Dibrugarh: With limited resources at hand, the villagers of remote Chatong village in Arunachal Pradesh have built a wooden bridge to ease the communication bottleneck.
Villagers, predominantly from the Wancho tribes in Arunachal Pradesh’s Longding district, came together and contributed from their pockets to build the bridge in Chatong.
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More than a hundred people from these villages came out to build the wooden bridge. The womenfolk, too, didn’t remain behind and helped the men by providing tea and food.
“We have contributed from our own pocket to build the bridge because the government has failed to build the bridge. Now the bridge will ease the communication bottleneck, which has been laying in neglect,” said a villager.
Although there have been a lot of developmental activities in the frontier state of Arunachal Pradesh during the past few years, there are still several places that are clamoring for development.
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There are several villages in Arunachal, where people are still suffering due to the non-availability of proper roads and bridges.
Villagers residing in villages like Chatong, Ozakho, Langmai, and Chajam in eastern Arunachal’s Longding district, who had been suffering for several years for the non-availability of a proper bridge connecting these villages.
Although there are two roads connecting these villages, villagers are unable to take the short route, which is a PMGSY Road through the Chibam block is totally non-motorable.
Owing to this, the villagers have to take the longer route by traveling almost 40 km through the neighboring Tirap district to reach their district headquarters, Longding.
Years of continuous neglect by successive governments and various government departments had frustrated the villagers so much that they finally took it on themselves to build a bridge by utilizing whatever resources they had and by community service.
“We completed the construction of the bridge in about three days, and we now expect it to significantly ease the villagers’ problems,” said Jacob Wangsu, the President of the Chatong Students Union.
He said, “When the government didn’t work, then the people contributed on their own to build a bridge,”.
Notably, Minister Gabriel D. Wangsu currently represents the Kanubari legislative assembly constituency, which includes approximately 500 houses across these four villages.
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