Ancient village gets road after waiting for decades

Aimarasapura, a village in Doddachinnahalli Gram Panchayat, is getting a connecting road. The work on the road began last week.

The construction and development of the road, although obvious parts of development work, prove to be a historic moment in this village, as the residents have been denied the facility for so long. 

The residents of this ancient village are now unable to contain their joy and relief at having their dream, demand and, more than all, requirement fulfilled after decades of wait.

Long storyThe village, with hundreds of years of history, has all other basic amenities- except for a road to enter the village.

Aimarasapura is barely a kilometre away from Doddachinnahalli, yet one has to travel about five km to reach the village, forced to take a roundabout route, via Doddalagamadi and Singarahalli.The residents invariably put across the need for a road to the village as the first demand, whenever election candidates visited. The candidates too promised to build a road 'first thing after winning'. But the merry-go-round of requests and promises continued as the candidates forgot all about the road after winning the elections. 

The village houses about 350 people. Senior residents remember the time Aimarasapura was represented by union minister M V Krishnappa, when there was only a mud path from Doddachinnahalli to reach the village.

Before voting In the last panchayat elections too, the current Zilla Panchayat member Narayanamma was demanded a road for the village. 

Taking the demand as a challenge, she managed to get land from the residents for construction of the road and started the work. Residents Srirama Reddy, Krishna Reddy, Narayana Reddy, Rama Reddy, Chandrappa Dikshit and others voluntarily gave their land for the construction. Members of other parties too have put aside their rivalry and cooperated with Narayanamma.

Heaving a sigh of relief
We have been waiting for the construction of this road since our childhood. Our dream has finally come true.-Rajanna, resident of the village

All of us had felt a road was necessary in the village, but efforts had not been taken to realise this. Now, the Gram Panchayat members are all happy with the development.-Suresh, Gram Panchayat member

This was a great challenge. The tahsildar Mangala and the owners of the land cooperated with us. A metal road will be constructed as soon as we get the grants.-Narayanamma, ZP member

We have been requesting for a road since the time of Independence. The representatives would say yes, but do nothing about it. The people were all ready to make way for the construction. Only, no efforts were taken by the government to build the road.- Srirama Reddy, senior resident who donated land for the road

We have had several legislators, but none of them heeded our request. They did not realise the importa­nce of working for the good of the people.-Rajagopal, retired BEML employee