Pahleypur facing acute electricity crisis

KANPUR: Pahleypur, a small village having population of over 3,500 people and about 40 km from the city, is facing an acute crisis of electricity. The electricity shortage has not only affected the irrigation work but has also hampered the functioning of small-scale industries.
Though Pahleypur was accorded the status of Ambedkar village last year, no developmental project has been launched here.Talking to Times News Network, gram pradhan HN Dixit said that 32 villagers, living below poverty line (BPL) here, had received the benefit of various government schemes before the state government included it in the list of Ambedkar villages.
Now there was no hope for further improvement as the district administration was not ready to include more people in the BPL category, he said claiming that many villagers, who were leading a miserable life, were denied the benefit of welfare schemes by district officials. The village has a primary health centre (PHC) but it is lying defunct due to lack of doctors. A nurse, who has been posted here, rarely visits the centre, forcing the villagers to rush patients to the city.
The village also has a junior high school and a primary school. But classes are being taken in open air due to lack of proper sitting arrangement. Teacher of the primary school Kumkum Bala Shukla said that they had no option but to take classes in open as there was no electricity in the school.
The junior high school has three teachers and 288 students.
Even nationalised banks have refused to give loans to villagers willing to set up small-scale units in the village. When contacted, manager of a nationalised bank said that many villagers had obtained loans from his bank last year. But most of them were not interested in clearing their debts, he said adding that in such circumstances they could not risk the public money by giving more loans to them. On the other hand, villagers blamed a former pradhan for recommending wrong candidates to the bank manager. Rajaram, a carpenter, is running from pillar to post to obtain a loan from the bank but all his efforts have, so far, failed to yield positive results.
While farming is the main occupation of over 70 per cent of villagers, some of them also work at construction sites. Two or three villagers have set up flour machines and threshers.
But despite facing all odds, Pahleypur is a good example of communal harmony. The gram panchayat disposes of petty disputes of villagers and the pradhan is considered to be the supreme authority. Dixit said that nobody from the village had ever approached police for lodging his complaint.
In all, there are 328 Ambedkar villages in Kanpur district. District magistrate Arvind Kumar said that teams of district officials had been sent to all the villages to review the developmental works.
He said that he had received some complaints from these villages. Efforts were underway to provide all basic amenities to villagers living in Ambedkar villages, he added.