The promise of a bridge to development in Odisha’s Kalahandi

What does a person do when someone they love is fighting for life? It goes down to instinct: call an ambulance, rush to a hospital, and entrust them to trained medical professionals. In N. Podapadar gram panchayat in Odisha’s Kalahandi district, that instinct collides with geography and despair.

Here, a medical emergency begins not with a phone call but with a trek. Someone must trek up a hill or two in search of a flicker of mobile network to dial an ambulance. Then comes the scramble to tie together a rope cot into a makeshift stretcher. The sick person is lifted and carried for up to 8 kilometres to the edge of a vast sheet of water – the Indravati reservoir.

A government-run boat ambulance may be waiting to ferry the patient across. If not, they wait, praying for the lone boat that serves 16 marooned villages. And if the crisis strikes at night, hope thins further.

Raisingh Majhi, the sarpanch of N. Podapadar, speaks of this reality almost matter-of-factly: “This is the cursed life we are condemned to, for sacrificing our land to the Indravati reservoir. This project turned the drought-prone Kalahandi into a green belt, now one of the country’s largest rice-producing regions.”

Majhi narrates how 16 villages tucked away in different hills got surrounded by water in the late 1990s after the irrigation project began to take shape. These villages received electricity only about a decade ago and have little access to formal education. About 3,000 villagers belonging to N. Podapadar panchayat have been surrounded by the vast water of Indravati reservoir for the last 30-odd years.

Project and the islands

The Upper Indravati Hydroelectric Project (UIHEP) is a large multi-purpose river valley project. Its foundation was laid by then Prime Minister Morarji Desai in 1978 at Mukhiguda of Kalahandi district. In the 1970s and 1980s, child trafficking and recurring droughts had given Kalahandi the dubious identity of being one of India’s poorest regions.

The project, approved by the erstwhile Planning Commission at an estimated investment of ₹208.15 crore, was planned over the Indravati river that originates in the hills of the Thuamul Rampur block of Kalahandi. The objective was to generate 600 megawatts of hydroelectricity and provide irrigation to 1.28 lakh hectares of land in Kalahandi. The Upper Indravati reservoir was spread over 12,885 hectares, created in the valley areas of the Eastern Ghats. The foothills and valleys were where the villagers cultivated land.

The total expenditure went up to ₹1,427 crore when the project was completed. As many as 97 villages (44 from the undivided Koraput district and 53 from Kalahandi) were affected by the project due to the acquisition of 32,530.87 acres of land. Up to 17,000 people were displaced in four phases: 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992. Those who opted not to move from their ancestral villages remained in the shadow of development.

Umi Daniel, who participated in a World Bank study on the rehabilitation and resettlement of land oustees, notes that compensation practices were markedly different then. “Unlike present-day rehabilitation policies, which assess multiple dimensions of loss before fixing compensation, the process in those days was largely cash-based,” he says. “People were unaware of their entitlements. They were unable even to count the money. Villagers would hire others to count it for them and offer small tips in return,” Daniel recalls.

Dillip Das, a Bhawanipatna-based social activist who moved the Odisha Human Rights Commission and the Orissa High Court as a petitioner over the plight of families stranded on the island within the Indravati reservoir, says that even the modest compensation proved difficult for many to manage. “Villagers often exhausted what was essentially a lifetime’s cash reserve on social functions and local liquor. Middlemen also exploited their lack of awareness, frequently cheating them,” he says.

Life, cut off

The reservoir began filling up around 1996. “When people realised that their villages, located on higher ground in the middle of the reservoir, would not be submerged, they decided to stay back. By then, most had already spent their compensation money. They had no means to rebuild their lives outside the reservoir,” says 51-year-old Khagapati Nayak of Tentulipadar, one of the island villages. He claims his family owned 40 acres and received compensation ranging between ₹1,800 and ₹2,000 per acre.

In neighbouring Bhitardunga village, 70-year-old Adhu Majhi recalls that his family received ₹60,000 as compensation for agricultural land, though he does not remember the exact acreage. The amount was divided equally among 12 brothers. Some invested in bullocks and ploughs while others spent the money on marriages. “Within a few years, not even ₹100 remained,” he says. The Majhi family eventually returned to shifting cultivation and daily wage labour.

Nearly every household across the 16 villages under the lone N. Podapadar gram panchayat on the island has a similar story to tell. The State government had offered them rehabilitation closer to Junagarh, an urban centre in Kalahandi district but villagers opted to stay on their ancestral land.

“For the next 20 years, villagers managed without electricity. Life would usually come to a halt before sunset. Only in 2016 did the 16 island villages begin to be connected with electricity. It was an irony that the Indravati produced hydroelectricity that travelled thousands of kilometres to other States, but our villages, barely 40 km away from the hydropower station, remained untouched for two decades,” says Sankar Harijan, another resident of Tentulipadar village.

In the initial years, there were no roads. Villagers would carve out serpentine paths across the hills to reach neighbouring settlements. Nearly three decades later, only a 300-metre stretch has been concreted. While other roads are visible, their motorability largely depends on the driving skills of island residents, who have no choice but to navigate half-laid metal tracks.

In summer, a roadway opens, which can be accessed by four-wheel drives and tractors from Koraput and Rayagada while Fibre Reinforced Plastic (FRP) floating jetties and FRP boats are the only way to access the 16 villages. “More than 250 people have lost their lives by drowning in the past three decades. Boat capsizes are common,” says Das, adding that the last incident took place on February 28, when a man went missing and two managed to swim to safety.

Sani Majhi, who operates the FRP floating jetty at B. Cheptaghat, recollects how the jetty was swept away in 2024.

Pipe dream

The Odisha government, in its response to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India and the Orissa High Court, stated that bridges had long been proposed to connect the cut-off villages with the mainland and ease movement within N. Podapadar panchayat. A major high-level bridge between Kenduguda and Sikakuji Ghat was planned at an estimated cost of ₹54 crore 11 years ago. However, the project never took off.

“Soil testing and other ancillary work have been completed. The tender has been floated for survey and design of the project,” Brundha D, then District Magistrate of Kalahandi, informed the NHRC, in October 2025. There is still no sign of the bridge.

Similarly, locals allege that work had begun on a smaller bridge at B. Cheptaghat, which could have connected the 16 villages to Thuamul Rampur, the block headquarters. The project, however, was abandoned midway.

The Western Odisha Development Council (WODC) allotted ₹60 lakh in 2014-15 for the construction of a Bailey bridge to connect Ghutrukhal and Tentulipadar. A decade later, the bridge is nowhere to be seen.

Ask Damu Majhi, a resident, how the absence of road connectivity affects daily life, and he recounts his ordeal. “I received ₹1.30 lakh for a dwelling unit under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin, but it proved grossly inadequate. I had to transport building materials by boat and then carry the cement and stones manually from the reservoir’s edge to my home. The lack of connectivity forced me to spend much more to build a small house,” he says.

The gravest impact of poor connectivity is on healthcare. Phulamani Nayak, an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) from Bhitardunga, says, “In my career, I have witnessed two women deliver babies on a boat and one on the roadside. Many prefer to give birth at home due to the difficulty of reaching hospitals.”

Sarpanch Majhi says that just a fortnight ago, a pregnant woman from Kolatikudruput village died because she could not be taken to a hospital in time. Subsidised rice of 10 kg per head under the Public Distribution System remains the only lifeline for a majority of villagers stranded in this cut-off area.

However, carrying the free grain from the reservoir shore to homes perched on the upper reaches of the hills proves taxing. At times, the government distributes quotas once every three months. This means families must haul a threefold load on their heads, trekking uphill across difficult terrain to reach home.

Education missed

The sarpanch says that three government-run primary schools cater to the needs of 16 villages. “Children from Padipadar have to walk 10 km to reach school while those from Uppargunjmali cover 8 km. For children from 10 other villages, the distance ranges between 3 km and 10 km,” he points out.

At the Government Primary School in Podapadar, just 15 students from Classes 1 to 5 are found sitting together on benches in a single room. The two teachers appointed to the school are absent. Instead, Santosh Santa, a Class 12 pass-out and unemployed youth, had been engaged by headmaster Ghasiram Nayak to take classes and manage the children.

Beyond Class 5, continuing education largely depends on the parents’ mindset. Those determined to educate their children further seek admission in government-run residential schools outside the reservoir. However, their numbers are few.

Projects, half done

The N. Podapadar sarpanch says many projects have begun but remain incomplete. The panchayat office, mini bank, a health sub-centre, rice godown, and permanent school building at the panchayat headquarters were started years ago.

“I have been visiting the offices of the District Collector and Block Development Officers, but they have little time to inquire about the development of this forgotten panchayat,” Majhi rues.

Social activist Das says his public interest litigation, seeking the construction of a major high-level bridge over the Indravati reservoir, was disposed of in 2019 after the Odisha government informed the court that work on the project had commenced.

Dhruba Charan Muduli, the Block Development Officer of Thuamul Rampur, admits that there have been hurdles in completing the construction of the bridges. “The projects will be re-tendered,” he says.

For nearly 3,000 residents, mostly tribals and Dalits, the hope of walking or driving across the reservoir, instead of navigating its waters, remains a distant dream.

Edited by Sunalini Mathew