THOOTHUKUDI: The rains that lashed the district recently submerged a low-lying bridge on a jungle stream, leaving the residents of R Venkatesapuram village marooned.
Sources said the village, home to 175 families, mainly coolie labourers and farmers, have been encountering the same situation every monsoon.
The villagers said as the rains flooded the stream that flows between Kailasan kanmoi and Pudhupatti kanmoi, the farmers, labourers, school students and the office goers are unable to cross the stream. "As the village has no other road, the villagers get stranded during the monsoon," they said.
They said the government bus that ply between the village and Ettayapuram twice a day stops its operation during this time.
The villagers urged Collector Dr K Senthil Raj to construct a bridge on the jungle stream and also lay an alternative road.
A former councillor Udhayakumar said the proposal for an alternative road to connect Mela Nambiapuram, which will lead to Perilovanpatti and Pillayarnatham, was pending for a decade. The issue remains unsettled as the village falls on the border of the two unions Kovilpatti and Pudur, he reasoned.
Udhayakumar added as part of MGNREGS scheme a metal road was laid for 1.5 kilometres to Mela Nambiapuram using Kovilpatti union funds. "However, the other parts of the stretch that falls in Pudur union is not completed. The officials do not take up the project thinking that they might not get funds properly," he alleged.