Prospective brides stay away from Allahabad village devoid of electricity, water
:Shri Tara Majra is a small non-descript village in Allahabad’s Bara tehsil, which has earned notoriety as the ‘village of bachelors’.
Women from not just Allahabad’s rural areas, but even from the hinterland of neighbouring districts like Pratapgarh, Kaushambi and Chitrakoot are known to refuse marriage proposals from the young men of the village.
The village has became infamous as a place lacking electricity and even proper water resources, thus promising a life filled with hardships for any woman who marries one of its residents.
The village has only one handpump, which the residents installed in 2002 using their own resources. Water from the only well in the village is not fit for drinking and this handpump is the only source of water for around 1,000 villagers in the area.
Young men of this village are finding it hard to find brides as no woman wants to suffer without electricity and water. Television, refrigerator, fans and coolers, which some married men had received as dowry, can be found lying unused in several houses of the village.
Many of the residents have migrated to other villages and those still living there are planning to migrate too. A villager, Badrilal Jaiswal, said, “A year ago, my son’s marriage was fixed in Pratapgarh. However, only a month later the girl’s family broke the engagement when they came to know that there was no electricity in our village..”
Another villager, Purshottam Jaiswal, said, “I faced extreme difficulty in finding brides for my three sons. Their marriages were fixed on the condition that they will not live in the village. Since the last 10 years, my sons and their families rarely visit the village.” Jaiswal added that they had approached several MLAs and MPs but no one paid any heed to their pleas.
Sub-divisional magistrate of Bara Rajkumar Dwivedi conceded that the area was lacking basic amenities. “Chamu Gramsabha and some other areas are indeed underdeveloped. We will look into the matter and provide power if villagers apply for it,” he said.
MANY RESIDENTS HAVE MIGRATED TO OTHER VILLAGES AND THOSE STILL LIVING THERE ARE PLANNING TO GO AS WELL