Sripat Kushwah’s marigold crop is maturing, but he cannot harvest. The flowers are meant for meeting the Diwali demand when prices go up to Rs 150 a kilo. But this year, Diwali is delayed by a month, and he has no electricity to irrigate the crop to keep it alive.
“It hurts to watch the flowers droop and drop one by one every day. I thought of selling them in Agra or Delhi but now doubt if I will have the volume,” said Kushwah, a resident of Naya Gaon village in Dholpur constituency.Like him, many in this village and nearby ones do not have an electricity connection either for domestic or agriculture use.
Of the 350-odd households in Naya Gaon, about 80 are yet to get an electricity connection, said Kushwah. “If you do not have electricity, it impacts everything. Our children’s education is hit, and our social status also gets belittled. The vicious cycle is endless,” he rued.
Kushwah and his fellow villagers are undecided on who they would vote for in the November 25 polls. Both the candidates of the two leading political parties-Congress and BJP-are from their community. The villagers have never made any demands against their votes, and this time is not going to be different.
“Politics in Dholpur constituency, especially in the rural areas, has never been fought on development issues. It is caste that matters, and which leader comes to help people have their kin released from police custody when such needs arise,” said Sumit Sharma, a hotelier in Dholpur city.
Buildings in the city stand layered in dust as auto-rickshaws and sundry other vehicles run on thickly littered roads. Cobwebs of cable wires hang from electric polls, and parking remains chaotic. Vegetable and fast-food carts stuck with flat tyres idle seemingly for ages. The very look of Dholpur city flies in the face of the Swachh Bharat campaign the administration is supposed to implement.
The policies of the government do not help the existing infrastructure fully capitalise on the potential. A visit to the government high school at Bareh Mori, some 20 km from Dholpur, shows how the decision to convert this Hindi medium school to English medium has thrown its functioning into disarray.
Being government employees, the teachers of the school are reluctant to speak openly about the extent of the impact the decision has had on the institution. Some of them said that local political leaders tried to persuade the administration not to convert it, citing the chaos it can create, but the government went ahead with it, and the schoolteachers are now confused.
“No English-medium teachers have been appointed. All the government has given is some books. How can a student who has studied for years in the Hindi medium suddenly migrate to the English medium? It has messed up the school’s functioning and targets,” said a teacher, preferring anonymity. “The government applies little thought to local realities,” he added.
“It hurts to watch the flowers droop and drop one by one every day. I thought of selling them in Agra or Delhi but now doubt if I will have the volume,” said Kushwah, a resident of Naya Gaon village in Dholpur constituency.Like him, many in this village and nearby ones do not have an electricity connection either for domestic or agriculture use.
Of the 350-odd households in Naya Gaon, about 80 are yet to get an electricity connection, said Kushwah. “If you do not have electricity, it impacts everything. Our children’s education is hit, and our social status also gets belittled. The vicious cycle is endless,” he rued.
Kushwah and his fellow villagers are undecided on who they would vote for in the November 25 polls. Both the candidates of the two leading political parties-Congress and BJP-are from their community. The villagers have never made any demands against their votes, and this time is not going to be different.
“Politics in Dholpur constituency, especially in the rural areas, has never been fought on development issues. It is caste that matters, and which leader comes to help people have their kin released from police custody when such needs arise,” said Sumit Sharma, a hotelier in Dholpur city.
Buildings in the city stand layered in dust as auto-rickshaws and sundry other vehicles run on thickly littered roads. Cobwebs of cable wires hang from electric polls, and parking remains chaotic. Vegetable and fast-food carts stuck with flat tyres idle seemingly for ages. The very look of Dholpur city flies in the face of the Swachh Bharat campaign the administration is supposed to implement.
The policies of the government do not help the existing infrastructure fully capitalise on the potential. A visit to the government high school at Bareh Mori, some 20 km from Dholpur, shows how the decision to convert this Hindi medium school to English medium has thrown its functioning into disarray.
Being government employees, the teachers of the school are reluctant to speak openly about the extent of the impact the decision has had on the institution. Some of them said that local political leaders tried to persuade the administration not to convert it, citing the chaos it can create, but the government went ahead with it, and the schoolteachers are now confused.
“No English-medium teachers have been appointed. All the government has given is some books. How can a student who has studied for years in the Hindi medium suddenly migrate to the English medium? It has messed up the school’s functioning and targets,” said a teacher, preferring anonymity. “The government applies little thought to local realities,” he added.
