As the nation celebrates the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, around 224-odd villagers residing in the bordering two villages in Bengal have to visit the nearby Jharkhand state as their post office has been located there since the past one hundred years.

These villagers have sent a mass petition through a human rights organisation to chief minister Mamata Banerjee seeking her intervention to bring those two bordering villages in Asansol under the nearest post offices in Bengal.

Though Dhanguri and Domdoha villages are located under Salanpur block, under Barabani Assembly constituency of West Bengal, but they have to visit to Mihijam post office located in Jharkhand for sending money orders, letters, appointment or joining letters, job interview and exam hall tickets, sending parcels, receiving bank cheque books, passports etc.

“We have been sending mass petitions since the past few decades but nothing has happened. Once again, we have sent a mass petition through a human rights organisation to our chief minister seeking her intervention,” Sandip Majhi of Dhanguri village said. About 2,300 people live in the Dhanguri and Domdoha villages.

Even in 2017, the local BDO took up the issue with the Asansol division after which it was decided that a post office would be set up in a small room for about 630 families, but nothing was done. Even former Asansol MP, late Bikash Choudhury had raised this issue in the floor of the Lok Sabha in the early 2000. The Mihijam post office is located about two and half kilometres away in the neighbouring state of Jharkhand.

“The biggest problem is that our post office does not match with our EPIC card address, so making an Aadhaar card has become a challenge even for police verifications for passport clearances,” says Lakhsmi Kanta of Dhanguri village. Gouranga Ghosh, secretary of West Burdwan district of the human rights organisation said that they have collected a mass petition of 224 villagers and submitted it to CMO in Nabanna recently.

Local MLA Bidhan Upadhyay, who is also the mayor of Asansol Municipal Corporation (AMC) is also aware of the ordeal of the villagers residing in two villages, Dhanguri and Domdoha, at the Bengal-Jharkhand border near Asansol.