For the best experience, open
https://m.greaterkashmir.com
on your mobile browser.

With no road or footbridge, Bandipora’s tribal hamlets left to fend for themselves

'There was a culvert-cum-footbridge over the stream that used to connect us to another hamlet called Changdi, but in the 2021 flash floods, it got washed away,' Mohammad Makhada Chechi, a villager said
12:59 AM Jan 21, 2025 IST | OWAIS FAROOQI
with no road or footbridge  bandipora’s tribal hamlets left to fend for themselves
With no road or footbridge, Bandipora’s tribal hamlets left to fend for themselves
Advertisement

Bandipora, Jan 20: Twin remote and uphill village of Chichinar and Changdi in Aloosa Tehsil, of north Kashmir's Bandipora district, are suffering due to the absence of a footbridge and a road.

The villagers are disappointed with the local administration for ignoring their pleas as the years pass by when cloudburst struck the area in 2021, wreaking havoc, also damaging a footbridge which served an important link for the twin villages.

"There was a culvert-cum-footbridge over the stream that used to connect us to another hamlet called Changdi, but in the 2021 flash floods, it got washed away," Mohammad Makhada Chechi, a villager said.

Advertisement

The villagers have been facing "immense problems" since the bridge was damaged. Locals are now "risking" their lives by crossing on wooden logs, including moving their cattle to higher reaches for grazing.

Advertisement

"Despite several administrative officers assuring us of help and assistance when the floods struck, nothing has been done since," another villager said.

Advertisement

The inhabitants of Changdi slightly uphill, are suffering doubly, as their only link to Chichinar has been severed. The fifty tribal households are "living in sort of isolation", as "no road" reaches the village, the habitants narrated.

Advertisement

"We have to carry the sick on a charpoy or on our shoulders to Chichinar, sometimes paying five hundred rupees for help to get the sick to the road," an elderly villager, Mohammad Akram, from the Changdi hamlet said.

Advertisement

With rising water levels in the Nallah during the summer months, school-going children have to remain homebound, as there is no way to cross over to Chichinar, where the school is located.

"Our main occupation is rearing cattle, but in summer we have to wait for weeks for the water levels to subside before we can take the cattle to higher pastures. It is a shame," Chechi from Chachinar village, which roughly houses over five hundred souls, said.

The villagers stated that despite promises from the then Deputy Commissioner, who visited the village along with other administrative officers, no action has been taken to repair or reconstruct the bridge or road to the Changdi hamlet. The locals have demanded that the government address their genuine concerns and resolve their grievances as soon as possible.