Under the 1983 act, the village assembly the lowest level of panchayati raj, from where the primary inputs for development should have come was the most neglected.

The citizens of Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh continue to put up with a filthy, malodorous town despite a landmark Supreme Court ruling 13 years ago, which held it mandatory for municipalities to provide sanitation facilities.

For more than a century, the people of Motepur used to build an earthen dam on the Punpun river every two years. Today, wage labour has replaced voluntary service and a cement dam threatens to blot out a unique water harvesting system.

Phulchand Yadav, 55, is a mojar specialist who lives with his 12 member family in Dhamoul, a village of 1,200 households along the Punpun river. Besides farming his 1.5 ha holding, Yadav trades in cattle. Although Dhamoul is downstream of Motepur dam, i