Vilavoorkal families demand motorable road after years of neglect

Vilavoorkal: Even as the world around them develops at a rapid pace, 10 families living in Thengathamcode Unnathi, located in the Vilavoorkal ward of the panchayat, are still waiting for a proper, motorable road. Their only connection to the outside world is a steep, rugged footpath.The path is barely wide enough for a person to walk, and only a two-wheeler can pass through. When it rains, the path becomes muddy and slippery.

Getting daily essentials home is an uphill struggle, literally. Be it subsidized rice from the ration shop, LPG cooking cylinders, or construction materials, everything has to be carried on people's heads. Even the elderly people have to walk along the slope carrying heavy loads.

For the 30 residents living across these 10 households, medical emergencies are a living nightmare. When someone falls gravely ill, there is only one way out: the patient must be placed in a chair and shouldered down the slippery incline by local residents to reach a vehicle on the main road.

While electricity and piped water reached the settlement years ago, connectivity remains elusive. Constructing a viable road requires acquiring adjacent land to widen the current path. The residents have knocked on every official door time and again, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Their demand is humble: just a track wide enough for a three-wheeler auto-rickshaw to navigate.

Come election time, political parties arrive with grand pledges to make the road a reality, but these assurances vanish into thin air once the votes are cast.

Meanwhile, local Ward Member N.A. Vishnu stated that a formal memorandum has been submitted to MLA M.R. Baiju, requesting the urgent allocation of funds to widen and pave the existing pathway.