Roads have always been a perennial issue in Visakha agency, which is a part of the Visakhapatnam district, comprising about 6,200 sq km of hilly terrain, in the Eastern Ghats.
As per the records, there are about 3,637 tribal habitats and of them about 1,136 are not connected with any form of motorable roads, since Independence.
The tribal people of these villages have been facing a number of issues, including access to good health care and education. In a number of villages, they carry the sick in makeshift ‘dolis’ to the nearest PHC (public health centres), after a gruelling trek of 10-20 km, at times.
LWE
It is not that the district administration is not keen on building roads, but it is vehemently being opposed by the banned CPI (Maoist), says Kilo Surendra of Girijan Sangham.
The banned LWE (left wing extremists) have been present in the agency since late 1980s and to keep their hold in the interior parts of tribal areas, they have been opposing the construction of roads.
According to the Superintendent of Police, Visakhapatnam, whenever the administration tried to build a road, the contractors were attacked and the equipment destroyed.
The region will benefit from the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana which has allocated about ₹82,000 crore for construction of roads in rural and tribal areas to the tune of 1.2 lakh km, he says. "But now things are changing and we have made inroads in the interior parts and some key areas are being connected," he adds.
Poor condition
While some areas are not connected, the areas that are connected have issues with the condition of the roads.
Being a hilly terrain, flash floods are common during the monsoon. Many roads get washed away and some are badly damaged, making travel a difficult proposition. The bad road condition combined with steep gradients and sharp bends make the roads vulnerable to accidents.
Every year, the agency areas record over 100 accidents, with about 70 to 80 fatalities and injuries to over 300.
There have been a number of incidents in the recent past, when the tribals themselves took up the onus of constructing a road. The residents of Devarapalli have constructed a 15-km road from Chedimetta to Devarapalli, in Anantagiri mandal.
