Students put earth on the broken road. Telegraph picture

Kendrapara, Jan. 20: In a goodwill gesture, children of a government-run high school of the remote Ramachandrapur village under Mahakalpada block have volunteered labour and repaired an ill-maintained road.

The road that connected the Uchaveswar High School to adjoining villages was in poor state, causing inconvenience to students.

“About 1-km stretch of the road that led towards the school was in very bad shape. Despite repeated pleas made by us, the authorities have not repaired the road. The teachers motivated the children in taking up the road repair,” said Ahalya Rout, former sarpanch of Badiha gram panchayat.

“All the school students evinced interest to repair of road. We encouraged them to work for the interest of the community. A team was comprised by picking up children of Class VIII and IX. The Class X students, who were also eager to take part, were excluded from the work because of their approaching examination,” said Pradipta Kumar Mohanty, headmaster of the Uchaveswar High School.

“Children dug out earth from the nearby fields to fill the potholes with it. They have covered almost the entire length of the road. Some local villagers also lent support as the children started working on it. We hope the repair work would last for at least two to three months,” Mohanty added.

“It’s an inspiring endeavour by the students. We have decided to bury differences amongst ourselves and would stage a united fight till the government takes up the road repairing work. We are planning agitation programme to make the officials indifferent to our plight wake up. Villagers would soon sit on dharna in front the Mahakalpada block office,” observed Sitakanta Behera, a villager.

“We hope that children’s voluntary gesture would spur the government to act swiftly on repairing the road,” said Rout.

“The repair of the road could not be taken up for factors that were beyond our control. It would be repaired within a month,” said Deba Prasad Das, executive engineer, rural development works division.