Residents of Kareri village in Himachal Pradesh's Shahpur Assembly constituency have finally received their first regular HRTC bus service — 79 years after Independence. The long-awaited service was flagged off by Shahpur MLA and Chief Whip Kewal Singh Pathania, who described it as the outcome of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's recent visit to Boh Valley.
Decades of commuting hardship end for Kareri villagers
The bus service ends a long-pending demand that remained unfulfilled for decades. Until now, villagers were dependent on private transport and faced considerable difficulties in commuting to and from the remote region.
According to United News of India, residents accorded a warm welcome to Pathania and thanked him for facilitating the service. The MLA said he had been making efforts for the past three years to connect Kareri with a regular bus service.
Difficult terrain delayed bus connectivity for years
The delay in connecting Kareri was not for lack of effort. Pathania explained that the difficult geographical terrain had prevented earlier attempts from succeeding. The challenging landscape of the region made it hard to establish a regular transport link.
As reported by YouTube, the arrival of the bus service in Kareri village was met with joy, with villagers celebrating the historic moment. The 28-seater HRTC bus is now set to serve the picturesque and remote region on a regular basis.
What this bus service means for Kareri residents
For the people of Kareri, this bus service is more than just a vehicle — it is a lifeline. Regular public transport will make daily commuting easier for students, patients, and workers who previously had to rely on expensive or unreliable private options.
- The bus service connects Kareri to the wider Shahpur constituency network
- It was flagged off following Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's recent visit to Boh Valley
- MLA Pathania had been pushing for this connectivity for the past three years
Our Take: A reminder of how far India still has to go
To put it plainly, this is a happy story — but it is also a sobering one. A village receiving its first bus service 79 years after Independence is a celebration, but it also shows how uneven development has been across the country. While some regions have modern highways and rapid transit, remote areas like Kareri have waited nearly eight decades for a basic public bus.
Credit must go to MLA Kewal Singh Pathania for persisting with the demand for three years, and to Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu for acting on his visit to Boh Valley. But the bigger question is: how many more Kareris are still waiting? This should push governments at all levels to prioritise connectivity for remote villages — not as a favour, but as a basic right of citizenship.
For the residents of Kareri, the wait is finally over. For the rest of India, this moment should serve as a reminder that the work of building an equal nation is far from complete.