Bhubaneswar: In a bid to connect the remote villages of Keonjhar district, which is surrounded by hills and forests, the district administration has taken up road connectivity projects with support from Odisha Mineral Bearing Areas Development Corporation (OMBADC). “OMBADC supports various welfare programmes being run by the Keonjhar district administration. Road connectivity is among such major initiatives in the area. With the construction of new roads and bridges in the rural belt, people’s life, education, healthcare, livelihood, and other aspects have been positively impacted,” says CDO & EO Zilla Parishad Keonjhar, Bishnu Prasad Acharya.
OMBADC has funded the road and bridge construction work at three blocks of Harichandanpur, Banspal, and Jhumpura in the Keonjhar district. Till now, 224.04 km of roads have been laid in the district out of the targeted 262.32 km. A total of 14,000 people across 34 villages have benefited from the initiative. “Earlier, there was no pucca road in the village.
Now, a concrete road has been constructed through the hill. We can easily go to the health facility now. Our children can move quickly to the schools and colleges and it has become hassle-free to go to the markets and to the city,” says Benudhar Danaik, a resident of Lungajhar GP in Banspal block. Three bridges of a total length 195.39 metre have been constructed at Nayakot Gram Panchayat of Banspal block. The bridges connect seven villages easing the lives of over 3,800 people. “Our village is surrounded by several small water bodies. During the rains, the whole area used to get flooded leaving us stranded. Now, bridges have been constructed preventing flooding while helping us easily navigate in and out of the village”, says Sumati Nayak of Nayakot Gram panchayat.