Semiliguda: The Andhra Pradesh government has been intruding into the bordering Kotia and Nandapur villages in Koraput district, now it the neighbouring state is trespassing into Pandriambaguda of Sadam panchayat in this district taking advantage of the gap left by its counterpart.
It is luring the people of this village by providing them drinking water facilities. While there is a distance of two kilometres between two panchayats, it is situated on Odisha-Andhra Pradesh border.
It drinking water project has been built by Infosys and Bisakha district Nav Nirman Samiti with a cost of Rs 5 lakh. In a signboard, Andhra government has named Pandriambaguda as Pandrimamidi and included it as a village of Vishakhapatna district. The village comprises of 80 families and 370 people. The Andhra government started construction of the drinking water project in March, 2018 and fished the work in May last year.
Semiliguda BDO Trinath Majhi said he had personally visited Pandriambaguda. Odisha government has provided all necessary facilities in the village, he said.
He also denied the reports of the drinking water project built by Andhra Pradesh. He said that the reports are false.
On the other hand, in a bid to save the villagers of Kotia from alienation and from getting drawn to Andhra Pradesh, the district rural development department has started constructing a road between Kotia and Dhulipadar village in Kotia panchayat.
Earlier, a concrete road from Neredibalsa to Dhulipadar was built by the Andhra Pradesh government. However, sources claimed that the Odisha government would expand the road. The road connectivity would boost the gram panchayat’s development.
Eyeing the villages, the Andhra government had started reaching out to them a few years ago by taking up development projects in the panchayat by constructing roads, ensuring power supply, establishing Anganwadis, distributing PDS cards and old age pensions to the villagers. Later, the Odisha government had announced a Rs 150-crore package for overall development of the gram panchayat. Following which, the road construction work has started. Similarly, bus services to the mineral-rich Kotia gram panchayat were also started in January last year.
PNN
