Tribal Welfare Engineering officials in Visakhapatnam conduct survey for road to Jajulabandha

Deputy Executive Engineer B. Raghunath Naidu and Assistant Executive Engineer Ch. Ramakrishna of the Tribal Welfare Department of Chintapalli on Thursday inspected a kutcha road to Jajulabandha, on the directions of the ASR District Collector.

“They trekked for 2 km as part of the inspection,” CPI(M) district executive committee member K. Govinda Rao, who led the team, said.

It may be mentioned that an article headlined ‘10-day-old baby dies after lack of road gets in the way of timely medical care’ and another report on ‘Mother, newborn taken to ambulance in doli’ (The Hindu, Jan. 2) in these columns on Thursday. The Hindu has been consistently reporting on the travails of the tribal people due to lack of roads and electricity, and the ordeal faced by pregnant women and sick persons while being shifted in ‘dolis’ (makeshift palanquins) to the nearest accessible road from where they would be taken to hospital in ambulances.

It may be recalled that the Anakapalli District Collector Vijaya Krishnan had issued proceedings on December 2, 2024, according administrative sanction of ₹6.60 crore for two roads, one from Arla to Pithrigedda village of Rolugunta mandal and another from Z. Jogumpeta to Nerellabandha of Cheemalapadu village of Ravikamatham mandal. Ms. Vijaya Krishnan noted that 75% of the funds, i.e., ₹4.95 crore, would be under MGNREGS and 25%, i₹1.65 crore would be under convergence share.

She had directed the District Panchayat Raj Engineering Officer (DPREO), Anakapalli, to ground the works within one month and complete execution of work by March 2025.

“A gravel road was sanctioned in the past but only 3 km of road was completed while the remaining 3 km could not be done due to steep gradient, which required chaninging of the alignment. The area falls partially under Anakapalli and partially under Alluri Sitharama Raju (ASR) districts. Now as a BT road has been sanctioned from Arla to Pithrigedda, we plan to connect the 1-km road from Pithrigedda to Jajulabandha with a BT road at an estimated cost of ₹1 crore,” Deputy Executive Engineer B. Raghunath Naidu told The Hindu, when contacted on Thursday evening.