ALONG with the decision on July 28, 1993, to grant Panipat the "eco-town" status for the year, the Haryana government similarly declared Ujha an "eco-village". A district environment committee was formed to implement a Rs 25-lakh scheme to provide additional plants, metalled roads and concrete drains for the village in three years.

However, village sarpanch Hukum Singh is not happy. The committee visits the village once a month, but neither he nor any of the villagers know how they will benefit from the scheme. The rather ambitious plans of the committee are impractical, to say the least.

Landless labourers, who form the larger part of the village populace, will have to bear the expenses of grandiose projects, which include the construction of family toilets under the Sulabh Shauchalya scheme. Says Chandar Pal, a Harijan labourer, "I earn just Rs 600 a month. How can I invest Rs 2,000 on a toilet?" Deputy commissioner R P Singh, however, is certain all the villagers will readily install their own toilets.

Hukum Singh was more concerned about who will undertake the construction of the roads and drains. "I hope some of our youth will be gainfully employed with such schemes," he said. "The only good thing we find about the project are these trees that the officers of the forest department have arranged for us."

However, some 7,000 plants distributed by forest officials face certain death because they were grown on vast tracts of alkali soil, under which is a stratum of hard soil. Already, 80 per cent of the mango saplings planted last August have vanished and the rest may not survive the summer.

Another problem facing the project is rival groupings within the village community. For every plant trampled upon by stray cattle, Hukum Singh blames his rival Karta. Realising that the forest officials are dependent on his cooperation, the village chief tries his best to have the authorities haul up Karta on one pretext or the other.

With the authorities working at the grassroots level involved in village rival groupings and senior officials ensconced in the comfort of their ivory towers, the project cannot be a success.