A village society, run like an office.

Pewe sits inland of Guhagar, where the paddy runs up to the foot of the Sahyadri and the road out to the taluka town takes the better part of an hour. Like most villages on this coast, a good share of its working men are not in it — they are in Mumbai, in Bhiwandi, or abroad, and they have been sending money home for two generations.

What the village did not have was a record. Money was collected for a funeral, for a hospital bill, for a leaking roof, and it was spent, and that was the end of it. Nobody doubted anyone's honesty. But a man in Dammam who sends ₹40,000 has no way to see what became of it, and a widow who is refused a stipend has no way to know on what ground.

The Society was registered to fix exactly that. Every rupee that comes in is receipted against a numbered head. Every work above one lakh goes out to three written quotations, opened before the committee, with the comparison published. Every welfare application is heard on a fixed day and the decision recorded with the name of the member who took it. The audited statement is filed with the Charity Commissioner at Ratnagiri each July, and any member may ask the Secretary for a copy.

It is not a large organisation. It is 152 members, one account book, and a rule that the book is open.