TAJ NAGAR
For twenty five years, the residents of Taj Nagar village near Gurgaon lobbied for a railway station in their village. When their demand was not met, the villagers decided to take matters into their own hands. They pooled in twenty one lakh rupees and built a railway station on their own.
Most of the three thousand people living in the village are farmers. But such was the burning desire to have a station in the village, everybody contributed according to their capacity. Ranging from three thousand rupees to seventy five thousand rupees. "They donated money for the station and we started the construction in January 2008." said Ranjit Singh, a former village sarpanch.
"There are a large number of people in the village who need to go to Gurgaon, Delhi and Rewar. There are students who go to colleges. Till now, we had to either go to Halimandi or Patli to catch a train. Both the stations are six kilometers away from Taj Nagar. We thought when the railway lines passed through the village, we would have a station here. But that didn't happen. So we raised the demand in 1982 and have been continuously asking for it, but the railways told us that they did not have funds. So, finally we decided to craft our own destiny," said Hukamchand, a member of the committee.
As a result, the panchayat passed resolution in 2008, saying that since the railway was not able to build a station for them, they would do it for themselves and with their own money! Soon, an eleven member team was formed and the team started collecting money from villagers.
On 7 January 2010, as a result of their efforts, the first railway station in the country on which the railway did not have to spend a single rupee, started operations.
Comments
Post a Comment