Two flimsy ropes connect the two banks of the Ulhas river in the Bendase village.
Raigad, Maharashtra:
For residents of the tiny village of Bendase in the Raigad district of Maharashtra, crossing the Ulhas River to get to the nearest railway station literally means putting their lives on the line.
During monsoon months, when the river swallows the narrow, broken concrete slabs laid across a relatively shallower stretch, villagers who want to get to other side, to the Bhivpuri railway station, find themselves precariously balancing on one flimsy rope while clutching another.
"People in our village are not well off to avail any other mode of transport and most don't even have personal vehicles. This ropeway is the cheapest and fastest way to reach the station which otherwise takes over half an hour to reach by the longer route.
Buses and rickshaws don't run here either," said a local inhabitant Nagesh Bhoir, a student who travels to his college in Lonavala every day.
His father, 61-year-old Harichandra Damu Bhoir, a former Indian Railways employee had to avail the same means to go to work during monsoons till last year when he retired.
Chances of slipping and falling into the river that is as little as one-and-a-half feet away during peak monsoons according to locals, with the ropes now hanging loose is a risk they have all learned to live with for decades now.
They say the local authorities make their custom visits once every year before monsoons or before elections, promising a concrete bridge, but that is yet to become reality.
Speaking to NDTV, the local legislator, Suresh Lad of the Nationalist Congress Party, promised that by next monsoon, Bendase's ropeway would give way to a proper concrete bridge.
"We have got an approval for a concrete bridge in the last budget session. By this Diwali work on the bridge should begin. I request the villagers to not risk their lives this year and take the longer route just this one time," he said.
During monsoon months, when the river swallows the narrow, broken concrete slabs laid across a relatively shallower stretch, villagers who want to get to other side, to the Bhivpuri railway station, find themselves precariously balancing on one flimsy rope while clutching another.
"People in our village are not well off to avail any other mode of transport and most don't even have personal vehicles. This ropeway is the cheapest and fastest way to reach the station which otherwise takes over half an hour to reach by the longer route.
Buses and rickshaws don't run here either," said a local inhabitant Nagesh Bhoir, a student who travels to his college in Lonavala every day.
Villagers risk their lives every time they cross the river.
Chances of slipping and falling into the river that is as little as one-and-a-half feet away during peak monsoons according to locals, with the ropes now hanging loose is a risk they have all learned to live with for decades now.
They say the local authorities make their custom visits once every year before monsoons or before elections, promising a concrete bridge, but that is yet to become reality.
Speaking to NDTV, the local legislator, Suresh Lad of the Nationalist Congress Party, promised that by next monsoon, Bendase's ropeway would give way to a proper concrete bridge.
"We have got an approval for a concrete bridge in the last budget session. By this Diwali work on the bridge should begin. I request the villagers to not risk their lives this year and take the longer route just this one time," he said.
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