No electricity, but this Odisha village of 20 will get a railway station

BALANGIR: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates the Balangir-Bichhupali railway line on Tuesday, one of smallest villages in Odisha will get a station named after it.




Bichhupali in Balangir district has a population of 20. “The railways initially planned to name the station after Bhainsapali, a bigger village. However, the people of Jhar Balangir, another village in the area, wanted the station to be named after their hamlet. As the station falls under Bichhupali, we recommended to the railways that it be named after it,” said Balangir collector Arindam Dakua.

According to the 2011 Census, Bichhupali had five households of 15 people. On a visit to the village, TOI found that it comprises seven houses in three clusters, separated by half a kilometre each, and 20 people. The station is the only visible government intervention in the village. Bichhupali doesn’t have a school or electricity. All the three villages — Bichhupali, Bhainsapali and Jhar Balangir — are part of Bubel panchayat. The station is located 15km from the Balangir station, and will be part of the upcoming 289km Khurda-Balangir line. The project, sanctioned in 1994-95, will link Boudh, Sonepur and Nayagarh districts with Bhubaneswar and Balangir.

Ajay Kumar Mohanty, 70, a native of Bichhupali, attributed the decline in population to large-scale migration. “In my childhood, there were 28 families, including snakecharmers, Brahmins and Karanas. Those who prospered moved to Balangir. Farmers shifted to Jhar Balangir which has electricity and ponds. Some, like me, remained here because my land is here,” he said.