Activists build Rs 12-lakh bridge in 17 days under police protection in Mumbai

The former was inaugurated by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and Governor C Vidyasagar Rao on December 30 and the latter by the police a week before that. The Juvi bridge, however, symbolised a protest against “government apathy” towards smaller but more important public works needed for people living in the hinterland, according to the activists of Bhumkal Sanghathan, who constructed it on their own.

Surprisingly, the police who provided security inaugurated the Juvi bridge without inviting the Bhumkal activists. Upset, the activists held their own inauguration function two days later.

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“It’s not important that the police didn’t invite us but it did hurt. Our purpose, however, was to only highlight the need for such bridges and roads in places like Juvi, which the government has unfortunately been ignoring,” said Arvind Sovani, convener of Bhumkal Sanghathan.

Sovani and co-activists had organised a public rally at Nelgonda, a few kms from Juvi in May on this issue. After awaiting government response for a few months, Bhumkal had embarked on taking up the bridge construction with help from some engineers, contractors and material suppliers. A state PWD engineer provided them with design and estimate, two contractors gave them 200 cement bags and two trucks of metal and Sovani himself spent about Rs 3 lakh from his own pocket.

The earlier plan to involve local tribals in the construction was foiled by the Naxals, who threatened against anyone participating in the project. “So, we had to organise labourers from outside and had to carry out the work with police protection,” Sovani says.

He recalls the 2002 murder of Bhamragarh Congress leader Malu Kopa Bogami by Naxals, a few kilometres away on the same Dhodhraj-Nelgonda road for daring to construct a makeshift bridge across what is now known as Bogami nullah for the convenience of people.

When The Indian Express visited Juvi bridge and interacted with people from many villages on the other side of the bridge, there was a general sense of happiness. “It’s a good facility. We will hopefully be able to commute across even for most part of monsoon now,” said a Zilla Parishad teacher from one of the villages. “Accha hua (what has happened is good),” said two youths from another village.

Asked why they didn’t participate in the construction, they said, “Junglewallas (Naxals) said they would kill us if we participate.” A couple of men carrying children on bicycle and with live chickens tucked in their shoulder bags said they had gone to a weekly market in Dhodhraj and were going to their village across Maharashtra border about 20 km away. “We are happy about this bridge. Earlier, we had to take a detour to circumvent the nullah,” they said.

Though the Naxals had threatened the villagers, the police had made them lay a few containers of metal on the road whenever they traversed the stretch. Sovani agrees that their project has no legality as it is the prerogative of the state government.

“But it just can’t be a prerogative. It has to be a responsibility as well. We only wanted to highlight the point that several such projects are awaiting government response for decades. Unfortunately, the government takes up contractor-friendly projects, most of which are located in the much lesser affected tehsils like Armori, Chamorshi, Mulchera and Gadchiroli,” he says, pointing out the recent example of 19 roads undertaken for construction or repair under Mukhya Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana.

Collector Ranga Naik says, “Generally, contractors don’t want to work in hyper-sensitive areas due to Naxal threat. We are happy about Bhumkal’s initiative but we also have plans to see to it that we could take up many such projects with a kind of urgency they need. We are mulling the idea of involving the forest department in such projects as most of these areas are under its control. Of course we do need to secure the projects from any threat.”