Every second house in this UP village has a twin

 An average village in Uttar Pradesh may be suffering from lack of basic facilities like drinking water, electricity and roads. But there is a village in the state which has an additional problem.
Umari village in UP's Allahabad district suffers from a unique problem. Every second house in this village of 200 families has a twin. There are currently twins in as many as 86 houses in Umari, which is about 15 km from Allahabad city, according to an official report. Its fame as the twins’ village brings many childless couples here in the hope that they would also be blessed with twins. These couples make the village their temporary residence till their hope gets fulfilled. It is not however known whether all those couples, who come to the village, are indeed blessed with twins although the villagers claim that many of them get the blessing. “It’s the will of the Almighty,” quips 60-year-old Mohammad Mustafa, a resident of the pre-dominantly Muslim village.
While one may call it a “divine blessing,” the fact remains that it has created other problems for the residents of the village. The population of the village has been increasing by leaps and bounds, putting the inhabitants into a fix. “A majority of people in the village are daily wage workers. We are not able to provide even the bare minimum to our children,”  says Ashraf. The village has poor roads and power supply system, while  just a few residents have  agricultural land. Meanwhile, the village has  attracted medical experts and scientists. A Hyderabad-based NGO, which conducted a research in the village last year, attributed it to hereditary and environmental factors. According to Lucknow-based gynaecologist Dr Geeta Khanna, the reasons could be eating habits, environment and drug intake by the women.