Lack of facilities force villagers to leave their ancestral home

BDKasniyal

Pithoragarh, August 31

Villagers living in remote and high hill region are gradually leaving their ancestral homes as the governments over the years have failed to provide them basic facilities and protection from natural disasters like sliding lands and shooting boulders on their houses.

Residents of Quiri Jimia village in the Munsiyari subdivision in Pithoragarh district have become jobless after a nullah (rivulet ) flowing at middle of the villages widened its path and absorbed its premier land which used by the villagers to grow potato and rajma(local bean), the cash crops on which the economy of the villages rested. “ The sudden widening of the nullah in 2011 caused grasping of over 10 acres of land and 26 houses, the damages of which has not been replaced by the governments therefore we have decided to leave the village to shift in other less risky places,” said a villager of the Munsiyari subdivision.

According to the villagers, 26 families have left the village since and only 10 families have left in the village today. “We are compelled to leave the village as despite visits of two chief ministers, including Ramesh Pokhariyal and Harish Rawat, to the villages, no arrangements have been made to protect the village from further sliding from the nullah which is increasing its volume of slide continuously year by year, ” said Devendra Deva, a former pradhan of the Quiry Jimia village.

On the other hand, over 22 families have shifted their permanent residence from Kakarpani village in Ganai region of Gangolihat subdivision of Pithoragarh district as the village has no basic facilities of electricity, water, road and communication towers. “Only 38 families out of 60 have left in the village. Villagers are becoming more conscious about the future of their children,” said Rajendra Singh, a villager now resides with his family in Gangolihat subdivisional headquarter.