The Struggle for Connectivity: How Lack of Infrastructure Threatens Nepal's Remote Vyas Region

Dhangadhi. One does not need to look far to find an example of how a region slowly becomes alienated due to the lack of roads. Until 2018 BS, residents of Kuti, Napi, and Gunji villages in Vyas Rural Municipality-1 paid taxes to the Government of Nepal. They held official Nepali land ownership certificates. However, due to the absence of state presence and road networks, those villages gradually fell under Indian control.

Today, the people of those villages have become Indian citizens. They hold Indian citizenship, work for the Indian government, and speak Hindi. Although Nepal has included those villages in its updated map, the country's capital has become very distant for the people living there. Locals in the other two settlements of Vyas-1, Changru and Tinkar, are now living in fear.