Villagers demolish portions of their houses to widen road to crematorium in Hamirpur

Residents of a village in Hamirpur district have widened the road to a crematorium by demolishing cattle sheds, boundary walls and even portions of their concrete houses. They have also contributed funds for the construction of the road, the up-pradhan of the village said.

The villagers of Ward number 4 (Chathyal Bas) of Baragaon panchayat in the Bijhari development block mutually agreed to widen the width of the three to four feet wide path in the middle of the village.

The ward is located along the Bijhari-Ghori Dhabiri road. The decades-old path to the crematorium was not broad enough for vehicles to ply and as a result the elderly and disabled people faced difficulties in reaching there.

Some villagers removed the boundary walls of their houses while some moved their gates back, said up-pradhan of Baragram panchayat Balram Singh Dhatwalia. All villagers, in a meeting held recently, decided that if someone’s land, house, cattle shed or boundary wall was obstructing the construction of the road, the owner would cooperate in every possible way to remove it, he added.

It was also decided that even if a house had to be demolished, no one would refuse and everyone would together bear the cost of road construction. The villagers have constructed a 500-metre portion of the one-and-a-half kilometre road.

Balram said that Ashok Kumar Dhatwalia, Jagdish Dhatwalia, Baktabar Singh Dhatwalia, Suresh Kumar, Ajay Kumar Dhatwalia and Chatar Singh Dhatwalia played a key role in the road construction.

The villagers also constituted a committee that decided to contribute funds for the construction of road and related activities and so far, they had donated Rs 4 lakh for this noble cause, Balram said.