District Election Officer and Collector K. Megaraj, along with officials, trekked 10 km to inspect arrangements at a polling station located at Kedamalai village in the Rasipuram Assembly constituency on Wednesday.
Located 1,200 metres above sea level in the Southern Eastern Ghats at Keelur panchayat in Rasipuram Taluk, the village has 322 electors, including 155 women electors. Nested in the Pudupatti reserved forest area, Mr. Megaraj and officials started from the foothills of Jambuthumalai at 7.30 a.m. and reached the village at 10.30 a.m. covering 5 km. The Collector inspected the arrangements at the Government Tribal Residential Primary School and also explained to the people how to cast their vote in the electronic voting machine. Functioning of the VVPAT was also demonstrated to the villagers and later, the team started their return journey and reached the foothills at 1.30 p.m.
Two other villages, Melur and Keelur, were also located in the hill that has a total of 899 electors. One has to trek for another three hours from Kedamalai to reach these villages. Election officials said that only two polling stations, Kedamalai and Melur, were located at the hilltop and poll materials were carried as head loads.
The demand for a road is yet to to be met, and people have continue to reach their villages on foot all these years. In January, 2018, the District Level Committee under Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act, 2006, approved a proposal submitted by the Vennanthur Block Development Officer for the formation of block-topping road from Pudupatti to Kedamalai through the reserve forest and from Vadugam to Melur under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. A total of 2.71 hectares and 5.96 hectares of forest land respectively were required for the project. An application has been submitted for forest clearance with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
