Fed up of assurances from administrators and leaders, villagers make 7 km road by cutting a mountain

Whenever any public representative or administrative officer used to visit Sakarja village in Alirajpur district, the residents of Anjanwada village falling under Sakarja panchayat used to meet him to apprise about the problems they were facing due to no road connection of the village to the main land. This lasted for decades and every time they used to get assurances about the road construction from Sakarja to Anjanwada but their promises never fulfilled and the fate of 350 residents of the village was in despair.

The main problem of the villagers was that crossing Narmada in a boat was the only means to reach the village. It took two hours boat ride from Sakarja while three hours from Kakrana village.   

Fed up of this, Anjanwada residents decided to build a road on their own but the main challenge was to cut a hill for building the road. Task was tough but despite all constraints, the villagers decided to go ahead with the work.

As all of them are the labourers and farm workers, they brought their pick axes and other manual equipment for digging and cutting the rocks and soil. They started the work in September and their work is on the finishing stage now.

They chose the shortest route and started digging on the side of hill along with filling of mud and muram on the other side to achieve three meter wide road. The seven kilometer road stretch is complete and as on date, all SUVs can reach the village easily.

Ap Singh, sarpanch of Sakarja told TOI that he is also a resident of Anjanwada and as a sarpanch, he also tried all sorts for this road but nothing happened, on which the villagers decided for it and also achieved the target without any modern machinery or earth moving machines.

Panchayat secretary Rajesh Kanesh told TOI that it was a great example as even small children and women of the village contributed their labour for this road, due to which children of the village will be able to visit their school, five kilometers from there.