Dalit village Nautha still without road, school

Ajay Ramola

Tribune News Service

Mussoorie, April 14

Political parties, bureaucrats and several non-governmental organisations used the occasion of the 125 birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar in showing their dedication towards Dalits but for Dalit families in Nautha village in the Jaunpur region, who are yet to get basic facilities, it was another day of struggle in their lives.

Residents of Nautha also called Ambedkar village have no road connectivity and are at the mercy of a local NGO for primary education for their children. The village falls in the Kmepty nyaya panchayat and is 14 km form Mussoorie but it is deprived of basic facilities.

“Electricity reached our village only a few years ago and we have to struggle for drinking water and fetch it form a nearby spring as the pipeline that has not been repaired since several years,” said a villager.

Most of the agriculture produce they get is due to rainwater but with the temperature rising the chances of good rainfall are remote this year, creating fear of a famine-like situation,” said Nathu, an elderly resident of Nautha village.

Children of Nautha village cannot attend the primary school at Veera Gaon, a few kilometers away from their village, in the absence of a road. They are being provided education by an NGO working in the area for the past several years. There are around 26 Dalit families in the village and around 150 persons stay there. Many villagers have migrated to other place in the absence of lack of facilities in the village, said Nandu, a youth.

Former MLA Khajan Das said the 3-km road to Nautha village had been built due to lack of forest clearance. Sources had informed him that the work on the road would begin soon.