Pregnant woman’s death, High Court intervention and a government promise: Gujarat tribal village waits for a road nearly 2 years later
Just about two kilometres after turning in from the main road towards the rugged hillside where the village lies, the narrow dirt track shrinks into a winding trail of loose mud and jagged stone curling around barren mountainsides. The deeper one goes into the hills, the vehicles are fewer and even motorcycles cannot ride this path. The final stretch to 32-year-old Kishan Bhil’s home can be reached only on foot.It was along this very mountain path, before dawn on October 1, 2024, that villagers had carried Kishan’s pregnant wife, Kavita, on a makeshift cloth stretcher tied to bamboo poles after she developed labour pains. The nearest point where a 108 ambulance could reach was almost five kilometres away. Kavita died before that, but not before bringing to the world a baby girl. A year later, on September 16, 2025, a 36-year-old pregnant woman, Vansi Nayak, was similarly carried on a cloth stretcher for five kilometres till the ambulance, which took her to the local hospital and then the Vadodara SSG hospital where she died.
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