A family at Gudipadara village in Ganjam district. (Express Photo: Sampad Patnaik)
Annamma Soboro has been living in Gudipadara village of Ganjam district for as long as she can remember. “My husband is dead. I have no children to care for me,” she says. But three separate district administrations, under two state governments, are now competing to look after her.
Annamma’s Aadhaar card says she is 36, and a resident of Gudikhola village in Srikakulum district of Andhra Pradesh. Her ration card says she is 50, and a resident of Gangabada village in Rayagada block of Gajapati district, Odisha. Her voter identity card says she is 64, and a resident of Gudikhala village under Buratal gram panchayat of Patrapur block in Ganjam district. She says she avails ration items from both states.
Her neighbour, Trinath Sabara, pays his electricity bills to the Andhra Pradesh government. But he says his house, which has an “Andhra meter”, is located in Odisha. Another resident, Chandramma Sabara, occasionally receives rice from Odisha; her Aadhaar card lists her as an Andhra resident.
Living in poverty, Annamma, Trinath, Chandramma, and people in Buratal and Tumba gram panchayats of Ganjam receive multiple benefits using different government identity cards. As migrants in search of work, these villagers stay in other places for a few months, and register in government schemes. Meanwhile, both Odisha and Andhra have included these villagers as voters.
“We voted in Odisha (local elections in 2017). We had earlier voted in Andhra (in 2013),” said Trinath Sabara. “Officials come to our village, take us to the voting booth, and we vote.”
Activists working in the two panchayats allege the Srikakulam district administration’s largesse, in Odisha’s border villages, may not be only to add more voters to Andhra’s rolls. “They may also be trying to encroach into the catchment area of the Bahuda and Mahendratanaya rivers, and claim the Kalinga Dal dam. The villages on the Odisha side hardly receive water, even though their side gets most of the rain,” said Rabindra Nath Patra, an activist in the area. “Benefits of the [Kalinga Dal] project are already being enjoyed by Andhra border villages, while the catchment area belongs to Odisha. Andhra says there is an old agreement to this effect, but we have been unable to find the relevant paperwork,” said a source in Ganjam’s collectorate.
“We will soon provide an electricity connection and a water project for the area,” said Berhempur sub-collector Siddharth Shankar Swain, who visited Buratal and Tumba earlier this month to hear out locals’ grievances.
Aside from Ganjam, 21 of Koraput’s 28 villages under Kotia gram panchayat are facing a similar situation. Vizianagaram collector Vivek Yadav visited the area to oversee Andhra’s schemes in January, citing “whether Kotia belongs to Andhra or Odisha is not yet decided”. Andhra has started a mobile ambulance project, health camps, and road construction in the areas. Locals have been distributed government identity cards, indicating residency in Andhra.
The Odisha government had gone to the Supreme Court in 1968 to settle the dispute whether Kotia belongs to Odisha or Andhra. After the court disposed of the suit in 2006, saying Parliament was empowered to settle the issue, it also dismissed Odisha’s review petition, but sources in the revenue department say they will seek fresh legal opinion.
“Odisha government reports have previously indicated significant gold and chromium deposits in the area,” said a source in Koraput district administration. “There is a Suna Pahara (Mountain of Gold) roughly 8 km from Nardavalsa village. While extraction is not viable at present, the land may have immense value.”
Adding to the lack of development in Koraput’s mineral rich borders, lack of community recognition has sown anger against Odisha government. In Odisha’s 2014 assembly elections, roughly 40,000 people in the area refused to vote, demanding tribal status from the state government. People in the area say they continued the boycott during the 2017 panchayat elections. However, some of them say they have voted in Andhra elections.
“We are proud Odiyas, though the government has ignored us,” said Trinath Gamel, secretary of Koraput Zilla Bana Basi Maha Sangha, the association that spearheaded the boycott. “From 1918-50, we were recognised as hill tribes. From 1950-93, we were put under the general category. And post 1993, we have been designated OBCs by Odisha. We have no benefits from the government. Our literacy rate is around 5 per cent. We demand recognition as STs because of our language Nukka Dora, which is specifically tribal. Our counterparts living in Andhra have been classified as STs. Why, not us?”
“We run our development and social schemes in these areas. Government is examining the matter [regarding Andhra’s parallel schemes],” said Dr Chandra Shekhar Kumar, Odisha’s principal secretary (revenue and disaster management) and the state’s highest ranking official overseeing the matter.
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