On a 1.2 km-long stretch from Kankra to Mohanpur village in West Midnapore’s Debra block — connecting three small rural hamlets and serving as the only transport link for around 3,000 villagers — there was no traffic on a drizzly afternoon of August 1.
There was no scooter, not even a bicycle. A tribal couple trudged on foot amid the slush.
This correspondent, headed for Mohanpur, had started from Kankra by car. Barely 200 metres into the journey, the driver issued an ultimatum: “If it rains heavily, the car will skid and there will be no way to get off the road.”
A youth on a scooter stopped the car and suggested this correspondent ride pillion with him, as the car could not proceed further.
The risky two-wheeler journey on the slippery, muddy road — where the scooter nearly skidded at least thrice — finally came to a halt after 300 metres. The youth said it was impossible to continue.
The remaining 700 metres was an incredible test of balance on foot. Small patches of moram (laterite soil) were scattered between vast stretches of mud. In many areas, the moram was just a faint red, feet would get stuck in the squelch. The 700-metre walk was treacherous in two ways — one could either fall face-first into the red-soil slush or slip into the waterlogged paddy fields.
When this correspondent finally arrived at Mohanpur village with mud-caked slippers, farmer Joydeb Jana said: “You are lucky as you could completed your journey relatively easily as it is not raining heavily.”
“You’re also lucky that the panchayat recently dumped a few buckets of moram on the road. Otherwise, you could not come here wearing trousers,” Jana added with a laugh.
Villager Samir Murmu, 30, joined the conversation.
“If they had dropped this moram a month ago, my little Sushmita might have lived,” said Samir.
Samir had two daughters until July 17— three-year-old Sangita and one-year-old Sushmita. On the early morning of July 17, Sushmita fell seriously ill after a daylong fever. Samir, a farm labourer, called an indigenous doctor, but he couldn’t reach their house. The 1.2km of squelch was not even fit for walking back then.
“When our daughter’s health worsened, my wife and I grew desperate. At great risk to our life and limb, we carried her to a hospital in Debra. But by the time we arrived, it was too late. The doctor declared Sushmita dead,” said the heartbroken father.
The primary health centre in Debra is some 11km away from Samir’s home.
Before Samir lost his daughter, another tragedy had struck. On June 1, Badal Mandi, a 40-year-old man visiting his in-laws in Mohanpur, died after villagers were forced to carry him on a khatia (cot) through the same stretch, delaying hospital access.
“The road was completely unusable after days of incessant rain. With no vehicle able to enter, we arranged a khatia and a group of villagers to carry him. It took more than two hours just to reach the metalled road in Kankra, only 1.2km away,” said Chhaya Mandi Murmu, Badal’s sister-in-law.
Following Sushmita’s death, Abhijit Singh, a BJP panchayat member from Snarpur-Loyada Gram Panchayat, led villagers in a protest at the local rural body office.
“It’s been around 25 years since the road was last repaired with moram. Since then, no one has maintained it. But after the tragic death of the child, block-level officials visited and assured us that the road would be repaired soon,” said Singh.
Mohanpur is not an isolated case. Many villages and pockets across West Midnapore reflect similar stories of struggle and neglect.
Transporting patients or pregnant women is a daily challenge due to terrible road conditions. But the villagers of Sandeoli in Pingla have devised a traditional way to transport the ailing across muddy terrain.
They use a contraption consisting of a long bamboo, a shika (a rope hanger) and a cane basket. The ailing person sits in the basket, which is suspended from the bamboo with the shika, and four to six people carry it like a palanquin.
Recently, 65-year-old Saraswati Samat, a heart patient, was transported in this manner. Villagers said they were fortunate she reached the hospital alive and also returned home safely.
“We use the shika to hang pots for carrying fish, the cane baskets for agriculture, and bamboo for various purposes. We figured this was the simplest way to carry patients since walking becomes impossible on our roads during the monsoon,” said Nagen Samat, Saraswati’s son.
Nirmal Kuliya, a young farmer, is worried about his seven-month-pregnant wife.
“If the road isn’t repaired soon, I’ll have to carry my wife to the hospital by cot,” he said.
The state government is aware of the condition of rural micro-roads in the district. These roads are now targeted under the recently launched ‘Amader Para, Amader Samadhan’ scheme.
West Midnapore district magistrate Shri Khursheed Ali Qadri said the district had the highest number of small hamlets in the state, and the administration was working hard to address road-related issues.
“The problems are mostly with small stretches connecting one hamlet to another. In the last three years, we’ve constructed about 12,000 roads, spending ₹2,350 crore,” said Qadri.
“We’re receiving road repair requests under the ‘Amader Para, Amader Samadhan’ scheme and will definitely address them,” he said.