Children rush back home from school. The stream over which the bamboo span is built demarcates the boundary between Karbi Anglong in Assam and Dimapur district.
Morung Express News
Dimapur | June 3
At River Belt Colony, behind Don Bosco Higher Secondary School, Dimapur; rests a bamboo bridge suspended precariously over the stream known locally as ‘Baloo Noti’ or ‘Pagla Noti’. This bridge acts as the life lifeline for hundreds of students and commuters living on the other side of the rivulet in Bor Lengri, Karbi Anglong.
A resident from there estimated that over two thousand people use make use of it everyday of the year, except on holidays. And almost two-third of the people who take the bridge is Naga living towards that side.
Now, for those people who has not seen the bridge, let alone walk over it, crossing this narrow strip of a bamboo structure is, simply, risky business. It is only a couple of minutes walk to cross the bridge but already has its share of accidents. Though the accidents may seem trivial like a sprained ankle or a bruised knee; for the parents of the school children, it is a daily worry they have to endure.
For commuters from Bor Lengri, they have to walk a narrow path along the waste infested river’s edge then climb a stair, with gaps in between, and then finally set foot along the span of the shaky bridge. Negotiating the stair is a task in itself, while holding its feeble railing and making sure the feet do not overshoot the footholds. It is almost a daily affair for school children, reaching home or school with a hurting leg or knee. They might have gotten used to it, but it is a worry for them and their parents nevertheless. Come the monsoons and the bridge almost gives way to the river’s charging current. A resident of Bor Lengri said that not a single year has passed without the bridge needing repairs atleast twice or thrice. One mother of a school going child expressed fear that the bamboo span may fall down anytime citing the force created by the daily rush of commuters.
It is not that there are no other connecting routes. There are alternatives, but taking this particular bridge is crucial just because it cuts the time taken by half, for the children and other commuters to reach their respective schools and workplaces in Dimapur.
Call it the apathy of the public or the government, chances of building a concrete bridge is bleak. The resident said that effort made by families in this regard have failed due to unavailability of land on the other side in Riverbelt Colony. He disclosed that they have already approached two individuals from the colony whose plots borders with the bridge, but to no avail. He said that the families would be ever grateful to the individuals concerned, if only they would sell off some few square metres of their plots out of sympathy.
