BEHROR (Rajasthan): Till a few months ago, hardly anyone would have noticed the curiously named Googal Kota village in Alwar district, a kilometre off the Delhi-Jaipur highway. But for four months now, cars going to Delhi from Jaipur have been taking a diversion through the village after the highway was blocked mid-December last year by protesting farmers of Rajasthan. This unwanted entry of traffic into their village has left the 3,000-odd villagers furious.
Farmer Bhoop Singh, 65, former Googal Kota head, grumbled about the destruction of the village road by the thousands of trucks and cars passing through the hamlet lanes. “With great effort, we laid brick roads in 2007 that we later upgraded to concrete in 2017,” Singh said, pointing to the pools of waste water collected in the enormous potholes created by the heavy traffic. The steady stream of vehicles has damaged the village drains too.
70-year-old Umrawali Devi, having spent all her adult life in the village, had never seen living conditions deteriorate in this fashion. “We are worried about our grandchildren, who are not safe playing outside now,” she said. “By god’s grace, no accident has occurred yet. But it is a matter of time. It is worse at night when trucks move in even bigger numbers.” There are around 500 houses in this Rajput-dominated village and residents say that both children and their livestock are at risk of being hit by cars.
Suman Devi, who was recently elected to the panchayat, said that the potholes have become so deep over the last three months that vehicles also break down because of them. “Heavy cranes are often called in to move the stalled vehicles, but the traffic is held up all through the process,” Devi said. “Most Googal Kota residents are poor farmers who augment their earning by rearing livestock, but you can’t even ensure their safety in such an environment.”
Vikram Singh Chauhan, the village security guard, claimed the degradation has taken place in the last couple of months. “The drains have broken and the waste water now flows into the pits on the roads. Some stretches are so bad that people are forced to actually step into the filthy water to get past,” said Chauhan. However, while appearing palpably fed up by the inconveniences introduced into their lives, the villagers express sympathy for the cause of the agitating farmers.
Googal Kota village is located in Behror tehsil of Alwar district in Rajasthan, around 70km from the district headquarter, Alwar. Villagers claimed that the village has been around for close to 300 years and has always remained, like it does today, on the borders areas of small kingdoms and states Shyam Sundar Yadav, sarpanch of the village, said, “Now people associate Googal Kota more with the internet’s Google, but the village has a rich 200-300-year history and was variously inhabited by Gujjars, Yadavs and Rajputs in differing eras. Of course, people from all communities live here. Kota comes from the word kot, which translates to a fort.”
Yadav also admitted that the situation had deteriorated a lot, but claimed that restoration work would begin soon. “Travellers will have to find some way to reach their destinations. From Tuesday, we will block the roads where the work on laying the sewer line will start soon,” he asserted. “Once the sewer line work is completed, we will move a proposal for a new road.”
The farmers’ protest has blocked several highways in the National Capital Region NCR, and motorists now pass through the hinterland villages. They may be seeing how people in places like Googal Kota live, but the only consolation for the harried villagers is that this is giving their civic problems bigger visibility.