by Frank van Steenbergen
A mini tale from Banda-Nimgajgawadi, a small roadside village in the southern Konkan Region of Maharastra State in India, one of thousands. Until forty years ago Banda was only served by a dirt road and transport was by bullock carts, a motorbike bajaj and an occasional motorbike.
Yet, over time the road network was changed. The national highway was constructed very nearby, and Banda was connected to it by a service road (see 1). The local road was blacktopped (see 2). This was when the transformation began. The highway and the local road were upgraded in stages. The makeshift shops were made permanent from bricks and concrete (see 3). Electricity came to the village (see 4) and streets were alight in the evening. Animal traction disappeared fifteen years ago from now, and later also the bajaj. In it is place every household came to own two or more motorbikes (see 5), and more than 40% of houses came to have a car (see 6). Banda became also a transit for those working elsewhere, catching public transport. A park and ride enclosure emerged for the motorbikes of the commuting local workers. What was once a dirt road was upgraded to a still relatively narrow state highway and one some days the street is full of cars and motors.
The elevation of the service road caused the obstruction the natural drainage in Banda (see 7). With monsoon rain there is regular flooding knee-deep. The road side drains cum pedestrian way becomes blocked regularly with sediment building up. This is removed every so often, with the covers taken out, but not put back (see 8). Now the request is from the people of Banda for the road to be adjusted and cleverly heightened so that the water drains not to the service road but to a little valley on the other side of the village, where it can discharge freely. Shop owners themselves agreed to raise the plint of their roadside businesses (see 9) to adjust to the then changed local topography.
