Vavurla's Long-Awaited Road Nears Completion After Years of Isolation
Margao: The earthmovers have finally arrived, their heavy machinery rumbling across the steep, forested slopes of Vavurla. Mounds of road construction material now lie stacked at the site, serving as unmistakable signs that this remote mountain-top hamlet, which officialdom seemed to have forgotten existed, is inching toward the end of its long and painful isolation.
Project Enters Final Phase After Multiple Delays
Over three years after the construction of the 3.5 km road linking Vavurla to Kude was formally launched on December 27, 2023, the work has entered its final leg. From Kude, the road leads to Gaondongrim in Canacona, approximately 11 km away. The project, awarded at a cost exceeding Rs 2 crore following a single tender bid, has stalled repeatedly due to various challenges.
The obstacles have been numerous and persistent:
- Forest department objections over the road's passage through thick forest
- Multiple landslides occurring in rapid succession
- Mounting cost overruns that pushed the deadline well beyond the original one-year completion target embedded in the tender conditions
Work halted during the monsoon seasons, but now, with the rains behind them, contractors and machinery have returned with what officials describe as a serious, final push to complete the project.
A Village Forgotten by Time
Vavurla is a 100 percent tribal-inhabited village that comes under the Barcem panchayat, with a population of just over 300 people living in approximately 35 houses. The Times of India first highlighted the plight of this village in May 2015, and since then has relentlessly stressed the need to mainstream its tribal residents through successive governments and unfulfilled promises.
Ironically, the forest that the tribals have called home across generations was the very thing that the state machinery cited to keep them cut off from the rest of society. Restrictions on development within forest areas meant road construction was perpetually stalled, trapping residents in their mountain isolation.
The Human Cost of Isolation
To truly understand Vavurla's struggle, one must first reckon with August 15, 2019. While the nation celebrated its 73rd Independence Day, Vavurla lived through its most heartbreaking one. Govind Kuiro Velip suffered a cardiac arrest and had to be carried down a treacherous mountain path on a makeshift stretcher.
Four neighbors strained under his weight across 3.5 km of steep, forest-shrouded trail to reach the nearest motorable road. By the time he reached the primary health centre at Canacona, 15 km away, and was referred onward to GMC Bambolim, he was gone. While his death certificate cited cardiac arrest, Vavurla residents knew better—they understood that his death was a direct consequence of their isolation.
This was not an isolated case. For years, chairs stripped of their legs doubled as makeshift stretchers. The sick, the elderly, and women in labor—all were carried up and down these dangerous slopes. Students picked their way through thick forest each morning to reach their schools.
"Our only demand was that the government provide our village with a road so that at least ambulances can fetch the sick to hospital," said Manju Velip when the road work was launched in December 2023. "Hopefully, with the road work now being launched, our hardships will end soon."
Bureaucratic Hurdles and Public Intervention
Moved by the plight of the villagers after reading about their situation in The Times of India, Margao resident Sanjay Dessai wrote to the Prime Minister's Office about the missing road connectivity to Vavurla. The PMO directed Goa's public grievance department to take up the matter, which then passed through multiple bureaucratic layers:
- The grievance department passed it to the Superintending Engineer, PWD Margao
- The SE forwarded it to the Executive Engineer
- The EE forwarded it to the Assistant Engineer, Canacona
From the AE's office came the reply that would become familiar: "Road passes through forest land and no NOC is available from the Forest Department." The file, in other words, made a full bureaucratic circle without resolving the fundamental issue.
Persistent Obstacles and Eventual Progress
The forest NOC issue remained the single most persistent obstacle the road project faced even after it was eventually sanctioned and tendered. The road passes through a swathe of thick forest and required extensive negotiation with the forest department.
"Landslides on the precarious slopes added to the delays, at times undoing stretches of work already completed," official sources explained. "Costs crept upward. The contractor's 1-year completion window came and went. Monsoons arrived and work halted again."
Finally, after all the years of struggle, bureaucratic hurdles, and heartbreaking human costs, Vavurla is simply getting connected—a basic infrastructure that most communities take for granted, but which represents nothing less than liberation for this remote tribal village.
