No basic facilities; 11 Maharashtra villages seek merger with Karnataka

PUNE: Eleven villages in Maharashtra have demanded that their villages should be merged with Karnataka for development or to provide them basic facilities. The gram panchayats of Kallakarjal, Kegaon, Shegaon, Korsegaon, Aalge, Dharsang, Andewadi (Khurd), Hilli, Devikavathe, Mangrul and Shawal in Akkalkot tehsil on Monday submitted a list of their demands to the Solapur collector.

The villagers complained that there are no adequate roads, electricity and water facilities in these places. Apart from this, the complaint states that the teachers of the village do not even have a road to go to the schools. Therefore, they requested the Collector to merge their villages with Karnataka if they cannot provide basic facilities.

These villages are near the Belagavi area where the Karnataka-Maharashtra border dispute is ongoing. The villagers raised this demand because all the basic facilities are available in the neighboring villages of Karnataka. Maharashtra did not send MSRTC buses to Karnataka, where the border issue was raging. This was after the trucks coming from Maharashtra were stopped.