Village funds worth crores, yet drain constructed through donations: Villagers in Nizamabad’s Fariha Dalit settlement constructed the drain themselves, alleging discrimination.

In the Fariha Gram Sabha Dalit settlement of the Rani Ki Sarai block in Azamgarh’s Nizamabad tehsil, villagers collected donations and repaired a drain that had been broken for five years. The villagers allege that despite having a village fund worth crores, they had to do the work themselves.

Sunil Kumar, Ganesh Kumar, Sarvesh Kumar, Amresh Kumar, Jaswant Lal, Abhay Kumar, Manichandra, and Rustam, along with other villagers, reported that 90 percent of the settlement’s sewage and rainwater flowed through this drain to the Kunwar River. This drain had been severely damaged for approximately 100 meters for the past five years, causing sewage to overflow onto the road and flood the fields.

According to the villagers, they contacted the Fariha village headman dozens of times to get the drain and 300 meters of road constructed. The headman asked them to submit a written complaint, but the drain remained unconstructed.

Forced to do so, the residents of the settlement collected donations of one thousand rupees per household, raising approximately one and a half lakh rupees. With this money, a hundred meters of drain was constructed, and new slabs were cast and placed on the drain. However, due to a lack of funds, some slabs remain to be laid.

The villagers alleged that after becoming a village head, a person becomes the head of the entire village council, not of any particular community. They said that for the past ten years, no village head has shared their joys and sorrows, let alone the construction of basic amenities like drains, roads, housing, or toilets.

The villagers questioned the use of the crores of rupees of funds allocated to the village council by the government for development. They alleged that officials from the block level to the Vikas Bhawan did not even once visit to inspect the work or listen to people’s problems, raising suspicions that officials from the lowest to the highest levels are involved in the embezzlement of crores of rupees. He also reported that approximately 300 meters of the road is in a dilapidated condition, causing dozens of schoolchildren to stumble and fall on their way to school.

Shah Alam | Fariha (Nizamabad), Azamgarh

Courtesy: Hindi News