of myself and Mr. R. Dilip, MSW, a student of Madras school of social work(MSSW) and Mr. Karthikeyan BA.BL. Sincerely we thank on behalf of our team, all the friends of MR. Karthikeyan and all the other people who made our stay comfortable and our research possible.