Deprived of road link, Jawali villagers to boycott Lok Sabha poll

Rajiv Mahajan

Nurpur, March 5

Parla Wanderu village in ward number 6 of Nana gram panchayat in the neighbouring Jawali Assembly constituency lacks road connectivity since Independence. In case of a medical emergency, villagers either carry a patient in a palanquin or on their shoulders to reach the pucca link road one kilometre away from the village.

During rain, the villagers, especially schoolchildren, have a tough time as the village kutcha path becomes slushy and slippery for pedestrians. The path has become a bane of the villagers. Parents have to carry their children to schools on their shoulders. There are around 30 households and 150 voters in this remote village. The villagers say that it is not easy to transport patients and expectant mothers to hospital at night.

Local ward member Sunita Devi says that the villagers had at a meeting recently decided to boycott the upcoming Lok Sabha elections if the government did not build a pucca ambulance-worthy road. They lodged a protest against the government’s apathy towards their village.

Jagdish Rana, Jeet Singh, Uttam, Nitin, Kanchna Devi, Sushma, Bachitar Singh, Ganesh, Harbans, Ranjana and Riya, all residents of Parla Wanderu village, say that they are waiting for a pucca road since 1980 when the state Forest Department built the kutcha village path. “We have given several memorandums to the state government through the local MLA during successive BJP and Congress governments but the problem has not been addressed even after four decades,” they lament. The villagers say that without a link road, they are also facing difficulties in marrying their children.

Meanwhile, the villagers have submitted a signed memorandum to Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri and local MLA Chander Kumar, who is Agriculture Minister, about their decision to boycott the Lok Sabha elections if a link road is not constructed soon.

Manohar Sharma, Executive Engineer, PWD division, Jawali, says that the village path is on forestland and the PWD cannot build a pucca road without forest clearance under the Forest Conservation Act (FCA). “The department will prepare a fresh case for forest clearance under the FCA and submit it to the authorities concerned,” he adds.

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