When Team India won the cricket World Cup at Mumbai, there were special celebrations at the backward Lwali village tucked away in the sylvan surroundings of Kumaon hills.
Reason: Lwali is the ancestral village of Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
As an additional reward, Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank announced the construction of a PUCCA road to Lwali situated in Almora district of Uttarakhand. Nishank had already announced series of rewards that include a residential plot or a house at the hill resort of Mussorie for Dhoni and Sachin Tendulkar.
Unlike Lwali, other villages in the hill state are not so lucky. According to an estimate, hundreds of villages continue to reel under the acute shortage of basic amenities like roads, drinking water and power.
“We welcome the Chief Minister’s announcement regarding the construction of a road to Lwali. But I don’t know how long we will actually wait (for the road),” said Dhanpat Singh Dhoni, the uncle of the Indian captain. Villagers trek miles together to reach Lwali from Bajaghar area, the last road head in Jaiti block.
According to an official estimate, the government has so far connected 11,000 villages out of total 16,826 villages with roads despite spending on an average of Rs 500-1,000 crore every year on new roads and repairs of old ones.
The budget for rural development this time is Rs 551.82 crore and for PWD is Rs 1139.40 crore. And yet, the villagers continue to cry for development in the state.
Manoj Tiwari, a Congress MLA from Almora constituency, lamented that the roads and infrastructure facilities which were damaged during the last year’s heavy floods and rains have not been repaired despite the centre sanctioning a special relief of Rs 500 crore. Uttarakhand had sought Rs 21,000 crore for the relief and repair work.
Recently, CAG reports highlighted the misery of corruption in various development works especially related to the Maha Kumbh Mela in Haridwar where the centre spent a whopping Rs 600 crore.
“It is high time, we must assess what assets we built after spending huge funds in the name of development,” said Dr Anil P Joshi, a social activist.
