Wife’s death spurs Maharashtra man to build village road, draws comparison to Bihar’s ‘Mountain Man’ Manjhi
CHANDRAPUR: Two months after death of a tribal woman exposed acute lack of road connectivity in a remote Maharashtra hamlet near Telangana border, residents of Ghodankappi in Jiwti taluka have taken up road construction themselves, saying they can no longer wait for the administration to act.The death of Sangeeta Gedam, a resident of Ghodankappi, was earlier reported prominently by TOI. Sangeeta died on June 14, following childbirth, after an ambulance reportedly could not reach the remote, hilly hamlet because there was no motorable road connecting it to the main route.The tragedy has now prompted her husband, Tulsiram Gedam, to mobilise villagers and build the road through voluntary labour.On World Tribal Day, a large number of tribal residents gathered at Ghodankappi and began improving the approximately 1.5-km stretch connecting the hamlet to the existing road. Nearly half of the stretch has already been completed.“We repeatedly approached the administration for a road, but nothing concrete happened. After losing my wife, I decided that we could not keep waiting. I do not want another family to suffer the same fate,” Tulsiram said.Sangeeta died after giving birth to a baby girl. Her newborn daughter is now being cared for by her grandmother. Tulsiram is also raising their three-year-old son while coping with the loss of his wife.Ghodankappi, comprising around 20 households, is situated amid hills and has been inhabited for nearly three decades. Although the hamlet has a cement road and an anganwadi, there is no proper motorable connection to the main route.Residents have to negotiate a rocky trail, which becomes particularly difficult during monsoon. Even two-wheelers cannot reach the settlement.A zilla parishad school located outside the hamlet means children also have to use the same rough trail to attend classes.A road under Chief Minister’s Rural Roads Scheme was constructed in 2021 up to a point around 1.5 km from Ghodankappi. However, the final stretch leading to the hamlet, which lies below a hill, was never developed.“During an emergency, every minute matters. My wife needed medical attention, but the ambulance could not reach our village. We lost her. I do not want anyone else to lose a family member because of a road,” Tulsiram said.His determination has drawn comparisons with Dashrath Manjhi, the ‘Mountain Man’ of Bihar, who carved a road through a hill after the death of his wife. Like Manjhi, Tulsiram has begun building an access road after losing his wife, but this time with the support of his fellow villagers.“Since the govt did not build the road despite our repeated requests, we decided to build it ourselves. We are not asking for anything extraordinary. We only want a road so that our children, elderly people, patients and pregnant women can reach the outside world safely,” Tulsiram said.The villagers’ initiative has put the spotlight once again on the administration’s failure to provide basic connectivity to remote tribal settlements.What began as a voluntary road-building effort on World Tribal Day has now become a powerful statement of the villagers’ frustration — and a reminder of the human cost of inadequate infrastructure.For Ghodankappi, the road being built by its own residents is not merely a path to the main route. It is a lifeline that villagers hope will ensure that Sangeeta’s death is never repeated.
