Bastar Tribals Build Bamboo ‘Jugaad’ Bridges to Cross Monsoon Streams

Raipur: The bamboo bridges built over wild streams and small rivers to connect villages in remote Bastar in Chhattisgarh during the monsoon showcases age-old tribal traditional engineering knowledge of the local tribals.

The bamboo structures are built with ‘military precision’ with their designs matching the drawing of the modern concrete bridges.

“Like modern bridge designs, the building of bamboo bridges requires engineering skill. The bridge stands over pillars, built inside the river or wild streams”, Dileshwar Kanjami, a native of Kahar village in Narayanpur district in south Bastar told this newspaper on Monday.

The tribal traditional knowledge came to light with Bastar opening to the world following the decline of Leftwing extremism.

The pillars are built by creating huge circular baskets, made of bamboo strips, inside the river. The baskets are supported by wooden logs around it which function as poles. The hallowed baskets are then filled tightly with stone gravel.

The pillars can withstand the high current of flooded rivers and streams during monsoon.

At least three-four such pillars are built inside the river and heavy long logs are tightly fixed to these pillars to make the bamboo bridges, Dileswar, who along with the fellow villagers built such a bridge in their village, said.

The stream on which the bamboo bridge has been built is downstream of the famed Handawada waterfall around 12 km from the village.

The village falls under Abujhmad area.

“It requires a workforce of more than 1,000 villagers drawn from three-four surrounding villages to build the bridge. The workforce is divided and assigned the tasks such as collecting bamboos from the forest and stripping them, crushing the stones to make gravels, and cutting tree logs.

Then the workforce jointly builds the pillars and finally the bridge, Jhunki Kadki, another villager said.

Such bamboo bridges are built to connect the villages to facilitate the locals to visit the nearby weekly tribal markets during the monsoon.

In fact, the bridges are so strong that the villagers can ride the two-wheelers on them.

The height of the bridge is decided on the basis of the perceived water level of the river or streams, gained during the monsoon, Dileswar said.

“It takes at least a week to complete a bridge. The lifespan of a bamboo bridge is one year. Every monsoon, a new bamboo bridge is built," Guddu Nurratti, a government school teacher in Orchha in Narayanpur district, told this newspaper.

Such bamboo bridges are found almost in all the riverine villages in remote Bastar, he added.