Fed up with govt apathy, villagers in K'taka build their own road

After waiting for the government to build a road for years, these impoverished villagers took the stupendous task of building it themselves. The residents of a village in Karnataka's Belagavi district constructed a stretch of two and a half kilometre mud road with locally available material.

Belagavi: After years of government apathy, a group of tribals of a village in Karnataka's Belagavi district joined hands to build a road with their own money and efforts.

Located at a distance of 11 km from the district, Marihal village has not only been deprived of health care facilities but also welfare schemes of the government since ages.

After repeated requests made to the administration and the government since years for the construction of a road that fell on deaf ears, the residents of the village themselves decided to construct the road by contributing money.

The Marihal village comprising of 250 families, which is entirely dependent on agriculture, donated Rs 3000 each for the construction of a road, to make way to their farms easy and fast.

When government turned a blind eye to the plight of the villagers, the impoverished residents constructed a two and a half kilometre mud road with locally available material as they couldn't arrange from outside due to the ongoing lockdown.

Along with the planning a road map, the Sarpanch and heads of the village formed teams and decided timings so that the construction comes to an end soon without any chaos.

A team of 20 members worked daily, taking turns to construct the road, with a mission to ease transport facility and connectivity in the area.

Now, the only appeal the residents have to the government is to convert the mud road into concrete one, so that their efforts do not go in vain.