In Kansapur, a village off the Ambala-Jagadhri Road, the local government primary school has stood empty for years, forcing young children to walk two to three kilometres to study in a neighbouring village. What makes the situation sting even more is that this very school once carried the name of martyr Manjeet Singh, and Kansapur continues to send its sons into the Indian Army, some of whom have laid down their lives for the country. Residents say it feels deeply unfair that a village which has given soldiers and martyrs to the nation cannot even offer its own children a functioning school.
A daily walk that turns risky in the rains
Every morning, Kansapur's youngest children sling their school bags over their shoulders and set off, and with them go their parents' anxieties. During the monsoon, the mud tracks connecting the village turn into slush, and children have no choice but to cross those slippery paths to reach the school in the next village. Several children have slipped and been hurt along the way. Villagers say this has stopped being purely an education problem, it has become a question of the children's safety and their future.
Sarpanch wants the school reopened as the child population grows
Sarpanch Gurnam Singh says the school was shut years ago because the number of children in the village had fallen too low to justify keeping it running. But the numbers have since reversed, and the count of young children in Kansapur has risen sharply. Sending them to another village every day, and picking them up again, has become a major daily struggle for parents, he says. His demand is direct, the school built in the martyr's name should be reopened so children can be educated within their own village again.
One pond for the whole village, and rains that make it worse
Beyond schooling, Kansapur has long struggled with drainage. The village has only a single johad, or pond, and it isn't enough to properly drain rainwater. The moment it rains, water pools across several spots, lanes get flooded, and life becomes harder for people living nearby. Gurnam Singh is therefore also pushing for a second johad to be built in the village, to give rainwater a proper, lasting outlet.
No cut on the highway, no bus stop, and lives already lost
Villager Vikram Pal points to another serious problem facing Kansapur, the absence of a cut and a bus stop on the highway. He says there is no cut on GT Road directly opposite the village's main entrance, forcing people to take a long detour every time they need to travel. This stretch of road has already seen several accidents, and a number of young people from the village have lost their lives in them. Despite this, no permanent fix has been found so far. Anmol, another villager, says politicians make big promises during elections, but once voting ends, the village's problems are forgotten all over again.
"What I went through, I don't want my siblings to face"
Anmol recalls that as a child he too had to walk several kilometres every day just to attend school, and he doesn't want his younger siblings to go through the same hardship. His demands are clear, reopen the school named after martyr Manjeet Singh, build a new johad, set up a bus stop, and cut the GT Road for the village. Right now, no bus even stops outside the village. Girls from Kansapur who travel toward Ambala for their studies have to walk to a bus stop in another village just to catch a bus.
