Rajasthan's new highway to prosperity

NEW LEASE OF LIFE: With the new roads business opportunities have also sprung up in the most unusual of places.

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Keywords: Farmers, Highways

Dudu (Rajasthan): Swanky highways have brought a sense of fulfillment in the lives of villagers long used to potholed stretches of the license raj era in Rajasthan’s small town, Dudu.

With the road spreading out to four lanes, farmers who have given up land have also been richly rewarded.

“People have made lakhs of rupees by selling land,” says resident Bhupendra Singh.

However, not everybody is happy because for some the road has changed their entire life.

“I have to walk for a kilometer extra from my farm which is on one side of the road to my tubewell which on the other side,” resident of Gathwada, Sravan Lal Deonda complains.

The highway authorities have provided a solution to this problem but the farmers are reluctant to accept.

“We do try to educate them but it is a continuing process,” Chairman of National Highway Authority of India, Pradeep Kumar explains.

The problem perhaps is that the villagers are so used to crossing the road right at their doorstep that they don’t want to go that extra bit – even 300 meter to take an underpass.

But villagers with school-going children in the area are a happy lot as their children can now safely walk to school without any fears of accidents.

“Now there's no fear of accidents because of lane separation,” says Pushpa Naval, a resident of Dudu.

And that isn’t the only reason why women are cheering. Housewife Santosh Devi says that with the new roads, healthcare facilities in Jaipur is now only 40 minutes away

“During childbirth things get very difficult if one has to travel for an hour and a half to reach the hospital. But now that problem has been solved after the roads were constructed,” Santosh Devi says.

With the new roads business opportunities have also sprung up in the most unusual of places – vegetable vendors have sprouted illegally and the trade is flourishing under the flyover even if it means a close shave with the law.