No roads, drainage after 11 years, ‘smart village’ Sadullapur pitches for name change to Bharatpur | Noida News
NOIDA: In 2015, Sadullapur was among 14 Greater Noida settlements earmarked for development as ‘smart villages’, a tag that came with promises of reliable water supply, paved roads and an end to sewage flowing in the open by laying a drainage system. The expectant village, looking forward to better days, waited.Eleven years on, its 7,000 residents are still waiting.Roads into the village are unpaved dirt tracks, at their worst now because of monsoon when they are overrun by slush. In bylanes, manhole covers have either sunk or gone missing. Drain culverts are broken and RCC pipes lie abandoned by the roadside.Villagers said Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) dug up the main access road four years ago to lay a sewer line but never restored it. For more than two years, they have written to GNIDA to get the work done. It hasn’t yielded results.The nearest hospital, a private facility in Greater Noida West, is barely 3km away but negotiating traffic and broken roads means that distance takes a minimum 60 minutes to cover.For those who cannot afford private care, the district hospital 18km away in Noida is the only alternative. Getting there is a longer journey still.“This is an urban village located in a busy city area, close to Greater Noida West. Look around, and all you can see are highrises. But see the condition of this place,” rued Prabhanshu Nagar, a Sadullapur resident.He pointed to the village’s only pond, where GNIDA began work last year. Officials had promised a tiled walkway around it. What came instead was an iron net. The mud banks, he said, keep breaking and sliding into the water.And when it rains, the banks and the pond itself are hard to distinguish, making venturing anywhere near it risky.Faced with administrative indifference, a group of residents last year identified what they believed was the real cause – the name of the village itself.They proposed a name change to ‘Bharatpur’ and submitted a petition to the state govt, hoping that would usher in development work that has bypassed Sadullapur.“A group of local residents went to meet the CM last July. We wanted to press for the new name,” said Kamal Nagar, a local realtor who is among residents backing the proposal.“Every other village has seen development, while we have been submitting requests. It was not the same for other villages. Ours is a Hindu-majority village, 98% residents are Hindu here. Then why have a Muslim name? We believed the lack of development was due to the name. Since our ancestors migrated from Bharatpur in Rajasthan, that’s the name we chose,” he said.Not everyone is convinced, though, that changing its name — likely after Sadullah Khan, a Mughal official who established the colony — will turn around Sadullapur’s fortunes.“We do not want a new name. We want basic facilities,” said Bhupendra Nagar, a local resident. “Our roads are basically mud paths. How will renaming the village change this?” he asked.Jagat Raj (68), who has spent most of his life in Sadullapur, said under the smart village programme, street lighting, community centres, parks, Wi-Fi connectivity and facilities for persons with disabilities should have come up by now in the village.“Residents are tired of waiting. They want to see real change. Sadullapur is the identity of this place. We don’t want the name to change,” he said.Officially, the name change has been set in motion. The state govt wrote to the Gautam Budh Nagar police commissioner and the sub-divisional magistrate of Dadri on March 24 this year.The revenue department subsequently sought a report on the name change and a recommendation to be sent to the divisional commissioner in Meerut.AK Chaurasiya, tehsildar of Dadri, said the proposal to rename the village is awaiting a no-objection certificate from GNIDA.“The approval for the name change has been pending because the village falls within a notified area under the GNIDA. At the tehsil level, all formalities have been completed. Once we receive the NOC, the name change process will move forward,” Chaurasia said.Asked about work under the smart village programme not getting under way in Sadullapur, GNIDA senior manager Pradeep Kumar said, “Work on three development projects in Sadullapur was scheduled to begin in July but had to be postponed due to the monsoon and because the kanwar yatra route passes through the village. We do not want villagers to suffer,” he said, adding he was aware of the name change proposal.“Sadullapur has been recognised as a smart village under GNIDA. The planned work include construction of the main village road and two separate drainage systems,” Kumar added.
