Vipin joshi

According to Vipin Joshi, tourism and development has been a curse for the Kumauni community of Uttrakhand. Instead of benefiting from the money it was bringing in, the community began to lose its land and livelihood. The media reports on the construction of the dam but there’s no mention of the people who have lost their lands; the tourism department paints a colorful picture but the environmental costs are never mentioned. Having worked in community radio, Vipin is familiar with the influence of community media. He now wants to use community video to document his people, tell their stories and…

After years of disrepair, a road was hurriedly constructed overnight for the Chief Minister’s visit in Bageshwar, Uttarakhand.

Bageshwar’s inhabitants have suffered for years from the bad quality of the main road. Riddled with potholes, the road caused multiple accidents, and considerably slowed down the journeys of the villagers. The terrible state of the road was largely due to the negligence of local officials and of the Public Works Department (PWD), who did not use funding allocated to properly tar the road and maintain it.

It is only when the Chief Minister prepared to visit the area that the PWD hastily took action. The road was tarred overnight. On the day of the Chief Minister’s visit, the latter was presented with quality road. But soon the tar started deteriorating and potholes formed again. Accidents started occurring again with the same frequency. Recently, a bus’s tire got stuck in one of the potholes and was overturned, causing the death of 6 people.

Vipin Joshi, our Community Correspondent, was taken aback by such a blatant example of embezzlement. “The situation was impossible for locals for many years. Things change only when some VIP is coming. The PWD does not pay attention to the welfare of people here,” said Vipin.

Vipin hopes that his video will expose the local state of affairs. He wishes to take his video to the PWD officials, to confront them with the situation in Bageshwar.