When Pune was chosen as the venue for the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games, Mhalunge Padale, a village on the outskirts of Pune, basked in the glory of the event. The villagers contributed nearly 80 per cent of their land to host the event and in return, were promised that the Games would change the face of the village: concrete roads and 24-hour water supply. A month later, all is quiet—the Games are over, the athletes and organisers have long gone, and Mhalunge Padale is wondering where they all went and whatever happened to their promises. The village still wakes up to a non-existent sewage system and a crippling water shortage.A compound wall divides the Games venue from Mhalunge Padale and other villages around it. The wall dissects two worlds—one, with shiny tarmac, stadiums of global standards and a gleaming star hotel and the other, Mhalunge Padale and its 14,000-odd residents. While the Games venue has silken roads of international standards, the road that leads to it runs through the village. This stretch is rough, dusty and untarred. “The municipal corporation had promised us that it would lay the central road along with 12 internal roads before the event. While the central road was shabbily laid a day before the event, work on 12 other roads has remained stuck in government files,” says Rekhatai Padale, sarpanch, Mhalunge Padale. Water was another thing that divided the two worlds. Inside the venue, mineral water bottles were tossed around freely, many ending up in garbage bins, while outside the wall, the villagers struggled for their daily water. Water was always a precious commodity in Mhalunge Padale. The only well in the village wasn’t good enough and the villagers had to travel to Baner, three kilometers from the village, to get water. “We would walk to Baner every day and get two cans of drinking water,” says Amol Padale, a villager. Before the Games, the villagers were promised they wouldn’t have to walk to Baner anymore—three tankers would bring water to the village every day. Today, the tankers come but the quantity is far less than what they were promised. “The municipal corporation promised us 24-hour water supply and 1,00,000 litres of water every day till the water supply project was completed. Today, there is no talk of the project and the litres promised. We get only 30,000 litres a day, which is insufficient for us,” says Suresh Padale, a villager. Villagers say the gleaming façade of The Orchid Hotel, a five-star property, where athletes from 71 countries of the Commonwealth stayed during the Games, was deceptive. Sewage from the hotel found its way, through open drainage canals, into the backyard of homes in Mhalunge Padale. A month after the Games, the area still reeks of sewage, and mosquitoes, rats and flies swarm everywhere. “There was no drainage canal before the Games. It was created during the event and still flows in front of my door,” says Pandit Gujar, former sarpanch of the village. The drainage line has also hit the livelihood of the villagers. Ashok Mohol and his five-member family used to live off the three crops he grew on his land. But now, with the sewage pipeline running right through his village, Mohol can grow crops for not more than four months a year. “This open sewage canal runs through 15-20 other farms, making the area around it marshy. This kind of land can be used to grow only rice during the kharif season. We can’t grow wheat and bajra anymore,” says Mohol, who is bracing to face a loss of over Rs 10,000 this year.Villagers say the sacrifice would have been worth it had Mhalunge Padale found some mention during the Games. While the Chhatrapati Shivaji Stadium hogged all the attention, nobody looked across the wall towards Mhalunge Padale, whose villagers had contributed 123 of the 153 acres of land for the venue. A month after the Games, the village that is struggling with its lost identity and counting the losses.
