Tribal people laying a road in Alluri Sitharama Raju district of Andhra Pradesh.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Troubled by the lack of road access and vexed by the delay by government agencies in laying a road, the residents of a hilltop tribal hamlet in Alluri Sitharama Raju (ASR) district have decided to address the issue themselves.

About 200 tribal people came together and toiled for five days to form a three-kilometre kutcha road stretch from Gummanthi to Dayarthi village.

In 2022, ₹1.5 crore was sanctioned by the then Collector of erstwhile Visakhapatnam district A. Mallikarjuna under NREGS for laying of a seven-km B.T. from Ballagaruvu to Dayarathi, which is yet to see the light of the day. Ballagaruvu is the downhill village from where people of hillltop villages can reach other places. Gummanthi is in between, at a distance of three km.

About 110 families belonging Kondh, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), with a population of 450 live on the hilltop village of Dayarthi. There are 11 villages in the surroundings, with a total population of 2,000, under the purview of Pedakota, Pinakota and Jeenabadu panchayats of Anantagiri mandal in the district.

A road was constructed by the Tribal Welfare Department from Ballagaruvu to Gummanthi at a cost of ₹38 lakh during 2018-19 but it was washed away due to heavy rains. In 2022, funds to the tune of ₹1.50 crore were sanctioned to the Panchayat Raj Department for laying of a gravel road.

Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan laid the foundation for the construction of a road from Gummanthi to Rachakilam via Reddipalem on December 22, 2024. He also inspected a

1-km stretch between Ballagaruvu and Dayarthi.

Tribal people say that only when the Ballagaruvu-Dayarthi road is completed, the Gummanthi-Rachakilam road will become accessible to them.

Difficult terrain

The NRGS road project did not make any headway even after the visit of the ASR district Collector and the ITDA Project Officer to Dayarthi village some time back and it was increasingly becoming difficult for the tribal people to carry sick persons, pregnant women and old people in dolis on the treacherous hilly terrain to hospitals in emergency situations as an ambulance cannot reach their village in the absence of a road.

After forming the 3-km stretch of kutcha road, which was completed on Thursday, the villagers of Dayarthi demand sanction of funds for completion of the remaining stretch of road to link the hilltop villages without any further delay.

Jeenabadu panchayat Ward Member Sidiri Anand, a local resident S. Somanna and CPI(M) district executive member K. Govinda Rao have appealed to the government to ensure early completion of the road, which has been pending for over two years.