Bhan Sahu thought being poor meant walking a kilometer to school and then having to drop out when she was eight years old, until she started working at an NGO and realized there were others even less fortunate than herself. Her interest in education didn’t wane, however. Using video as a tool to bring people together, her Community Correspondent reports…

Bhan Sahu

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This is a classic story of bureaucratic red tapism. And this has been going on for the last 20 years. The issue revolves around a small bridge in Bori Village of Balod District, Chatttisgarh. The bridge was built 40 years ago and for the last 20 years, every year, the bridge collapses in monsoons. The people from nearby villages have made umpteen requests, wrote applications, even hired vehicles to go and meet the Chief Minister of the State, yet, the bridge is not repaired to withstand the monsoons. 

Every year, the Public Works Department (PWD) makes some temporary arrangements for the public to commute through that bridge, but these makeshift arrangements are not at all safe for people at large. The road is used by people of 15 villages, the farmers go to their fields through this, the students use it, the patients use it, on top of it, they need to use the bridge to go to the main town, even to complain about the bridge.

The people of the area are almost giving up asking the PWD or requesting the Government to heed to their demands. The Community Correspondent (CC) Bhan Sahu is now mobilising people and submitting the applications and videos to the concerned authorities. She got the assurance from the PWD department that they have the proposal to repair the bridge and the matter is forwarded to the Bridge Division of Water Resources Department. Now the soil is being tested and they are assured that the bridge will be constructed within a month. 

Around 2000 people use this main road and the bridge on a daily basis. Please share this video and let’s stand with the villagers in their demand for repairing the bridge.