No road connectivity to 7,000 MP villages

In Madhya Pradesh, residents of Karadia village in Sehore district fear a lot of monsoon- because heavy rain maroons the village and in absence of road connectivity it remains cut off from the mainland. Efforts by villagers to apprise local administration and elected representatives about the problem have failed to yield positive results. Like inhabitants of 7,000 villages that have no connectivity with mainland, villagers in Karadia wake up with a prayer- no one in the village should fall ill.

Carrying patients to the nearby hospital is an arduous task. Karadia villagers including students are forced to risk their lives every day during monsoon to get to work or schools by crossing a flooded canal. Official figures suggest that in 2000, a total of 19,346 villages without roads were identified. Of these, 7,000 villages still do not have proper roads.

Chief executive officer, of the Madhya Pradesh Rural Road Development Authority, Alka Upadhyaya said, work for construction of connecting roads in 4,161 villages could not be started. The Authority is planning to include them in the work plan this year. Besides, in the other 2,600 villages constructions works are in pipeline and funds have been sanctioned, she added.

Sources said besides lack of roads in these villages, the villages where new road were laid were also either washed away or damaged in rain. Interestingly, government statistics suggest that in 13 years only around 12,000 villages could be connected with roads at an average of around 1,000 village a year. In the light of this how road work would be completed in 7,000 villages this year is anybody's guess.