5 days ago
Fed up of 75 yrs of empty promises, Mainpuri villagers rebuild road on their own, and ban politicians
Ask anyone how the road came about. Pat comes the response: 'When we got tired of pleading for development, we joined forces and built a road.'
It is another thing altogether that this drive was borne out of desperation and sheer frustration with netas and authorities alike for not coming forward to take care of the dirt track connecting the village to the main road in the last seven decades.
Agra: Where there's a will, there is a road. Residents of Majra Rajpur village in Uttar Pradesh Mainpuri district can proudly claim to have themselves raised funds and relaid a road on their own.
For decades, the 200 meter long and about 8 feet wide road of Majra Rajpur village, linking the village to the main Elabans Road, was in a dilapidated condition. Though there are other roads, they pass through Elabans village and are a lot longer, often congested.
As soon as it rained, the road would get completely closed due to mud and waterlogging. Children faced trouble going to schools in the city and so did the people while taking patients to the hospital in Mainpuri.
Villagers say that they demanded road construction from local leaders and officials during the tenure of all three governments of Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and BJP, but no one paid attention.
Located in Gram Panchayat Elabans under the Kishni development block, the village has a large number of Brahmin families as local residents.
Ajay Mishra, a local resident, said that the villagers had submitted memorandums to the former MLAs as well as the incumbent Mainpuri MLA Brijesh Katheria for the construction of the road under the Pradhanmantri Gram Sadak Yojna but to no avail. The demand was also placed several times in the office of Dimple Yadav, the MP elected from Mainpuri.
From the panchayat level to the district panchayat, the Block Development Officer (BDO), the tehsildar to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), no assurances were received. As soon as the elections came, all the leaders would promise to build the road only to disappear, the villagers recalled.
Frustrated, the villagers decided that there was no point in waiting endlessly for the administration to build their road. About 20 youths and elders of the village raised Rs 70,000 with mutual cooperation. Broken bricks were laid for the road. The villagers picked up spades and started the work. Within a few days, a 200 meter roughly built brick road was completed and is now almost ready to link the village to the main road.
'We pleaded with the leaders and officials so many times that we began to feel ashamed of ourselves. So it was decided that the villagers will build the road on our own, and once it was built, no politicians will be allowed to enter the village through that road to ask for votes in the next elections,' Ajay, a villager, said.
Another Annu Mishra said that there were about 250 residents and only 90 voters in the village. 'Everyone casts his or her vote, but still we have to struggle for even the basic necessities. We built this road out of self-respect. It is not just a brick road, it means that we don't have to beg in front of anyone now,' she asserted.
Explaining the situation, Naresh Parmar, the representative of the village pradhan, said that a proposal was sent for the construction of a 200 m long concrete road but the village panchayat does not have funds. The road, he said, could only be built with funds from the development block or the Zila Panchayat.
When contacted, officials of Mainpuri district expressed ignorance about this incident. Gopal Sharma, SDM Kishni, said that he would visit the village and ask the villagers about their problems.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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