Their village wasn’t getting a road. So 25 Jharkhand women took matters into their own hands

Then on September 28, just days before Dussehra, their efforts bore fruit – the sand and gravel road stood complete, not absolutely perfect but usable. For this, the women used money they got from the Maiya Samman Yojana – a state scheme under which women between 18 and 50 are entitled to Rs 2,500 each month.

“In September, our women’s self-help group held a meeting and decided that enough was enough,” Geeta Devi, a member of the self-help group, tells The Indian Express. “We collected Rs 70,000 and paved [a kuccha] road.”

According to village residents, the lack of an approach road has been at the heart of several problems – from isolation and lack of access to healthcare to even matchmaking troubles.

Basanti Devi, an SHG member who lost her husband to brain tumour in 2023, recalls the challenges she had in taking him to the hospital just 5 km away. Today, she partly blames the lack of a road for his death.

The newly built road.

“He was suffering from severe pains one day, and since everyone knew that no ambulance could reach the village, we decided to tie him to a makeshift bamboo cot and take him to the hospital,” she says. “He died of a tumour, but I always think a good road would have been very helpful.”

When another SHG member, Mamata Kumari, went into labour earlier this year, the lack of a road made the journey to the hospital laborious. “My brothers and nephews had to carry me on their shoulders for nearly two kilometres because no vehicle could reach our hamlet,” she says.

The road – or the lack thereof – had been the cause of other troubles too. “Village residents have trouble getting eligible marriage partners from nearby areas since people weren’t keen on connecting with a village with no road,” Geeta, quoted previously, says.

But it wasn’t until Raksha Bandhan that the group decided that something had to be done.

“My sisters, who were supposed to visit, were grumbling about walking barefoot and carrying their slippers, and they warned me that they wouldn’t return until the road was built,” Geeta says. “Soon, the SHG met and came up with the plan to use the money from Maiya Samman Yojana to build the road.”

Introduced by the Hemant Soren-led Jharkhand Mukti Morcha [JMM] government, the scheme aims at providing financial support to women between 18 and 50 years, and is open to ration card holders in the state.

For the women in this village, this scheme came in handy. The 25 women contributed Rs 2,000 each and secured an additional 20,000 from others in the village. With the Rs 70,000 they thus pooled, the women bought morang — sand and gravel — and set to work, taking turns shovelling and levelling the ground to complete the road well before time.

On her part, Saraswati Devi, the mukhiya – or village head – of Pichhulia blames the lack of funds, saying that the village hadn’t received “a single penny” for village development in the last two financial years.

“We haven’t received funds since 2023, partly due to lack of funds from the government and partly due to the delays caused by administrative issues between the state finance department and the central government,” she says.

When he visited the village in July, Jharkhand Finance Minister Radha Krishna Kishore promised a kaccha road to the village from MLALAD funds before Chhat Puja and a concrete road after the monsoon. Kishore is the MLA of Chhatarpur – the assembly segment under which the village falls.

However, despite the promises, nothing moved on the road front. Now, Kishore, a JMM leader, commends the women’s initiative and blames the previous dispensation for the absence of a road.

“While the road is now motorable, it’s not concertised yet. However, the women’s effort deserves full appreciation,” he said, adding: “Once the next road development funds get sanctioned and approved, the Picchulia road will also be covered”.

And although the village residents want the government to follow up on their work and pave a concrete road over what they laid, for now, they are happy.

“It feels different. After we women paved the road, vehicles finally entered the village. During Durga Puja, we even went out together in those vehicles. It feels like real change,” Mamata Kumari, the SHG member quoted earlier, says.