Tired of waiting, locals take matters into their own hands

Fed up with decades of inaction by authorities, villagers in Dhankuta have built a culvert over a stream through voluntary labour and their own funds.

In a display of collective resolve that speaks to the widening gap between rural needs and state delivery, the villagers in Dhankuta have completed a 22-metre-long concrete culvert over the Nibuwa stream, a narrow watercourse that turns deadly during the monsoon. The project, finished after 22 days of intensive labour donation, replaces a precarious wooden foot bridge that had long cut off several villages during heavy rains.