MALKANGIRI : In Malkangiri’s Khairput block, development continues to be a mirage. Confined by rigid topography, Chepulpada, Boraguda, Dhemsapadar and Baliamba - four tribal-dominated villages - still escape government’s attention and development coverage. Cut off from various welfare schemes, even basic amenities fail to reach over the 100 resident families here.
For these villagers, its a day-long trek across hilly terrains, just to get ration items under the Public Distribution System. The PDS outlet at Kadamguda panchayat needs a walk for at least 8-10 km. Not a single elected representative or government official has bothered to visit their villages, they allege.
Steeped in poverty, illiteracy and backwardness, these villages do not even have access to basic provisions like clean drinking water, health, education, Anganwadi centre and road connectivity. So much so that villagers are forced to use pits and other contaminated water bodies for domestic purposes and resort to carrying patients on cots over long distances in absence of roads.
Even children have to depend on one common village school for their basic education as the tales of neglect abound. Though the Government spends crores of rupees for socio-economic upliftment for tribal villages, the same seem to have lost on the road to development.