Rural India is very thirsty. We are the country with the most people without safe drinking water. The necessity of people is water or free Wi-Fi?   

Kadipur, a village with population of around 8,000 hit the headlines after it became the first village in the capital to get “free Wi-Fi” in 2017. But, it is still struggling to get basic amenities like regular water supply, a medical dispensary and a proper garbage disposal facility.

Bimla Devi, a resident, said that the government should fix the water issue instead of spending on the internet and LED streetlights. “We have to wake up at 4 am every day to fill water. We treat water like gold. The village has got internet connectivity but there is no regular water supply. The roads are lit with LEDs but what about water?” she said.

According to locals, around 100 cases of dengue were reported from the village last year. However, in the absence of any government hospital and medical dispensary, the residents struggled. “There is not even a single dispensary in the area. We have to rush to the government hospital in Jahagirpuri every time some emergency happens. There are some private doctors but we cannot trust them; most of them are quacks,” said Seema Kumari, a resident.

It is a village in north east Delhi adopted by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from North-East Delhi Manoj Tiwari. Since 2014, when Tiwari adopted the village under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna, it got a makeover — dirt roads (kuchha roads) were paved and lit with conventional as well as LED streetlights. Water, though, comes to residents for only four hours a day 4 am to 8 am and that too on alternate days.

According to HT sources when a journalist visited the village, the system was not working.

Local BJP councillor Urmila Rana said that the Wi-Fi in the area was deliberately switched off. “We received multiple complaints from parents saying that their children were spending more time on the internet than studying,” she said. “They requested us to switch it off for two months during the board exam season. We will restart the service by next week since board exams are over now,” she said.

Councillor Rana said that she had written multiple times to the Delhi government over the water issue but to no avail. “The village has been completely transformed. We have paved all the roads and installed over 40 polls with conventional street lights and 400 LED street lights. He has provided free Wi Fi and also built 200 benches across the village from his MP fund. We have been trying to get uninterrupted water supply and in regular contact with the Delhi Jal Board officials,” she said.

Kadipur comprises two small adjoining villages— Kushak no-1 and Kushak no-2—and has 6,000 registered voters.

Tiwari, who is also BJP’s Delhi unit chief, said that has been trying to get a land for the dispensary and dhalaos (community garbage dumping spaces). “We have done a lot of work in the village. I have spent around 1.5 crore on its development. We have been trying to get regular water supply and build dispensaries and dhalaos in the village as well. The delay is because of the non-co-operational attitude of the Delhi government. For any infrastructural work we need land and it comes under the Delhi government. Last year we managed to get a land and built a park for the village. People are going there,” he said.

But the site had only a signboard indicating it was a “public park”. It was just an open field and there was not even a blade of grass. When asked Tiwari about it he said that the work is stalled because of the model code of conduct, which restricts parties in power from announcing any new projects to allow for a level playing field in the elections.

“We have allotted 55 lakh for the construction of the boundary wall of the park. We will soon build an open gym there. We will come in power again and transform it into a world class village,” he said.

  BJP, Delhi, water