In this Maharashtra village, kids cross river to go to school | Video

Devoid of roads and bridges, children from this Maharashtra village travel through deep river water with the help of elders to reach their school.

At a time when highways, tunnels and expressways are being constructed to connect cities across India, and make commuting between states easier, the struggle is still very deep for children in some parts to go to school. Devoid of a road or bridge, they have to swim across a river to reach the other side in Maharashtra's Nashik district.

School children in Nashik's Peth taluka cross river every day to reach school. (ANI)

In a video shared by news agency ANI, a batch of school-going kids, in uniforms and carrying their backpacks, were seen crossing the deep Suki river in Peth taluka, Nashik inside a large container with the help of a few men who carried them across the water body.

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Locals have complained that this is the only way for the children to go to school because there is no bridge to cross the river.

Many parents make their children cross the river every day by sitting on their shoulders and others do not send them to school fearing something untoward would happen while crossing the river.

“River is deep but children have to go to school, so we carry them either on our shoulders or in big utensils. We request the administration to build a bridge,” a local told ANI.

The biggest problem, they said, is during rainy days when the backwater is released into the river. At such a time, the river gets flooded and children are not able to go to school for months, due to which their studies are affected.

The villagers said that every election, the representatives come to them for votes and the people demand a bridge over the river. From MPs, and MLAs to Zilla Parishads, and Panchayat Samiti members to local public representatives, the people of the village have been pleading for the bridge for years, but the government never pays attention to it.

“It has been many years since we have been living like this. There are no roads, no bridge, which makes it very difficult for children to go to school,” said another local to ANI.

The representatives forget the problems of the village after the election tours are over, they said.