The sleepy village of Madhavaram in Siddapatam mandal is haunted by a host of problems for the past few years. Roads which were laid years back have become unmotorable and drinking water problem persists throughout the summer season. The village also lags behind in sanitation with lack of sewerage facilities. Problems are manifold but solution have been evading for many years. Like Madhavaram, there are several other villages in the district which are crying for attention. It is not only the general problems that are haunting the village. Over the couple of years, the administration at village level has come to a standstill. People are facing problems in getting their regular works done. With the term of local elected bodies, more particularly that of the sarpanches, coming to an end two years back, administration in rural areas had hit hard. With the term of local bodies coming to an end two years ago, the government had appointed village secretaries to take care of the day-to-day functioning at the village level. But, the system has never been useful for the village administration. ‘’When the panchayat setup was there, we used to get our problems solved by them. Now, we don’t know when the village secretaries will come to the villages,’’ Narsimhulu, a resident of Madhavaram said. He added: ‘’A sarpanch is the one who belongs to our village and whom we can easily approach and get our problems solved. But that is not the case with village secretaries.’’ According to officials, after the term of the local bodies came to an end, village secretaries were appointed in place of sarpanches. Though the r e a r e 791 g r am panchayats, only 318 village secretaries have been posted and they act as in-charges of one or two panchayats each. The village secretaries do not stay put at the villages and people cannot take up their problems with them due to this. Even if the problems are brought before the village secretaries, they hardly get solved, villagers say. With the non-conduct of panchayat elections in the last seven years, the Centre too not releasing panchayat grants.