Jashpur– Even today, quite a few villages in the Jashpur district of Chhattisgarh state have no proper roads. Therefore, there are difficulties in the transportation-challenged state getting ambulances to these places even after 75 years of independence. People still use donkey cart-like vehicles called kanwars and two-wheeler stretchers known as palanquins to move patients to the nearest tarred road. This was recently acted out in Churilkona village in Gram Panchayat Marangi, in the home district of the currently serving Chief Minister of the state, Vishnu Dev Sai. One of the patients described was a seriously ill elderly person who had to be taken in a plane to the main road to get a vehicle for transferring to a hospital.
This infraction of road network implies that pregnant women and other patients have to be transported through a canal or palanquin over long distances to avail of health facilities. Although the Chhattisgarh government often signifies being in the process of developing the tribal-based places of Jashpur, the story completely contradicts it. According to the above-mentioned source, still, there are no improved means of transport, poor health, no access to electricity, no facilities of improved sanitation, people still drinking water directly from sources and these all factors show that the majority of the people in this region are still living in villages. They are still suffering from the basic amenities of life. They do not have decent health and road infrastructure, and a significant effect on them is experienced.
Some people who live in the interior tribal areas of Jashpur are thus very much at the mercy of these dangerous forms of transport, with some of their lives hanging in the balance. Pregnant women and patients have been conveyed to the health centers or hospitals within Churilkona and other surrounding areas using palanquins only for several years. Unfortunately, this ends up with most of the patients not availing themselves of early medical attention, and they die.
People, especially the villagers, act out their anger and hopelessness toward the “failure” of improvement. Even though people have asked for road construction many times, nothing has been done. Some people have never seen an ambulance in their village because the roads are relatively unpassable.
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