Koraput Diary - reflections & insights from the tribal land of Koraput

With the beginning of this New Year we are completing almost six months at Koraput. These initial days were filled with excitement and zeal to do something new and better in the district. The topography and difficult terrain of the district does provide an interesting opportunity to work amongst the tribal communities.

Within this period we visited a number of places, met a number of people from different backgrounds to expose myself as much as possible to the various issues and challenges concerning this region. We have had series of meetings with civil society groups. We had discussions with journalists, academicians & researchers. We tried visiting some of the interior pockets of the district which coincidentally happen to be the stronghold of our ‘bhai log’ (as naxals are usually known in this region) to get a first-hand understanding of the ground reality.

As known to everyone Koraput has remained as one of the most backward districts of the country with poverty rates as high as 90 percent. Historic exploitation of the tribals coupled with administrative negligence (we don’t mean negligence by the district administration only but also by the State) has made the situation worse. Our interaction with all stakeholders and my exposure to ground reality reaffirms our thought that many core issues affecting the tribal communities that have not been addressed ever since independence, whether it is the recognition of their customary rights, or access to productive assets such as land, market and credit.

 

From all my interactions and visits so far few things stand out very prominent; first being the gap between the administration and the people in the region and second being the mismatch between the real need of the people and our planning process. These two major issues have been manifested in many different ways as described below.

As we were trying to glance through the budget of the district over the past few years, we were surprised to see the proportion of money being spent on connectivity related infrastructure (mainly roads) and very little on improving the lives of the people. Roads, despite being a critical factor for improving lives, cannot alone bring change in the lives unless supplemented with substantial investments to improve the delivery of basic services, which has not happened.

Second prominent issue is the land-livelihood issue. As official statistics reveal that only 20 percent of the total population is landless but the actual scenario is completely different & grave. Thousands are yet to see their land patta even though official records have their mention, many of them who have been lucky to get the patta find it difficult to identify their land in absence of proper demarcation and there are many who are waiting to get their land surveyed and registered in their name. In the absence of any productive asset people depend on the forest or migrate to work elsewhere for pittance.

Third is the administrative deficiency in matching the planning process with the real need of the people. There is a gap between the administration and the common tribal man. As a result the needs and aspiration seldom get addressed or even heard in the planning process. The recently concluded Gram Sabha Empowerment Programme of the State Government does bring in a positive hope, where probably for the first time Gram Sabha was conducted in its true sense across the state.

Fourth, as we are trying to understand the banquet of schemes being implemented, each and every day we get new learnings and insights both positive and negative in nature. While we see the success of MGNREGA in various places we are pained by the misuse of funds in many places. In some places you get to see beautiful IAY colonies on the other hand you will come across hundreds of cases where the beneficiary had to bribe the issuing clerk and other officials or the local MLA pressurizing the officials to include his supporters in the IAY list.

While many of the problems can be solved locally there are many problems which need policy level changes at different tiers. One very clear case is MGNREGA. All of us every now and then do hear about the delay in payment among the many other complaints. But if one critically analyses the fund flow process then it won’t be very difficult to realize that the sheer design of the programme has been on a supply driven mode instead of being demand driven in much contradiction to the high decibel rhetoric of our politicians.

Left Wing Extremism or in plain words Naxalism is a completely different arena all together. While, like many of you we do believe that it is not a law and order problem but my limited experience in these region makes us to feel that it is slowly turning out to be one soon! This statement is not devoid of our understanding of their demands which are genuine including the demand for land for the tribals, which have remain unaddressed till date nevertheless this cannot be superimposed with extortion and rampant violence which is on the rise.

While our daily schedule involves undertaking review and monitoring visits, attending various meetings and brainstorming with the collector, our focus has been to find answers to the questions of poverty, deprivation and backwardness.

We are trying to explore things as much as possible with the limited resource available. Weather is extremely good round the year as Koraput stands at an altitude of 2900 sq.ft. The region is endowed with natural beauty and thus Koraput is truly Heaven’s own (as the tagline goes...).

Kuldip & Omprakash