21 Aug 2017 | 04:39am IST
Ansulem: The village they long forgot...
The tiny village of Ansulem in Sattari taluka seems to have been neglected by politicians for nearly sixteen years. Each election sees a beeline of politicians, who approach with folded hands, promising development and facilities, but once the elections were over nothing really changes for these villagers. The village main road is in bad condition, there is a perennial power and water shortage, there is no public transport and there is no school bus for the children of this village. What’s more, no one seems willing to listen to their problems
DEVENDRA GAONKAR
VALPOI: Though Ansulem village in Sattari taluka is situated barely 5 kms from Valpoi town, it is neglected and one can see hardly any signs of progress.
The villagers face water shortage and power supply on a regular basis. What’s more, the village has no street lights, there is no public transport and village main road is in a very bad condition with big potholes everywhere, including the inner roads. The school children too suffer as there are no school buses.
Ansulem villagers have been quite and have been facing these problems for the past 16 years.
What is more painful is the fact that every time there are election, politician after politician fool them with tall promises, but eventually nothing happens.
We are getting only promises from our political leaders and panch members that they will provide us with all basic facilities and will sort out our issues. But after election no one visits our village, say villagers.
According to the villagers, those residing here belong to the Dhangar Samaj. There are altogether 20 houses and the total population of the village is around 100. The twenty families residing here have settled here some 20 years ago.
Villagers complain that even though the village have 25 children no school bus comes to their village and the children have to walk to school every day
from the village to Valpoi town.
Our main road is in bad shape, there are big potholes on road, due this our vehicles are getting badly damages. In time of accidents 108 ambulance is not reaching on time in our village, due to bad road. The panch members are not doing anything, says a villager Krishna Taate.
There are no street lights in our village. The village road is in dilapidated condition. Villagers are facing the water shortage and power supply problems. In every gram sabha, we are raising our issues and we are getting only promises from elected members for the past many years and the panchayat body is not taking any action, another villager Babu Kharwat pointed out.
However, the Sarpanch of Bhironda Panchayat Nitin Shivdekar, said that he had taken charge recently and has yet to list the problems faced by the villagers.
I have taken the charge of this Panchayat recently. The last Panchayat body had not done any development work in this village. I have visited Ansulem village two days ago along with the village panch and have already put the proposal of road work and streets lights of this village, he said, adding that they had met the power Minister and had apprised the minister regarding the power supply problems in the panchayat area.
The sarpanch said the power minister had assured that he would solve their power supply problems soon.
The road proposal of Ansulem village is already ready but we are waiting for green signal from the local MLA as per the guidelines from the department higher authorities. Without their say we are not able to move the proposal to the higher authorities, the assistant engineer PWD Roads, Valpoi Pran Shankar Mahajan said.
