Angul (Odisha): As the district administration remained indifferent to their woes, the locals of Sankrida village under Kothabhuin Panchayat in Odisha's Angul district have set an example for others by constructing a wooden road from their own resources to facilitate connectivity.
The village, which has a population of more than 350 people, do not have a suitable road for their day to day communication. As a result, the villagers were facing a lot of problems.
After years of government apathy, these people used logs of woods, locally available material and worked for almost several weeks, successfully completing a 6 km-long wooden road.
A local resident said, "We were tired of running to Government offices frequently. But neither the local administration nor the political leaders responded to our pleadings in a favourable manner. The earthen road connecting their village with the Panchayat office is about six km long. The entire stretch of road is full of potholes. Whenever there is rain, water stagnates on the road and it becomes full of mud. As a result, it becomes difficult to come out of the house."
"But finally we decided that enough is enough and we have to make our own arrangement to overcome the problem. That is why we, the inhabitants of the entire village joined hands together and built the wooden road," he said.
"After several pleas of the villagers before the government authorities to build a good road to the village, finally the Public Works Department had floated a tender. However, the contractor who had been given the work order had not started the construction work even after one and half years. Following this some months back the local Panchayat authorities had put soil on the road under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. But this is causing more problems for the villagers during the rains," another local resident said.
The villagers have alleged that although they have complained before the authorities about their problem a number of times, nobody is responding to their pleas. They have now themselves undertaken the job of making the road communicable.
"Later, it was decided that at least one person from each family would participate in the job of building the road. As per the decision, we joined hands and collected wooden logs from the forest for three days. Villagers spread the wooden logs on the muddy road and made it suitable to walk," he added.
Villagers did this as they were not capable of spending the amount of money required to build a concrete road. On the other hand, there was every apprehension that the road would become muddy if the soil is spread on it.
Therefore all the villagers from old people to women were compelled to contribute free labour as per their capacity and were able to build a suitable road for them.
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