OUR BUREAU
Deserted: Tembhli village in Nandurbar district, a day before the UID launch.
NANDURBAR (MAHARASHTRA), APRIL 3:
Abject poverty reigns in Tembhli village, in northern Maharashtra’s Nandurbar district. Though the Government kicked of its unique identification project, Aadhaar, from this tribal-dominated village, little exists to show that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi had ever visited it.
Dirt roads, dry taps and unemployed tribals greet visitors to the village. Though massive activity had marked the brief visit of the dignitaries in September 2010, the village now wears a deserted look.
The 3,000 tribal inhabitants have a few solar-powered street lights and decrepit concrete houses for company. Around 95 per cent of the villagers used to work as daily wage labourers, but that too has dried up.
Local social worker Barku Pavle said that because of the ban on sand mining and restrictions on the movement of dumpers in the area, jobs are practically nonexistent. “Most of the villagers are eager to migrate to either Gujarat or Madhya Pradesh,” he said.
Local grocery owner Devidas Mali added that daily wages in Gujarat, at Rs 300 a day, are much higher than the Rs 100 that was available locally.
Azad Raju Thakare, a labourer who has studied till the Standard 12, said the villagers could do with some bank loans, “so that we can start some small business. A proper employment guarantee scheme (EGS) should be rolled out here.”
Though the spotlight was turned on Tembhli during the Prime Minister’s visit in 2010, it has now been relegated back to its dark, poverty-ridden world.