After one year, land has again started to cave in at Dhepaguda village of Raikia block in Kandhamal district in Odisha causing panic among its inhabitants.
Four days ago, all of a sudden a large hole, around 10-foot in diameter, appeared in the middle of the road in this village in Indragada panchayat. Th hole is about six-foot deep. In September 2015, similar caving in had been reported from four places in Dhepaguda. Those holes were also large and over five-foot deep. One of them was 60-foot in diameter and another was 20-foot wide.
Following the appearance of these holes last year, the administration had decided to rehabilitate 35 families of Dhepaguda at Indragada one km away. Speaking to The Hindu , Raikia BDO Sarbeswar Singh said a team of experts had studied this sudden caving in last year. The experts had concluded that a water channel flows under this village. During the rainy season, its flow increases causing erosion leading to such occurrences. “As it would be hard to check this natural phenomenon, it was decided to rehabilitate all the inhabitants of the village”, said Mr Singh.
But till now 35 families of Dhepaguda have not shifted to Indragada. Houses for them are being constructed from State Disaster Rehabilitation Fund (SDRF). Eighteen of the houses have been constructed till the roof. It is expected that by the end of this year, all houses would get completed and all the 35 families would be shifted to Indragada.
At present, these families are spending their days at their village near their agricultural land. But spend the nights at a school and Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendra premises at Indragada.
