Maniadih (Dhanbad), Aug. 23: A panchayat village doesn't know what is more ludicrous, a bank closed for a non-existent rebel threat or a health centre that opens only two days a year for flag hoisting.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who celebrated "17 crore new accounts" as part of the Jan Dhan Yojana in his speech this Independence Day, can be forgiven for not knowing about Maniadih, the village 40km from Dhanbad, which has fallen off India's banking map.

Rajya Sabha MP and noted lawyer Sanjeev Kumar, who hails from Maniadih, recently wrote to the Prime Minister about the area that had a bank from 1991 to 1994, but was closed down due to a perceived Naxalite threat.

Maniadih, like thousands of farming villages with a precarious toehold on the path of progress, doesn't know why their Bank of India (BOI) was shut down.

Lawyer Videsh Dan, the Rajya Sabha MP's nephew and Maniadih's mukhiya, wondered where the Naxalites were.

"I have never encountered any Naxalite in my village. My uncle (Sanjeev Kumar) freely roams about in the village without a bodyguard. I don't know where the Naxalites are in Maniadih and can't understand what scared the bank away," he said.

Dhanbad DC Kripanand Jha seconded Dan. "I don't think there is any Naxalite threat. We also recommend the reopening of the bank," he said.

Dan said he was old enough to remember that BOI's Maniadih branch had over 20,000 accounts when it functioned between 1991 and 1994. It was the sole bank for 60,000 people in the region, Maniadih panchayat and five others, in Tundi block of Dhanbad.

Though Rajya Sabha MP Kumar, Dhanbad MP P.N. Singh and Giridih MP Ravindra Pandey raised the issue in past bankers' meets or district-level vigilance and monitoring committee meetings, BOI has not made a comeback.

A generation of new voters has grown up since 1994. They know the nearest BOI - for that matter, the nearest bank - is in Logharia, 15km from Maniadih.

Now, people go either to Logharia, or further on to Tundi block headquarters, 20km away, to deposit their earnings, withdraw pensions or take loans.

It's a long way to go, say most villagers who don't own cycles or bikes.

"The bank staff of Logharia are very uncooperative and don't give us forms for Jan Dhan Yojana," Maniadih's Raghunath Mandal, who opened an account at the Logharia branch recently, claimed. "I can't imagine our village from where Shibu Soren launched his crusade against alcoholism within tribal society back in the 1970s is so backward now that it doesn't have a bank."

"How often can I leave my shop to travel 30km to and fro?" said garments shop owner Ratanlal Mandal, when asked why Maniadih needed a bank.

For the elderly, the ride to Logharia is too costly. "I get Rs 600 as old-age pension and spend over Rs 100 to commute to Logharia and back. Tell me, is it fair?" 72-year-old Bhairav Dan said.

Many rely on chit funds, lose money and bemoan their luck. "If there's no bank, the vacuum will be filled by chit funds," Dan said.

Asked, Rajya Sabha MP Kumar said Maniadih was just "an example" which he quoted in his letter to Modi. "I wanted to draw the attention of the Prime Minister to the fact that all ambitious scheme fall flat in rural hinterland of Jharkhand," he said.

Though a sweeping statement, it is not far from truth.

"The health sub-centre is some 100 yards away from the market, we have heard a doctor is posted here but we never spotted him," said Dan. "The sub-centre opens only during Independence Day and Republic Day for flag hoisting," he laughed.

If someone falls sick, people bundle him on a vehicle to the Govindpur health centre, 30km off, or PMCH in Dhanbad, 40km away.

Maniadih panchayat alone has 11,000 people but a single government high school near the main market, with two teachers for 200 students. Similarly, the middle school has two teachers for some 250 students. People say the nearest "good school" is 30km away in Govindpur. "We want out children to be educated but which child will commute 60km daily?" a villager asks. "Have you seen our broken roads?"

The village has electricity, with over half the homes having television sets and cellphones. "But, voltage is so low that you can't see a person standing 10-feet away from you in a room lit by a 100-watt bulb. Power supply is for four to five hours a day," the same villager said.

A lot will change if the bank makes a comeback, runs the general sentiment.

"The district board of Dhanbad recently renovated the building where the BOI branch used to operate, after district level vigilance and monitoring committee meets unanimously resolved to reopen the bank. Let's see what happens," Dan said.