Tentulia residents throw earth on a paddy field to build the road. Picture by Chayan Majumdar

Kandi (Murshidabad), Jan. 4: Residents of a Murshidabad village have given up their land to build a road that will reduce the distance to the nearest place where schools, government offices and banks are located, the endeavour inspired by a similar effort in a neighbouring pocket.

Ninety villagers of Tentulia have donated 22 acres to construct a road cutting through paddy fields to avoid taking a 10km detour to Mahalandi village, where they need to go every day. The new road will bring down the distance to 2km.

“For five years, we kept requesting the block development officer and the zilla parishad functionaries to construct a road but nothing was done. After we came to know how the people of Ratanpur (15km away) raised Rs 7 lakh to build a road to reduce the distance to Behrampore town by half, we drew inspiration from them. Last week, 90 residents of our village donated their plots. We are building the road ourselves,” said Abu Siddiqui, a member of the local CPM-run gram panchayat.

Sharifa Bewa, a Tentulia resident who donated her two-cottah land, said: “We need to go to Mahalandi every day as the bank, post office, high school and the panchayat office are located there. There are no bus routes from here to that place. If we go by motorcycle or cycle vans, we have to take the 10km moram road to Mahalandi via Jiadara village.

“If we have to take a shortcut, we walk 2km on the aal (raised divider between paddy fields). But the aal so narrow that no vehicle can ply on it. The road we are constructing will reduce the distance between the two villages by 8km.”

Antara Khatun, a Class X student of Mahalandi High School, said nearly 100 children of Tentulia would benefit from the new road. “We won’t have to walk to school every day.”

The sub-divisional officer of Kandi, under which Tentulia falls, lauded the villagers’ effort. “If the residents approach me, I will try and help them in whichever way I can. They are doing a good job,” Dipanjan Bhattacharya said.