Tribal Women Allege Road Fund Fraud

Visakhapatnam: Adivasi women from Anantagiri mandal, Pedakota Panchayat and the remote hilltop villages of Cheedivalasa, Patipalli and Bandakonda have alleged that bills worth `1,93,41,000 were cleared by the authorities for the Granular Sub Base (GSB) metal road work project --from Pattam Road to Bandakonda via Cheedivalasa and Patipalli -- even as the GSB road works remain incomplete.

They alleged misappropriation of funds, wrote a letter to the ASR district collector, staged a dharna and demanded that the GSB road facility be completed immediately.

Two tribal women -- Korra Jyoti and Gamela Chilakamma from Cheedivalasa village -- told Deccan Chronicle that a former tribal welfare executive engineer Sabbavarapu Srinivas Rao, who is currently working as an engineer-in-chief of tribal welfare at Vijayawada, cleared the bills for a road.

They demanded a thorough investigation into the works done or not done during Srinivasa Rao's tenure.

In Cheedivalasa, Patipalli, and Bandakonda, 130 families and 519 tribals live. In these hilltop villages, humans cannot do earthwork. Therefore, the state government allocated `19.40 lakh for the first phase of the road, `27 lakh for the second phase, and `9 lakh for the third phase of the road.

The money was sanctioned from the EducationInfrastructure (EI) funds sanctioned under GO-99 on November 28, 2017, due to which road laying started.

The joint district collector issued orders on Nov 25, 2020, to complete the road work for these remote villages. With this, the work on the first phase of the road was initiated from Pattam Road to Cheedivalasa, and the second phase was undertaken from Cheedivalasa to Patipally to swiftly complete the road facilities for these remote villages.

In the third phase, a `2.15 crore budget was allocated under MGNREGA to construct a 6km GSB metal road from Patipalli’s adjoining Bandakonda. Despite these efforts, three villages still don't have proper roads.

On April 8, a nine-month pregnant woman, Killo Vasantha, gave birth to a baby on the road while walking to the hospital because the ambulance could not reach on time due to lack of road.

After this incident, the ASR district collector ordered Ananthagiri MRO and Tribal Welfare Mandal's engineering officer to send a report. The duo stated in their report that work was partially done and money was drawn.

After reporting to the collector, Bandakonda villagers were paid `10,000 through phone pay (UPI) and asked to remove weeds on the muddied paths.

In this background, the adivasi tribes of three villages complained to the collector and organised a protest.

Killo Nageswarao, the former vice sarpanch of Chedivalasa, said, “Only the earthwork had been done with machines, while the records showed that GSB metal and CC ramp works were completed and bills worth `1,93,41,000 had been drawn.”