TUESDAY, MAY 07, 2024
BASURI DESAI
CANACONA: Around 20 families from Endre and Keri of Cotigao Village Panchayat nestled within the Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary live without power or piped water supply and do not even have a proper road!
Despite several promises over the years, these families are compelled to cling to their ancestral ways of living, relying upon jungle deities in the absence of any modern amenities.
Being in the midst of Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary, the panchayat is hamstrung as an approval from the Wildlife Board is mandated even to provide basic amenities thereby leaving the villagers to the mercy of bureaucratic intricacies.
Education is a pipedream for children as the school is at a distance and going there is arduous. That residents of Keri have to walk 13 kilometres to catch a bus, should give an idea of the challenges they face every day.
The villagers live in houses of medieval times as they find it very difficult to carry construction material including laterite stones in the absence of a road.
All material has to be carried on their head over a long distance.
“Because it is difficult to carry the material on the head over such a long distance, our houses are made of only mud,” admitted Kishore Gaonkar from Keri, adding that even the tiles used to cover the roof were carried on their heads for about three hours.
Due to these problems, the villagers have turned artisans as no skilled workers are willing to walk such a long distance. “We have become carpenters and masons as we ourselves have to do everything,” said Suresh Gaonkar while lamenting that even the younger generation is forced to live like their ancestors.
What is truly shocking is the new trend where youngsters move to other places after marriage so that their children can at least be educated and live in decent households.
For Bhikaji Gaonkar and others, earning their livelihood is a difficult task as and when they are rehabilitated. “Government is only giving land for housing, what about our fields and farms on which we earn our daily bread?” asked Gaonkar.
The solar powered electricity provided to them is in reality a joke as its illumination is poor and it does not work during the monsoons.
“We do not use kerosene for cooking but need it to light our chimni (kerosene lamp) at night,” said Molu Gaonkar, a resident of Endre.
“We have a major problem during monsoons as the batteries for solar power do not charge and kerosene is not available,” he said, adding that they have to make do with candles or oil which they find quite costly.
Cotigao sarpanch Anandu Desai said Keri will be shortly provided with proper electricity as the work of laying an underground cable over a distance of 5 km is already tendered.
“I shall take up the matter of providing electricity to Endre with the concerned authority shortly,” he assured.
But the people’s voices are truly distant as they do not even have telephone facilities as there is no mobile network available in this area and thus they embody the enduring spirit of India’s hinterland.
