All roads lead to Gadchiroli, but there are none inside it

The anti-naxalite messages posted by the district authorities along the state highway on the outskirts of Gadchiroli

With elections barely two days away in Gadchiroli, villagers in the naxal-hit district speak of below average 'vikas' in most of their remote villages. Locals' plea for proper roads has fallen on deaf ears time and again.

With the district voting in the first phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 11, the naxals' call for boycotting elections might make it an even tougher fight for the sitting MP Ashok Nete (BJP) and Congress candidate Dr. Namdeo Usendi to secure a decent number of votes here. Villagers claim that none of the five candidates contesting the upcoming elections have campaigned in the remote pockets of the district.

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Gatteypali villagers have been demanding a tar road for decades now

While the local district administration claims that roads and power connectivity have reached most villages in dense forests, the two villages visited by mid-day depicted quite the contrary. Located less than 10 km and 25 km away from the main Gadchiroli town, even a basic tar road was missing here, with residents of the village located on the border of Chandrapur forced to cross the Wainganga river to reach Gadchiroli town. Their demand for a bridge has not been fulfilled to date. Gatteypali village, located 25 km from Gadchiroli town, into the forests, has a population of approximately 600 people and 80 households and the only access to their village is through a kaccha road.

Villagers from Nipandra village in Chandrapur are forced to walk through the Wainganga river, owing to the lack of a bridge, to reach Bramhapuri in Gadchiroli

Sanjay Kulmathe, a villager told mid-day that the villagers make an application to the authorities for a road every year but it goes unheard. "This village is existing for decades but we have been deprived of basic rights," he said. Another villager Dudhram Parse said that no candidate had even visited them. "Days before the election, they would send their representatives but even that hasn't happened this time."

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The Wainganga river divides Nipandra village in Chandrapur district from Bramhapuri in Gadchiroli. "We have been demanding for a bridge over the Wainganga river, which would cut our travel time considerably. We now travel 40 km to reach Bramhapuri and have to pay over R100 for one-way travel. Crossing the bridge would mean only a kilometre of travel," said Ringedev Nikode, a farmer from Nipandra village. Bramhapuri is a marketplace with basic health facilities etc which makes it mandatory for Nipandra villagers to visit it often.

"Work on soil testing on the banks of Wainganga river is on for the last couple of years. Modiji speak of Vikas, but we are still awaiting the ache dine," said Bhaskar Undirwade. A worker at the bridge site said that the tender for the bridge construction will be floated soon and once the soil stability is ascertained, work would begin.

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