The 4,500 inhabitants have never used an electric bulb, never mind luxuries like roads, water supply, sanitation and medical facilities. For all practical purposes, the 11 hamlets near Igatpuri on the Mumbai-Agra highway do not even exist, as these forgotten pockets of civilisation fail to figure on the revenue map.

No wonder officials at the Thane Zilla Parishad (ZP) and Collectorate froze in horror when the chief minister stumbled upon Biblewadi, located atop a hillock surrounded by deep gorges, while holidaying at a nearby resort early this month. The capricious hand of fate, which guided Manohar Joshi to the hamlets on July 6, gifted the villagers a few amenities but it also brought retribution for local officials, who have all but denied theexistence of these hamlets for decades on end.

Today, they are dusting their brains for solutions to the promises the chief minister handed the thirsting villagers, wondering how to reverse aeons of neglect.

Biblewadi Sarpanch Sunita Baban Thakar (35) says one of the villagers working at the Manas resort in Igatpuri had casually mentioned that the chief minister was holidaying there along with Education Minister Sudhir Joshi and their respective families. ``I gathered a group of women and went to meet him,'' Sunita explains.

With the kilometre-long path to the hamlet no more than a slippery trekking trail, the women advised Joshi against visiting the village in spite of their desperation to be noticed by the powers that be.

"Regardless of our requests not to, he walked up and met the villagers,"adds 50-year-old Parubai, proudly pointing to the earthern bench outside her hut where the chief minister sat and chatted with the women and children.``He was particularly unhappy that the school teacher hadbeen playing truant for over week. Every time the teacher stays away, the `school' remains shut,'' interjects another villager, adding that the hamlets are still excitedly discussing the day the state's most important politician acknowledged their inconsequential existence.

``Ideally, in keeping with the rules, we need to have two-teacher-schools but we have a serious paucity of teachers,'' explains the collector, Shrikant Singh. ``But filling vacancies in the reserved categories is getting very difficult so we end up with these single-teacher instances,'' he says.

But that did not impress Joshi, who gave the officials a dressing down they are not likely to forget in a hurry. On Friday, the collector and ZP officials convened an emergency meeting of officials working in the area (Latifwadi, Panjrwadi, Thakarwadi, Patilwadi, Chintamanwadi, Dand, Umbrawane, Naralwadi, Paradhwadi, Biblewadi and Ohlachiwadi). They met with the villagers and took stock of the situation before drawing up a plan and time-boundstrategy to develop the hamlets in keeping with the string of instructions Joshi left in his wake.

``The most important problem is transport and communication. There are also problems in areas where the tribals reside on forest land due to which we find our hands tied,'' says Singh, the furrows on his brow deepening every passing day. ``We are in touch with the Forest Department to acquire land so that the villages can get access to civilisation,'' he adds quickly.

The villagers of Dand and Umbrawane complain that the nearest health facility is totally inaccessible during the monsoon - unless the infirm are prepared to brave the 17 km walk to the health post. ``Women in labour and the sick have little hope, besides God,'' mutters Gondabai, urging the collector to bring deliverance soon. He replies: ``Work on a bridge will commence immediately. All the paper work is ready so there shouldn't be any delay.''

The Biblewadi women trudge three kilometres to draw water from a brook, their nearest source. Ondays when Nature is selfish, they trek down to a beer bar, where they fill water from a tap in the garden, that is, if the owner obliges. His generosity, however, usually dries up in summer, when the women walk 9.5 km to Igatpuri to trap the rivulets of water trickling down a railway tunnel. Moreover, the maximum they can carry across this distance is a couple of pitchers. Never mind that a wine factory gets regular supply from a water pipeline just seven kilometres away.

As local officials go into a huddle to discuss `development plans' for civilisation's forgotten ones, the dam at Igatpuri gushes tantalisingly in the distance. The solution, it seems, is just a stone's throw away.