By D N Singh
It is a puzzling stuff from Odisha’s Kendrapada district where the slow and lethargic guidelines have been preferred to delivery of service to people on the ground.
Why Kendrapada alone, even in the state capital, following the recent rains, the chinks in the armor of the civic departments have been openly exposed. The top ones sit over guidelines and the people are forced to bear the grueling hardships at the ground.
In Kendrapada, like anywhere else, the PRI members are under the instruction of the chief minister Naveen Patnaik for completion of works at the Panchayat level fast. But the reality here expose something else. One cannot expect the CM to supervise such works.
A 650 meter Sarpabad road, used daily by over 1,500 villagers, gets bad to worse even by a light drizzle, let alone the heavy rains.
No attention from the Block Development wing, Sarpanch Shradhanjali Mallik and her panchayat colleague, Prabesan Mallik get out with a plastic bag begging at each door for willing contributions to repair the road.
With money coming they started the works at a war footing.
The road that is not a swampy one but, has become a cause of many diseases.
Despite repeated complaints, when the officials did not respond, then Shradhanjali took to begging from villagers to repair the road. The issue came to the knowledge of the District Collector Amrit Ruturaj, and taking steps for the road repair he later instructed the block authorities so also directed the Mallik duo to carry on the works.
Then all of a sudden the BDO and his juniors came to the spot and ordered to stop the road work. Which not only disappointed the PRI duo but the angry villagers came out to carry on the road work as a protest.
Meanwhile, the PRI duo had spent substantial amount on the road repair from their pockets and the sudden halt of the work was very shocking for them also.
Then the same Collector, Ruturaj, was quoted in a local media saying that, ‘funds are no problem but the action plan needs to be approved in Gram and Palli sabhas at the panchayat levels.
So the red-tape appeared from nowhere like a Frankenstein’s monster for the villagers and the road is left to its past plight.
