Residents and traders pooled funds and launched the renovation of a 19km road between Jibanti and Sherpur on Monday as the vital thoroughfare connecting five villages had been shut to heavy vehicles for two months because of frequent accidents on the crater-filled stretch.

The road used by around one lakh people is maintained by the Bengal public works department, but it was closed to traffic by heavy vehicles by the Murshidabad district administration at the beginning of June.

“The deterioration in the road’s condition had begun last year, but the PWD took no initiative to fill craters,” said Ubaidullah Usman, the president of the Jibanti-Sherpur Road Repairing Committee which launched the renovation with a hired excavator at Sankarpur village in the Khargram subdivision on Monday.

The committee’s office, manned by three employees, was also inaugurated. The committee consists of villagers and traders. “This is a vital road for common people and local businessmen. After months of inaction, we decided to do something for ourselves,” said Usman.

Khargram Trinamul Congress MLA Ashis Marjit and block development officer were present during the launch of the repair. Kandi BDO, too, attended the event.

The committee has collected nearly Rs 50 lakh in cash and kind (bitumen and stone chips) from local residents and traders. Materials which cost between Rs 1,000 and over Rs 2 lakh were donated.

“It was in everyone’s interest to repair the road. At least five gram panchayats became inaccessible because of the craters on the road. There have been no trucks or buses here for almost two months, worsening the effects of the lockdown induced by the novel coronavirus. As vehicles kept off the road, petrol pumps, too, were robbed of business,” said local resident Enamul Haque.

Asked whether common people could in their individual capacity fund the repair of a road maintained by the government, secretary of the association, Mehmood Alam, said: “We had individually sent written requests to the district magistrate, superintendent of police, PWD executive engineer and the Kandi subdivisional officer last week, seeking permission for our project. We also mentioned that we had the backing of four gram panchayats and two panchayat samitis. But we did not hear back from the officials.”

A source in the district administration said an official nod to the people to repair the road with their own money would be an admission of the government’s failure. The administration could not carry out the repair because of lockdown-induced delay in releasing funds, he added.

“What essentially is a government’s job is being done by the people and giving go-ahead would have been an admission of failure. On the other hand, the administration acknowledges the need to repair the road urgently and has preferred to look the other way as the villagers began to carry out their initiative on Monday,” a government official said.

PWD highway engineer Atanu Sen, who is responsible for the roads in the area, said he was unaware of the repair by the people. “I heard about talks regarding such an initiative but I don’t know the details. In any case, district officials had closed the road, and not the PWD. I don’t know about the permission for the repair,” he said.

Khargram BDO Saurabh Dhalla, who was present at the inaugural, said: “The road is a government property but the villagers wanted to repair it on their own. I was present there to witness such an effort by the villagers.”