No civic amenities, no polio drops: Uttar Pradesh villagers

LUCKNOW - Angry with the administration for the apathy towards their complaints on poor civic conditions, residents of two Uttar Pradesh villages decided to protest by boycotting the ongoing pulse polio drive to make themselves heard.

Residents of Khalakpur and Mehandi villages in Jyotiba Phule Nagar district, about 300 km from Lucknow, boycotted the pulse polio vaccination drive on Oct 4 in an attempt to draw the attention of officials and public representatives to the poor civic infrastructure in their area.

According to locals, they will continue to boycott this drive till the administration does not take adequate steps to improve conditions in the area.

“Now families here will not allow their children to be administered polio drops. We did it on Oct 4 and will continue with the same decision if civic conditions in our villages are not improved at the earliest,” Virendra Param Singh, village head, Khalakpur, told IANS over the phone.

“For nearly a decade we have been told that the situation in the villages will improve and that we will have better civic amenities at our disposal. However, no significant changes in terms of development have taken place till date,” added Singh.

Contaminated water supply, poor sanitation, erratic power supply and poor roads are the main concerns of the residents in these villages.

While Khalakpur has a population of nearly 2,000, about 1,000 people live in adjoining Mehandi. “Living in the village is a hellish experience. I bet the government officials or any politician will not be able to stay even a night in the Mehandi village where electricity is available only for 8-10 hours in a week,” said a local, Nempal.

“Taking into account the poor civic conditions that we are forced to experience, we have no other option other than to boycott the polio campaign to make ourselves heard,” he added.

Polio, which is passed on through the faecal-oral route, affects children up to five years of age. It causes paralysis of the limbs and can be fatal in severe cases. This year, 314 cases of polio have been reported in parts of Uttar Pradesh till Oct 1, officials said.

When contacted, Additional District Magistrate R. Krishna said: “We would make every effort to solve the civic problems of the villagers so that the vaccination programme can be run smoothly and polio can be eradicated.”