After living in an area that has been isolated for nearly six decades, surrounded by water on three sides across the Balimela reservoir, over 30,000 tribals in the backward Malkangiri district are set to finally have a bridge that will connect them to mainland Odisha by road. This will end decades of isolation that helped Maoists retain their last bastion here.
The Gurupriya bridge is the dream project of the Odisha government. It was planned at Janbai to connect the area to the Chitrakonda-Janbai-Papermetla route. It will be opened to traffic once experts from the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), who inspected the bridge recently, submit the safety audit report to the State government.
Ferried by boats
For over 50 years, those living in the 151 villages have had to travel by boats or motor launches for up to 60 km from the Chitrakonda jetty to Jantri, the last ferry point inside the reservoir.
The cut-off area, partially connected by land to Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh on one side, was created when the Machhkund dam was built in the 1940s, and then the Balimela dam in the 1960s.
Though both were hydroelectric projects, people in the area lived without electricity till the then Collector of Malkangiri, R. Vineel Krishna, decided to provide electricity to some villages in February 2011.
Mr. Krishna, who holds three key positions in Bhubaneswar, was kidnapped by the Maoists when he went to the villages to ensure power supply. He was released after nine days in captivity. Among the Maoists accused in the abduction case, two have been convicted while a few have been killed in encounters.
In another incident, the Maoists, who made the cut-off area their bastion for over two decades, had ambushed a motorised boat in which the Greyhound jawans from Andhra Pradesh were returning after an unsuccessful combing operation in the Balimela reservoir in June 2008. At least 38 persons, including 35 jawans, were killed in this attack, while 26 jawans managed to swim to safety.
It has taken 32 years for the bridge to move from concept to reality. The planning for construction of the bridge over the Gurupriya river began in 1986. Several attempts were made in subsequent years, without success; there were no bidders when the Odisha government and the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways called for tenders, given both the technical and logistical challenges.
The bridge spans 910 metres, with around 240 metres running over depths of between 70 and 90 feet. The inaccessibility of the site, including the risk from Maoists, was another factor.
The work was awarded to Gammon India in 2006, but made little progress. The government’s attempt to engage Garden Reach Shipbuilders also failed.
After six bidding attempts, the State government finally awarded the work in 2014 to Royal Infraconstru Ltd under an Engineering, Procurement and Construction contract.
In three and half years, the agency has completed construction of the bridge with BSF protection. Two BSF companies, one on each side, guarded the construction. While this security arrangement will remain in place, the bridge, including all its pillars, has been illuminated and brought under CCTV surveillance to detect any attempt at sabotage.
District Collector of Malkangiri, Manish Agarwal, told The Hindu that with the bridge, the 151 villages will lose the 'cut-off area’ tag. “Till now it was only waterway connectivity from Odisha side. The land connectivity will help ease movement of man and material and speed up the development process,” he said.