The truth behind development in Pilibhit
Waiting for the train, we all wait for the train but it will be a little surprising if we have to wait to reach our homes. Not only this, we have to sit on a boat and take a number to cross the river. For this, bike riders stand for hours in a kilometer long queue with their wives and children. Then the number of those who come in the morning comes in the afternoon and those who come in the afternoon come in the evening. All this is happening nowhere else but in Pilibhit of Uttar Pradesh. The surprising thing is that the officials are saying with pride that this will continue for years.
bike riders boarding the boat in a long queue, water all around, bikes and boats full of people in the flow of water, and children, women, elders, farmers, milkmen, ferrymen waiting for their number on the river bank. This picture has come from Puranpur tehsil of Pilibhit district of Uttar Pradesh, the same Uttar Pradesh where the yogi government does not tire of pleading for development day and night.
There is no permanent bridge on the Sharda river
In fact, to go to the village across the Sharda river in the tehsil area, one has to cross the Sharda river twice by boat. Apart from this, if one has to go to the village across the river by road, then one has to cover hundreds of kilometers and three districts Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur, Lakhimpur and then Pilibhit. A lot of money and hours of time have to be wasted in this. There is no permanent bridge on the Sharda river.
In the same country Nepal, adjacent to this river, a permanent bridge has been built on the river at a distance of a few kilometers for decades, but in Pilibhit every year an alternative (pontoon bridge) is built and people cross it to reach the other side. This time see the kindness of the PWD officials that people did not get even that. Though the operation of these boats is free of cost by PWD, but in a population of lakhs, this is like a drop in the ocean.