Kalyansinghpur: The dream of a Digital India seems a distant one at least in this block of Rayagada district when people get cut-off from rest of the world with the onset of monsoon.
Talasaja village under Sikarpai panchayat is a case in point where a pregnant woman was Monday carried precariously on a stretcher through chest-deep water of river Nagavali so that she can deliver her baby.
According to reports, Maniaka Anku (32) underwent labour pain in the morning. Her family members were in panic as there was no road connectivity to the nearest hospital since the river got swollen up following torrential rain of the last few days.
Left with no option, they approached some youths of the village and carried Maniaka on a stretcher. They decided to carry her on their shoulders to the hospital after crossing the flooding river.
After managing to reach the other end of the river, they contacted an ambulance to ferry Maniaka to the CHC but it didn’t turn up.
Finally, they took the patient in a mobile health camp vehicle. The woman delivered a baby girl in the evening.
Similarly, about 20 school students, in the absence of a proper road, were seen wading through the water hazardously to attend their classes.
Though it is terrifying and full of risk to cross a flooding river, the kids have to take the risk to get education, said some of them.
There are many instances when people were swept away by the river and women delivered stillborn babies failing to cross the bloated river, a report said.
The elected representatives promise a lot ahead of polls but forget them once the elections are over, said Yogesh Miniaka, Rajanta Hikirka and a few others of the village and demanded immediate solution to their problems. PNN