A goldsmith at work

Dec. 11: On paper, it is a model village. In reality, it is the epitome of neglect.

Home to 48 families, Rantholi model village has been living on the edge in every sense of the term. Almost every adult in these families is a goldsmith but none is employed as one. There is no electricity, no healthcare centre and no water supply.

“Is this what you call a model village?” Minaram Bania, a disillusioned resident of the area, asks.

Rantholi model village, 8 km from Nagaon town, was set up in 1972 to rehabilitate 85 landless Scheduled Caste families. The administration promised each household one hectare of land, a pair of bulls and a tubewell. More than three decades later, the promise remains unfulfilled. Like most of the villagers, Rantholi Bania subsists on his meagre earnings as a daily-wage labourer. He has five children but only one goes to school. “We cannot think of sending our other children to school as this entails additional expenditure,” he says.

The only primary school in the village was established in 1985, but it is neither under the ambit of the Sarva Siksha Abhijan nor the mid-day meal scheme. If the school has survived, it is because the villagers are determined to keep it afloat. “Since February 2005, we have been receiving Rs 2,000 every month from the government to run the school. Now we have five teachers for 120 students,” says assistant teacher Padma Kanta Das.

A five-member team from the village recently visited Nagaon District Rural Development Agency to complain that the local panchayat had pocketed Rs 20,000 sanctioned for each villager under the Individual Beneficiary Scheme. “They (panchayat members) collected our names two years ago and promised money to start businesses. After a year, they paid only Rs 2,500 each,” bemoans Sarulara Bania.

Four tubewells are the only sources of potable water for the entire village. “We heard two years ago that the public health engineering department would provide us tubewells under the Swajaldhara scheme. The local panchayat collected 10 per cent of the total expenditure from us. Now they avoid us when we ask them about the project,” says Putuka Das, another aggrieved villager.

“We have received just three pairs of RCC posts, 14 pieces of corrugated iron sheets and a small amount of timber to build houses,” his neighbour, Prabhat Bania, adds. “The government has done nothing for our development . For poor people like us, Panchayati Raj is nothing but a curse.”

The only piece of good news for the villagers is that the Assam State Electricity Board (ASEB) intends to extend the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana to Rantholi.