Finally, road connectivity for the remotest tribal hamlet

₹9.87 crore has been sanctioned under the PMGSY scheme

As far as 36 families of Attappady’s primitive tribe of Kurumba community in the Idavani hamlet are concerned, reaching the nearest primary health centre involves a tedious trek through difficult forest terrains for about 16 km.

Encircled by dense forests and cut off from the rest of the world by Varagar, a tributary of the east-flowing Bhavani, Edavani is the remotest among 183 tribal settlements in Attappady.

Whenever a child or an aged inmate falls sick, the residents make bamboo hammocks to take them to the health-care facilities at the grama panchayat headquarters in Pudur by traversing the foothills where wild bears pull down rocks from the nearby hillocks. So, a motorable road remained a long-pending demand of Idavani, one of the 19 hamlets of the Kurumbas where even electricity continues to be a mirage.

“The dream of Idavani is going to be a reality in the near future with the road proposal getting official clearance under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). A sum of ₹9.87 crore has been sanctioned under the scheme for the forest road with a length of 7.221 km,” says Palakkad’s Lok Sabha member M.B. Rajesh. According to him, the approved road stretch will connect the settlement with Aralikonam in Pudur panchayat, from where a road is already in existence.

Rajesh’s effort

The clearance for the road proposal is the culmination of two years of continuous effort by Mr. Rajesh, who spent about two hours to trek through the forests to reach the hamlet for the first time on September 16, 2015. According to village resident Nagan, Rajesh was the first elected people’s representative to visit the remotest hamlet by walking through the difficult terrains.

“The police and forest officials had advised me against visiting the hamlet citing possible Maoist presence. However, I chose to visit the hamlet accompanied by a set of social workers and political activists,” said Mr. Rajesh. The tribal people received him by offering steam-baked tapioca and green chilly chutney.

“It took a lot of efforts to include the road project in the PMGSY. Officials initially refused to revise the already completed list of roads under the PMGSY. Lots of persuasion were required in Thiruvananthapuram and Delhi,” said Mr. Rajesh.

Mr. Rajesh, who adopted Pudur grama panchayat under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana of the Union government, is planning a set of developmental initiatives for the Kurumba village and they include its concerns over electricity, education, health care and livelihood.

In general, the Kurumbas are on the decline in Attappady. Among the 1,740 tribal families in Pudur panchayat, only 553 are Kurumbas, with 1,090 men and 992 women. Agali panchayat has no Kurumbas while Sholayur has only 13 Kurumba men and 11 women.