KASARAGOD: Pradeep, 24, and his fully pregnant wife Yakshita, 20, of Delampady have been spending sleeping nights for the past three days. Doctors have said Yakshita is anaemic and may need blood at the time of labour. "She is in pain and if anything happens in the night, we will be in big trouble," said Pradeep’s elder brother Prashant (25), a rubber tapper.
“Our nearest hospital is in Puttur in Karnataka, and we cannot go there. There is no good road to reach Kerala either,” said Prashant. Karnataka Police have unloaded truckloads of laterite mud on all four roads to Delampady in the name of Covid-19 lockdown.
In Delampady grama panchayat, four wards -- Ujampady (ward no. 1), Delampady (2), Parappa (3), and Mayyala (16) -- and half of Pallangod ward (15) share their borders with Karnataka. All these wards are on the left side of the Cherkala-Panchikal road cutting through a Parappa reserve forest “This is the only road to reach these wards from Kerala side,” said panchayat president Musthafa A.
And this road, about 1.6 km, is not motorable by cars or two-wheelers, he said. "This road can be manoeuvred only with jeeps," he said.
The decision of Karnataka Police to unload mud on the four roads have disrupted the lives of 5,500 people in the five wards, said Musthafa, who represents Ujampady ward. Delampady ward member Aithappad Naika said people of his ward go to Eshwaramangala, 6km inside Karnataka, for their weekly shopping. For hospitals, they depend on Puttur, 25km away.
In Delampady, there are four small grocery shops. All the shops have run out of stock. “We stock food provisions only for three days and then we buy from Eshwaramangala,” said Sreedhara Gowda, who owns Karthik General Store. “But my stock of rice and vegetables ran out three days ago,” he said.
The ration shop, bank, post office, and village office are in Parappa. “But to reach Parappa, they have to enter Karnataka,” Musthafa said. Adoor, the panchayat headquarters, is 15km away, and is cut off.
The situation is similar in Enmakaje, another border grama panchayat. Kerala and Karnataka are intertwined in Saya and Chawarkad, the first two wards in the panchayat.
The west side of Cherkala-Vitla state highway is Kerala and the east side is in Karnataka. “But the Karnataka Police locked the gate at Saradka,” said Asok, a resident. For 700 residents in the area, there is no other road, and people on either side of Saradka are stranded, he said. They cannot access even the primary health centre, which is in Perla, he said.
