Tekam Sone Rao, the patel or headman of Burki, the remote Kolam tribe habitation in Adilabad district, looked puzzled when he was asked about water supply through Mission Bhagiratha. He is unaware of the massive drinking water project and he is worried about the impending drinking water shortage that the Kolams face every monsoon.
“Water from the stream inundates the well,” he pointed out towards an open well dug in 1986 on the edge of the local hill stream thereby introducing to a plethora of problems which remoteness has brought to his habitation. Burki, is perhaps one village which is least served by the government.
It is a hamlet of 30 Kolam families in Asoda gram panchayat, the tribe being categorised as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group, located right in the midst of a degraded forest in the uplands close to the border of Adilabad rural mandal with Indervelli. It can be reached only through a trek on a treacherous dirt track dug in the hillocks, about 5 km from Ankoli Kolamguda, which itself is 11 km from the district headquarters.
Difficult trek
“We are unable to get Santosh treated for his strange illness because we cannot take him to Adilabad frequently,” observed Mr. Sone Rao as he broached of problems related with access to health services. Young Santosh is a Class III student of Tribal Welfare Primary School, Pothaguda, suffering from some as yet undiagnosed illness in the urinary tract since the last two years. “Passing urine is absolutely painful for him,” pointed out Tekam Moksha, a village elder. A quack visits the village periodically and evidently administers pain killers which provides relief until its effect lasts, he added.
There are about 20 children who have no access to anganwadi or primary school. About 40 villagers are wage seekers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme but there was no evidence of any work having been done under it in or around the village when The Hindu visited it.
While some of the Kolam families make bamboo articles, all of them cumulatively till about 100 acres of land, their land holding being between 2 and 4 acre per family.
Access to market
The chief crops in the lands — some of which have revenue and Forest Rights Act pattas — is cotton, redgram and jowar but they face difficulty in accessing market owing to the remoteness of their village.
Though Burki has power supplied from Indervelli sub-station, the Adivasis complained about unending outages especially in the monsoon and about staff which does not respond for months together. They want the district administration to resolve the issue of inaction by the power staff.