Bokaro: Locals carried a pregnant woman on a cot for 7km before they could reach the nearest road and get a vehicle to reach a community health centre 60km away in Bokaro’s Gomia block on Thursday. Chameli Kumari (30), who started her traumatic journey from her home in Simrabeda village atop Jhumra Hill about 3am on Thursday, delivered a healthy baby girl late in the night.Kumari is not the first woman to face such trauma and several women and aged and ailing villagers in the half a dozen villages on the Maoist-affected Jhumra Hill have often had to travel to far off places for any kind of medical help. The absence of roads only make the journey more tedious.Over the last decade, police have intensified raids against Maoists and the administration is focused on development, few of the villages like Simrabeda, Baltharwa and Amar are living in dark ages. Though a road links the foot hill to the Jhumra hilltop, three villages are yet to be connected with it. Locals here mostly use motorbike, bicycle and even horses to commute.The incident, which comes just before the Lok Sabha elections, has sparked discussions with the people blaming the BJP government and local MLA Babita Devi (JMM) of neglecting their demand for a motorable road.Devi blamed the BJP government’s “lackadaisical approach” for the situation. “We (JMM) have always raised the demand for basic facilities. This incident shows the real face of the government,” she said. The village falls under the Giridih Lok Sabha constituency and is represented by BJP MP Ravinder Kumar Pandey. He said: “The government has allotted tender for building a road here.”

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