Pairokar

   The writer of this post has spent many weeks of June in his home village of Azamgarh district of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. He was pleasantly surprised to see that all houses have been electrified and the piped drinking water is supplied to almost all houses. In addition to it, most of the households have not submersible tube wells to back up a twenty-four-hour water supply. LPG cylinders have replaced the smoke-emitting chulhas. Every person in the village holds a mobile phone in his /her hand and the world has shrunk either in their hands or pockets. While these are welcome indices of developments, many evil habits have also set in as their concomitants. There is hardly any family which does not have one or two drinkers of liquors. Cycles have been replaced by bikes causing more pollution. Many families have also got four-wheelers, thanks mainly due to the easement of paved roads connecting every village. Land-cost has got skyrocketed. Small-sized cane crushers have disappeared.

                                        Parmanand Pandey The disease of corruption has become chronic and has taken such deep roots as to cause nausea. It was expected that the Panchayati Raj system will stem the rot of corruption to a great extent but, unfortunately, on the other hand, it has grown on a bigger scale. Even for an election to the post of Gram Pradhan and BDC member, millions of rupees have been spent. Those who have won the elections of BDC members are being offered a huge amount of money to vote for any particular candidate. This means that black money has played a big role in these elections.  Obviously, those who are investing an enormous amount of money to get elected must have some ideas or plans to recover and more money through corrupt means. At present, there are many schemes of the government(s), which are being carried out.  However, this is an undeniable fact that there is no scheme, which can be implemented without giving cuts to Pradhans and Village Secreta