Sikaria wasn’t surprised at being singled out for the honour. The village has a substantial Kurmi population (electoral bastion for Nitish, himself a Kurmi). Moreover, it’s accustomed to some attention. Local lore has it that it was in Sikaria’s fertile soil that the Naxal movement first struck roots in central Bihar as it spread from its birthplace in West Bengal. Though villagers now stonewall questions about the movement, exhortations to boycott the vote/pick up the gun, scrawled in red chalk on the occasional wall, are reminders of the storm that once raged here.

But whatever be the reason for Nitish’s choice of Sikaria to showcase his government’s first initiative, it’s Sikaria that best reflects the change — and the lack of it — one year into Nitish’s term. The Sunday Express visited the village to find how the fragile promise of change has led to heightened expectations. In a state where the subject is hesitantly but visibly changing to governance.

First stop: Grameen Gyan Kendra, the computer centre, the new acquisition Sikaria is most proud of since its inauguration in January. At 10:50 on a weekday morning, the metal gate is locked. The centre is scheduled to open 10:30 am to 3:30 pm, six days a week, says Santosh Kumar, who studies there. One teacher commutes everyday by train from Patna, the other comes from Masaurhi on Patna’s outskirts. Both were not expected that day.

“It was not easy persuading a trained teacher from the Electronics Corporation of India to take up this job in the first place’’ says District Magistrate Dr Rana Avadesh. “After all, dastas or armed squads still roam this place, though the local people have turned away from extremism by and large.’’

He recalls how tough it was to persuade the father of one of the two appointed teachers to let his son take up the job. “It’s no mean achievement that the course has already been extended to its third batch of students in a place like Sikaria’’, he says.

But Mamata Kumari, Class 12 student, isn’t impressed. She travels from nearby Bhemar village to the computer centre in Sikaria. “The train from Patna is often late and the teacher mostly winds up at 1:30 pm to catch the 2 pm train back to Patna,’’ she says. Her classmates Manju Kumari and Preeti point out that they get barely 20 minutes each on the computer daily. Then, there is no internet connection.

For a few months, there were no computers either. The two machines installed in January were stolen in February. Three new computers were installed only in September.

Mamata, Manju and Preeti have more than one reason to complain: electricity was never restored to Sikaria. It came to the village on that same January alongwith Nitish Kumar, piercing the uninterrupted darkness of nine years — or was it 10, nobody is sure. Then, three months ago, there was a shortcircuit and darkness returned — a generator runs the computers.

Santosh Kumar is certain it was caste rivalry, someone from the nearby Bhumihar-dominated village of Sohe did it. The DM seems to point to Lalu Prasad Yadav’s department: “The cable was laid below the railway track,’’ says Avadesh.

Go to the primary, secondary and high schools in Sikaria to meet the same sequence all over again — of a village suddenly touched by a government’s larger promise, leading to a jump in people’s expectations, then running up against the government’s inability to deliver.

The midday meal was not being served at either the primary or middle school in Sikaria; villagers said it has been at least nine months since it was served in the primary school.

At the middle school, only one of the two teachers is present. He is attending to over 400 students across Classes 1 to 7 huddled in two small rooms. Yes, he has heard new appointments of teachers are underway. No, there is no word on the number of teachers his school will get.

At the high school, where Nitish laid the foundation stone for two new rooms during his January visit, all new talk of appointments raised hopes that the school will finally get a teacher for maths and science. There has been no one to tackle those subjects for years.

Outside the bazaar samiti, another brand new building coming up since January, young men stand in a cluster. They speak of middlemen and the going rate of cuts for job cards. Though Nitish Kumar had promised the entire district would be covered when he came in January, only 28 cards have come to the village so far. The workers are paid as low as Rs 50 a day instead of the mandated Rs 68.

Budha Paswan, who has the card and worked for all of seven days, says he has little hope of finding more work.

Even the bazaar samiti is being constructed by labour brought in from outside the village, the same is true of the aanganwadi kendra that is also coming up in Sikaria.

The village is pinning all its hopes on another visit by Nitish Kumar. Villagers have heard the chief minister will drive down the road again on January 21, 2007 to assess the programme he launched in January. That is when it will all happen again, they say. The electricity cable will be repaired, the jobs will come, so will the midday meal and there will be an internet connection at the computer centre.

(Tomorrow: Some order in the law and order)