Marooned village near Vajpayee's home awaits rescue

The country is in the process of choosing the 16th Lok Sabha, but there are vast tracts of underdeveloped areas tucked in the middle of the country's development story.

Like Kalyanpur Bhartar village, barely a mile away from Bateshwar, the paternal village of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

While several projects were developed for Vajpayee's village Bateshwar, which is just across Yamuna, Kalyanpur hasn't seen any development.

Devoid of roads, this village is locked on three sides by the river, while on the fourth side are ravines, making the village inaccessible.

The only way to reach the village is through a rickety boat that ferries people across the river from Bateshwar.

In fact, even polling parties from Bah tehsil have to take cross the river in a boat.

Although there is another way out of the village, it is through treacherous ravines, making it dangerous to travel even in daylight.

Bah is also known as the former haunt of bandits that terrorised the Chambal-Yamuna region. Even now, people prefer to take the dangerous boat route to reach either Bateshwar on this side or Naseerpur on the other.

The village's woes don't end here. Although there is power, there is no health facility. The only government school is just up to eighth standard and to study further, students have to cross the river to Bateshwar or Bah, which is 15 km away.

What makes this village's situation unique is that while the revenue from this village is collected by Bah tehsil in Agra district, it falls under the jurisdiction of Naseerpur police station in Firozabad district, being located on the border of the two districts.

Ramveer Singh, the village head, told IndiaToday.in that the demand for a pontoon bridge across the river has been raised to almost every MLA and MP, but in all these decades, there has been no action.

Currently, a ramshackle boat is the only lifeline of the village which connects it to the rest of the world and this boat too is operated by villagers.

The demand for a new boat from the district administration has also remained unheeded.

Surprisingly, Bah MLA Raja Mahendra Aridaman Singh belongs to the royal family that previously ruled this region and it was the Bhadawar royal family that built the 101 Shiva temples in Bateshwar centuries ago.

Before Aridaman Singh, who is also a minister in the UP cabinet, his father Mahendra Ripudaman Singh was the MLA from the region, but development remained confined to the tehsil headquarters.

Now Aridaman Singh's wife Pakshalika Singh is contesting Lok Sabha election from Fatehpur Sikri, which includes this village as well as Bateshwar.

Her manifesto includes the promises of rural development.

How true these promises are, only time will tell.

For now, the residents of Kalyanpur have no option but to bear being cut off from the rest of the world every night, as the ferry does not operate at night.