Odisha: Villagers cut through hill in Koraput to build road

The poor tribal residents of Ghantraguda in Koraput may not have heard of the Mountain Man Dashrath Manjhi but like him took up the work of constructing a road cutting through the hills on their own to address their connectivity problemsThe villagers men and women cut through a hill and cleared shrubs and have constructed a 6 km long kuchha road connecting Ghantraguda with Puki Chhack in the districtGhantraguda is located about 35 km from Koraput town in southern Odisha and the diversion due to the lack of road made the villagers travel 52 km to reach itThey were forced to take a detour to reach the headquarter town for various works and often faced problemsThe road constructed by the villagers will reduce the distance by a good 20 km said Lachna Purasethi a villager The requests to the authorities concerned for a shorter road had not helped mattersWe appealed to the authorities for the road many times but to no avail Therefore we decided to construct the road on our own said Lochan Bisoi a villagerArmed with farm tools like the hoe sickle machete and the spade started the poor tribal villagers began carving out the hill he saidAlso Read Odisha Three killed seven injured as goods train derails exgratia announcedIn the absence of direct roads we face much difficulty in reaching Koraput town specially in the nights and more so during the rainy season Shifting patients to the hospital at Koraput becomes a nightmare and only God knows how we manage it he saidThe villagers said a metal road was constructed by the administration about 15 years back but there is no sign of it now due to lack of maintenanceThe road constructed by them will help around 4000 residents of at least nine villages apart from Ghantraguda on completion they claimedThe village has been included in the rural connectivity programme and a pucca road will be constructed sooniquest said Damburudhar Mallick the block development officer of Dasmantpur under which Ghantraguda fallsDashrath Manjhi was an agricultural labourer of Gehlaur village near Gaya in Bihar In 1959 his wife died reportedly due to injury after she fell from a mountain and he could not take her to the hospital in the town 90 km away in time because of lack of roads A distraught but determined Manjhi later began to carve a path 110 m long 360 ft 91 m 30 ft wide and 77 m 25 ft deep through a ridge of hills using only a hammer and a chiselAfter 22 years of work Dashrath shortened travel between the Atri and Wazirganj blocks of Gaya district from 55 km to 15 kmThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever