Arrested development

It is not often that people other than close family and associates petition for the release of someone jailed for serious financial irregularities. But this is what some villagers in the Kharora block in Raipur district did recently after their sarpanch was jailed for a fiddle over development work in his village. The villagers’ motivation was neither political nor emotional; their problem was that all development work had stopped since the sarpanch’s arrest six months ago, so they needed him back to oversee the projects. Finding no way out, a delegation of villagers drove to Raipur district headquarters and met a perplexed Collector Rohit Yadav with this novel demand. Speechless at first, Yadav played it safe by promising to appoint an ad hoc sarpanch so that development work could be resumed.