DEHRADUN: Around a month after a forest road connecting several local villages was closed in a crucial elephant corridor of Uttarakhand, Chilla-Motichur, villagers, citing inconvenience, took matters in their own hands and built a 1-km kuccha road. The villagers said they needed the road to avoid a 6-km detour to take their children to school.
They added that they had kept forest officials in the loop regarding the road construction. Authorities however dismissed the villagers' claim, saying they were not informed of the construction, and it was done to facilitate illegal activities like poaching, mining and drug trafficking.
