Jabalpur (MP), Jun 27 (IANS): In a letter to the Madhya Pradesh High Court on Friday, the villagers from Payali in the neighbouring district of Seoni have exposed the tall claims of successive governments over rural employment and infrastructure development.

The court granted a week to the state government to reply to a PIL registered "suo motu" on the letter from the villagers who narrated their plight and sought relief. The letter highlighted lack of basic amenities and poor infrastructure in Payali village that forced them to defecate in the open.

A division bench of Chief Justice A.K. Mittal and Justice V.K. Shukla, who heard the petition, directed the state to respond on the next hearing scheduled for July 6, Additional Advocate General Pushpendra Yadav said.

The villagers from Payali in the development block Ghansaur of Seoni wrote the letter on June 18, raising all primary issues that plague their lives.

They complained that not a single house has been constructed in their village under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna and they needed a proper road to drop their children to schools, the counsel said.

The villagers requested the court to issue directions for construction of toilets under the Samagra Swachhata Abhiyan. They said that though some toilets have come up, their construction is incomplete which forces them to go to the forests and the banks of Narmada for defecation, Yadav said.

The court has made the state government a respondent party through the Principal Secretary (Rural Development), the District Collector, Seoni, the chief executive officers of the district panchayat and janpad panchayats in the case.