Bajura, September 18 For fourteen long years he worked in India as a daily-wage labourer to eke out a living, but for the past two years Khadka Sunar of Toli-7, Bajura has been working in his own village, thanks to the local road projects that have created employment opportunities for him and hundreds of others. “It was a compulsion earlier for us to go to India for work but now I earn more than what I earned in India. I am now earning up to Rs 700 daily working in my own village,” said the 45-year-old, adding, “I feel blessed and content as I can now stay with my family and at the same time contribute to the development of my village and district.” He works for road projects run by the District Development Committee of Bajura under its Rural Access Programme. Like Khadka, Jamuna Sunar of Toli-1 too had to rely on the earnings of her husband, who worked in New Delhi of India as a labourer. But ever since the programme was launched, Jamuna called back her husband and now both of them work for the road project. According to programme manager Subas Bikram Thapa, over 900 persons are employed in Toli alone, thanks to RAP. “In the last two years alone, we have paid 56.1 million in salary to the locals in return for their labour,” Thapa said, adding the project has prioritized human power over heavy equipment in order to provide employment opportunities to jobless locals. In fact, it’s not only the Toli folks who are now earning in their own village. Manoj BK of Martadi is also doing the same. Otherwise, he would work in Mumbai of India. Overall, the road projects in recent days have helped the Bajura folks as a whole by providing them with employment opportunities.