Villages in Nabarangpur District deprived of basic facilities

By Kishor Chandra Mandal: Even after India celebrating its 67th year of Republic Day, basic facilities like clean drinking water, road connectivity, electricity, school education, sanitation etc are far from the reach of many remote villages across the state of Odisha in general and Nabarangpur district in particular.

The quest for appropriate models of development is yet to see in the remote villages. For instance, the inhabitants of three remote villages -Sagajaba, Kushumbahal and Ekamba pada of Jharigam block in Nabarangpur district have
been approaching post to pillar to get basic amenities.

Sagajaba , which is located at a distance of 15 km from Jharigaon panchayat, is a 30 year old village with inhabitants of Jani, Gond and Goud tribal community. Around 38 families have been facing hardship due to lack of basic facilities. They are deprived of basic amenities from various welfare schemes of both the state and central govt.

Another village is Kushumbahal, which is located at a distance of 2 km from Sagajaba, has the same story of difficulties as 30 families in the village never received any government attention. Similarly, Ekamba pada is located at a distance of 5 km from Sagajaba village, where 40 families of Sabara and Bhatra tribal community have been living for last 30 years.

Around 500 people have been living in these three remote villages without pure drinking water, electricity connection and other basic amenities including approach road. These villages are being cut off from the rest of the world during the rainy season. These villages do not have medical facilities and due to lack to approach road hardly do any health officials like Anganwadi and Asha workers visit them.

Ration card and pension card holders in this village have to travel around 15 km to reach the block headquarter to get these facilities. Around sixty children between the age group of 6 to 14years are deprived of education due to
unavailability of schools. The students have no options but to travel around 4 km to reach nearby
primary school at a village named, Gai Bandha.

Chakalapaddar Sarpanch Bhagirathi Majhi told the TNI, “We have drawn the attention of the block administration several times about the plight of the villagers, but unfortunately, our grievances are turned to deaf ears.” “We have also requested the district collector to look into the matter”, he added.