The tale of Cudeghal village – NO ROAD, NO WATER, NO TOILET

Goemkarponn desk
CURCHOREM: The question of how to live has been asked repeatedly in the last fifty years by the people of Cudeghal village in Sanvordem constituency, who have no road, no water, no toilets and no connectivity.
Despite their repeated petitions to local panchayats, MLAs and administration, their issues have been neglected.
The villagers have been suffering for decades now, but none of the politicians are interested in solving their issues.
Cudeghal village, in a forested area, has a population of around 60 people and around 25 houses.
The village is dependent on mining and near Fomento Mines, but the closure of the mining business had a significant impact on the village.
Most of the villagers are unemployed, at least when the mining business was going on, the village had few facilities.
The local panchayat has failed to address the grievances of the villagers. The villagers say that the mining closure has broken their backbone.
The villagers also say that for the last several years, they have been taking up the issue with the mining company and the local administration. However, they do not consider it their duty to give any basic rights to the village, but politicians keep giving assurance and hopes during election time. But soon after the election, they forget what they had promised.
Shalaka Naik, a local woman, says there is no safety for women while going to town.
“My daughter is in 10th standard and travels through the jungle as there is no road,” she said.
She says there is no connectivity to the village at all.
“Our children walk two to three kilometers to travel to school because as there is no transportation facility. And women and girls are scared of this as the road passes through the forest,” she said.
“There is no connectivity for children for online classes, so they have to come on the road or in the mountains,” said Shalaka Naik, and further, she added the most important problem women faces is a toilet.
There are no facilities of toilet provided by local Sanvordem panchayat or MLA’s of constituency in last many years as a mining company and panchayat is showing finger towards each other, Shalaka said.
Hanumat Nagana is a migrant senior citizen living in the village for the last fifty years, but the village’s situation has not changed.
“The local panchayat administration should pay attention to the fact that the situation is bad for women and demanded that these facilities be made available in the village as soon as possible,” he said.
Local Rajendra Shirodkar said, “Leave the basic facilities. The people of this village do not have toilet facilities. As there is no such facility, the villagers are forced to use go out in the open.”
Besides, he says, the water facility is provided by tankers twice a week.
Since the road is not paved, the villagers still use the kacha road for transportation, he said.