A New Village Road

Amardeep Yadav
Wednesday, July 20, 2016 

For the summer village internship program with Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, six students travelled to Harirampura—the Amrita SeRVe village in Rajasthan. Their project was to improve the local road to the village, as it was in highly poor condition and even dangerous.

Harirampura is in the Sawai Madhopur district. The students discovered there was only a mud road leading to the village and sometimes during monsoon, it became impassable. Harirampura would become an isolated island full of mires.

In fact, the villagers had even witnessed many deaths due to the problem. Sanjeev, a local boy in 8th standard, explained that students like him faced severe difficulties, even while just walking to school every day. The school is four kilometres from Harirampura. He described that in the rainy season, children would fall at least four to five times on the road, because the mud becomes extremely slippery.

The nearest paved road starts from Sankada village, which is four kilometres from Harirampura. So, the students decided to construct a safer road to connect to that destination. In the building process, 82 trolleys of gravel and small stones were used to construct a path between the two communities.

The new road helps immensely to allow the villagers to walk without the fear of slipping. It also means vehicles of all sorts can now access the village during the difficult weather periods. Of course, there was no labour cost for the road construction, as all of that was done by villagers and students.

The summer village internship program for students with Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham took place in June. The students travel to Amrita SeRVe villages across the country to do seva projects in collaboration with the villagers.

The goal is to work on matters that will provide help to some of the most urgent needs in the communities. It is also for the students to learn about village life and the numerous and highly challenging problems faced there. Over 160 students, along with faculty guides and chaperones, embarked on what proved to be most fulfilling, memorable, and life-changing experiences.