?Aren?t there other places with hills which have road, power?? .

Posted by: 2016-02-11 23:36:50 ,
By Raj Kumar

NAYA SAAL? He shakes his head. The words mean nothing to Bhubaneswar. To him, the new year comes at the beginning of the sowing season, when they pray to a tree called the Mahadani Sarna.

The 50-year-old has heard of the words though. He has heard of them from the rare doctor or the occasional NGO workers who climb their way up to his small settlement of 22 homes in Baijnathpura village in Surguja district. Often they ask him, and the others of his Pahari Korba tribe, what they want the new year to bring. The Pahari Korbas are one of India?s 75, and Chhattisgarh?s seven, ?particularly vulnerable tribal groups?.

When visitors come next, Baijnathpura may have an answer. In 2015, construction began for a road till the foot of the hill on which their settlement lies, under the MGNREGA.

Over the past two years, teachers have been making their way up, asking parents to send their children to residential schools. Most families now have ration cards. Even if nutrition is still a problem, every family gets rice under a state government scheme, and children are fed by a reasonably regular anganwadi worker.?Because of the rice especially, the nature of deaths has changed. Earlier, there were many more because of hunger. Now it is disease and illness,? Gangaram Pekra, who heads Choupal, an NGO working for the Pahari Korbas, says.

A road will hasten the change, the villagers assert.

It could also finally bring what Bhubaneswar has long been hoping for. He points to the pole that stands in front of his hut. Close to a decade ago, Bhubaneswar says, they put the pole up.

?They put two others in the village. We have 22 homes, and for one year, two of them got electricity. Then one day, the lights went out in those homes as well. Days later, villagers from the plains came and stole all the wires. Somehow we saved the pole, hoping someone would come back. A decade has passed, and there has only been darkness.?
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- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/arent-there-other-places-with-hills-which-have-road-power/#sthash.8sTXFyZ1.dpuf
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