Lack of power and water trips marriage prospects in UP’s ‘village of bachelors’
ALLAHABAD:Just 35 km south of Allahabad, the village of Shri Tara Majra finds itself with an unenviable tag of ‘village of bachelors’ because acute water shortage and lack of electricity scare away potential brides.
Women not only from Allahabad’s rural land but even from the interiors of neighbouring districts like Pratapgarh, Kaushambi and Chitrakoot turn down marriage proposals because marriage would mean a life with scarce water and no power.
Fifty bachelors between the age of 18 and 29 are hunting for brides without any luck. Shri Tara Majra has a population of around 1,000, but the village is yet to get electricity. It has only one hand pump, which the villagers installed. It is the only source of water. There is also a well, but its water is so bad that it can’t be used. Televisions, refrigerators, fans and coolers, which some lucky married men received as dowry, lie unused. Many have migrated to other villages and those still living are planning to move out.
“My son Mukesh runs a shoe shop in a nearby market and earns well. A year ago, his marriage was fixed in Pratapgarh. The girl’s family was happy with the proposal, but they broke the engagement only a month later when they came to know that there was no electricity in our village. Her mother told us that her daughter is fond of watching television,” Badrilal Jaiswal, a villager told HT.
He wasn’t the only unlucky one. “Not only my son’s but more than 20 marriages have been called off in the past one year,” Jaiswal added.
Marriage proposals from Shri Tara Majra now triggers panic among residents of other villages. Some insist that the groom should not stay there after marriage so that their daughters are not put through hardships.
“I faced extreme difficulty in finding brides for my three sons. Their marriages were fixed on the condition that they will not live here. For the last 10 years, my sons and their families rarely visit the village,” another villager Purshottam Jaiswal said.
Villagers say their pleas to MLA’s and administrative officials have not yielded any results. Purshottam Jaiswal further says “We have visited several MLAs and MPs. However, all our pleas to provide electricity and hand pumps fell on deaf ears”.
The area comes under the assembly segment of BJP MLA Ajay Kumar. It also comes under the Lok Sabha segment of BJP MP SC Gupta.