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| Bricks and stone chips jut out of the road between Deulpur and Bhadua. Picture by Gopal Senapati |
Residents of Jabdapota under Rudrapur gram panchayat, a nondescript village of Jagatballavpur, had stopped Serampore MP Kalyan Banerjee’s convoy a couple of days before the 2014 Lok Sabha election demanding immediate repair of the eight kilometer long road from Deulpur to Bhadua. Rudrapur, Khasmora and Rajapur are some of the gram panchayats that fall within the eight kilometer route and Jabdapota is one of the several villages that suffer because of the abysmally bad condition of the road.
The villagers alleged that their MP from Serampore parliamentary constituency (that included Jagatballavpur) slapped one of the villagers and heckled several of them for their audacity to stop his convoy. In protest, the villagers decided to boycott the Lok Sabha polls. However, the local Trinamul Congress leadership convinced the villagers to cast their vote in favour of Banerjee promising repairs right after the election.
“Even after we were humiliated and beaten up by Banerjee we cast our votes in favour of him because we feared that other development work would also stop if we did not elect him,” said Pratap Sardar, a villager. He said that they had no alternative but to wait. The villagers said that after the election they met Banerjee at the Domjur BDO office to know whether the road would be repaired at all. Banerjee reportedly told them that the money required for renovating the road had already been sanctioned and that the road would be repaired soon. “Till date, the road has not been repaired and its condition continues to deteriorate. There is no sign of repair. Nobody knows when the road will be repaired. We feel let down,” said Bikash Bar, a villager.
The eight kilometer long road connects Deulpur with Bhadua crossing through Howrah-Amta Road near Dakshinbari. The stretch from Howrah-Amta Road to Deulpur is 3.5 km and falls on the Dhulagarh Road leading to the National Highway 6. And the stretch between Howrah-Amta Road and Bhadua is 4.5 km. Till 2009, the stretch between Deulpur and Bhadua was brick laden. The mud road was constructed under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. In 2010, the Zilla Parishad decided to turn it into a metal road. “Our woes started then. The contractor removed the bricks. Pieces of bricks and stones chips were laid and rollers passed over it. But work suddenly stopped before the asphalt layer was laid,” said one of the villagers. The brick and stone chips eroded after the monsoon that year and journey along the stretch has been a nightmare.
Now pieces of bricks and stone chips jut out all along the eight kilometer stretch making it difficult for villagers either to walk or to travel by auto, the only mode of transport available. There are a number of craters too. Most of the villagers of Jabdapota are farmers and zari workers. Besides, a considerable number of people work in factories at Salap, Domjur and industrial hubs like Jalan Complex. “We always work on our farm land bare footed because we believe that Ma Lakshmi will turn away from us if we trample our farm land with shoes. But walking along the road bare footed is really painful, particularly when we have to carry bundles of crop on our head,” said Tarak Das, a villager.
The journey is equally painful for those who travel in auto. The auto jerks and swings dangerously while trying to negotiate the potholed road. The auto drivers are also unwilling to drive their vehicles on this road. That leaves the villagers with no alternative but to travel on foot. “I rarely get an auto to reach my factory. Most of the days I have to walk up to Howrah-Amta Road to get a bus to Salap,” said a villager who works in a factory at Salap. The auto drivers admitted that they were not willing to take their autos through that road because of its deplorable condition. “There are at least 20 autos in this route. But very few are willing to take their auto along this route. Tyres and the body of the autos bear the brunt,” said Gopal Hazra, an auto driver. He said that the number of autos would increase once the road was renovated. Local people need to reach Domjur Bazar on one side and Dhulagarh Road on the other for various purposes every day.
The Trinamul Congress-led Howrah Zilla Parishad authorities, however, claimed that the mess was created during the Left Front regime. They said that the Zilla Parishad had asked the contractor to turn a culvert on Rajapur Khal into a bridge. But the decision of turning the culvert into a bridge was taken without the sanction of the Panchayat and Rural Development (P&RD) department. The P&RD department later refused to sanction the money for the bridge and so the Zilla Parishad failed to pay the contractor. The contractor, on his part, stopped the renovation work on the road till he was paid for the construction of the bridge. He also filed a suit at the Calcutta High Court demanding money.
“After Trinamul Congress stormed into power at the Howrah Zilla Parishad, we found a solution and payment has been made to the contractor. And the renovation work has already been started,” said Kalyan Ghosh, the purto karmadhaksya, Howrah, Zilla Parishad. Sufal Halder, the contractor, also admitted that work had started and will be completed within a couple of months. “We will be the happiest ones once the road is thoroughly repaired. We have been suffering for long due to this bad road. We decided to stop the MP’s convoy to narrate our woes, not to humiliate him,” said Anjan Ghugu, the son of a Trinamul Congress panchayat member.