Once the replies are received, the printouts are sealed in an envelope and a peon sets out to deliver them. The service costs nothing. The Internet, a stadium and a sound-proofed community hall with a seating capacity of 1,100, all for a village with 3,800 residents where solar-lighting, individually-owned bio-gas plants and indoor toilets are commonplace. All these, including the institute, stem from local initiative. In fact, residents of the village rue the fact that they have to depend in any way on a Government. For them, it is easier to stay in touch with relatives in Canada than with acquaintances in the nearby town of Phagwara.

For over two years, the residents of this village have been approaching every official concernedto ensure that the road linking them with the nearest town, Phagwara, which is barely 3 kms away, is once again made motorable. Ironically, the road had been dug up to lay giant sewer lines connecting Phagwara to a sewage treatment plant being set up on the outskirts of the village as part of the Sutlej Action Plan. No one has bothered to relay the road since.

Within the village itself, the roads looked after by the Government are in an abysmal condition. On the other hand, the lanes leading to the gurdwaras, connecting farm houses, which are looked after by the villages, are brick-lined and in perfect condition. Throughout the village, trees are coming up as part of an innovative scheme where residents pay for a tree-guard and the sapling to commemorate the memory of relations. The villagers plan and manage many of their activities through an NGO - the National Rural Development Society, Plahi, set up in 1984-85 by seven residents of the village. It runs the NIIRDT and serves to channel the vast resourcesof NRI money available to the village for developmental activities.

The population of this Doaba village in Kapurthala district is 3,800 and an equal number of its residents are settled abroad. Points out Gurmit Plahi, NIIRDT principal, "The NGO allows us to have control over our own funds. When necessary, the money is used by the panchayat for projects. If the money was directly deposited with the panchayat, we would require the Block Development Officer's signatures to use our own money. We have a chartered accountant to look after the accounts which are open to scrutiny by anyone."

The village has been able to achieve so much on its own partly because the NGO has made good use of various schemes which provide matching grants and subsidies. But much of the success is also due to the NRIs from this village ploughing back funds for its development. NRIs provided Rs 32 lakh of the Rs 35 lakh which went into building the village community hall. A single person, Balwant Singh Mann of Slough, pitched in withRs 5 lakh. The village also boasts of a stadium built primarily through the Rs 3.5 lakh contributed by Mahinder Singh of UK.

The NGO and the NIIRDT is the brain-child of Jagat Singh Plahi, who is currently on a fund-raising trip abroad for construction of underground sewerage in the village. An initial proposal by the village that they would fund 50 per cent of the project and the government should provide a matching grant was turned down. Now the village has offered to pay for the whole project and all the government is required to do is provide expertise for the purpose.

The ferro-cement tanks, an alternative for septic tanks, promoted by the NIIRDT has ensured that almost every house in the village has an indoor toilet. The institute has installed ferro-cement water tanks in over 90 schools and solar heaters at various public places and gurdwaras. Bio-gas plants built by the NIIRDT are used by over 20 households in the village.

The village has learnt the hard way that government help is a riskybusiness. When Plahi went in for solar street-lighting, 25 such lights were installed. The Punjab Energy Development Authority (PEDA) insisted it would supply 20 while the NIIDT set up five. Predictably, several years later, only five lights are functioning, the 20 supplied by PEDA stopped functioning within months of installation due to substandard batteries.