In this era of revolutionary road connectivity, lack of roads in several far flung areas continues to be a serious problem. This problem needs to be addressed on priority basis. In absence of the roads, people living in these areas face lot of hardships.
They are not able to take the persons needing immediate medical treatment to hospitals in vehicles. Reports said that a woman from Bamdogar village of Magam in Kupwara district delivered baby on roadside when she was being taken to hospital in a makeshift cot. The villagers say that their village has no proper road.
The pregnant woman developed labour pains at home and the family members could not take her to hospital in a vehicle. They had to carry her on the makeshift cot. While they had covered five kilometers on foot, and were yet to reach hospital, she delivered the baby.
The villagers said this was not the first incident of its kind. Such incidents keep on happening in absence of the road. It is not about the pregnant women in labour only, imagine the condition of other seriously ill patients particularly the elderly ones.
What can be the fate of those suffering heart attacks or brain haemorrhage at homes, or those needing other emergency medical treatment. The villagers said they have been demanding a road for last several decades but nothing was done.
It needs to be investigated at official level, why their demand for a road has not been met till now and why the villagers are made to suffer. Bamdogar is not the only village where residents face such problems. A number of other far flung areas are without roads.
Their demands too go unheard and unnoticed. The concerned officials must take the issue seriously. The roads must be constructed to connect the villages with other areas so that the residents have road access to hospitals and markets. The benefit of development in road connectivity must reach to them also.
They should not be deprived of this basic facility. It is being said that road connectivity has got revolutionised for last several years. Big highways, expressways and major and small roads are being constructed on large scale. More lanes are added to the highways.
All is being done to make road connectivity a better facility and to make the travel comfortable and less time consuming. This development can look more meaningful when it reaches the people in far flung areas also. They too have a right to better facilities and road connectivity is one among those.