Jarukudru Residents suffer due to lack of a connecting bridge to the mainland

By Prakash Katapadi
Bellevision Media Network

Udupi, 18 January 2011: Fifty people living in twenty houses on the twenty acre island of  Jaurkudru in the Udyavara River delta barely 300 meters from Pithrodi in the Udyavara Village Panchayat jurisdiction have practically isolated and cut off from the main land.  They can have contact with the mainland only with the help of boats. The residents of the Jarukudru who had been dreaming of having a bridge to facilitate their  approach to the main land are now a disappointed lot as their dream of having a connecting bridge to the mainland has not yet been fulfilled.

 

 

The residents of the Jarukudru depend of coconut cultivation and fishing for their livelihood. They have to entirely depend upon the boats to transport their goods to the mainland and to get day to day provisions. The school-going children have to undertake daily risky boat-ride. It has been extremely difficult to get the sick persons to the dispensaries or hospitals. During rainy season, the life of the residents of the Jarukudru becomes quite precarious due to floods and erosion of the soil of the island.

 

Since the last five years, politicians from different political parties had been making tall promises to the residents of the island that they would recommend a bridge for them to have direct contact with the mainland. However, these promises have been forgotten soon after the elections. May be that out of the population of fifty on the island the politicians do not see any electoral gain for themselves.