The Raj Gonds of Mallapur, now in Sirikonda mandal of Adilabad district, are planning to relocate one of these days, as the government continues to ignore their plea for reverting their village to the Indervelli mandal, which it was a part of, prior to reorganisation of mandals in September 2016.
“Instead of travelling 7 km to Indervelli, we are forced to travel 20 km to Sirikonda mandal headquarters, even for trivial matters. We are wasting energy, time and money for no fault of ours,” pointed out an irked headman or patel of Mallapur, Durva Raju.
It seems like officials took a hasty decision, in a bid to meet the deadline and the specification of population limit, while creating the new mandals. They clubbed Mallapur and Dharmasagar villages with Sirikonda despite there being no geographical rationale, overriding the objection and pleas of about 86 and 100 families living there.
“We represented the matter to Indervelli Tahsildar on September 5, 2016, well in advance of the inauguration of the new entities. This was followed by representations to the Revenue Divisional Officer, Utnoor and Adilabad Member of Parliament G. Nagesh,” recalled Pusam Anand Rao, former sarpanch.
“On September 13, two days after inauguration of the new mandal, we took out a protest rally and staged a rasta roko at Mutnoor. All the six ward members of the gram panchayat, hailing from the two villages, had resigned in protest,” he added.
In June, the Adivasis met the then Collector Buddha Prakash M. Jyoti, who forwarded their representation to the government. Pursuing the matter at the Secretariat level too has not helped the cause of the villagers.
“We will shift our village about 200 metres to the west to be able to be under the limits of Gourapur gram. This gram panchayat is in Indervelli mandal,” asserted the patel, after a group of villagers identified suitable land for shifting all the households.
Meanwhile, Adilabad Collector D. Divya has assured that the matter will be taken up with the government. “In fact, we are making a list of places with similar problems to apprise the government of the same,” she said.
