Tribal women were seen trekking 2 km up and down daily from their hamlets in this interior forest area under the hot sun to fetch one or two pots of water from river Godavari.
The Rural Water Schemes (RWS), which were dug borewells about two decades ago, became defunct and the AP Eastern Power Distribution Corporation Limited (APEPDCL) and RWS blame each other for the failure of the schemes. Before the bifurcation, Y. Ramavaram, Addateegala, Devipatnam, Maredumilli, Gangavaram, Rajavommangi and Rampachodavaram mandals were there in Rampachodavaram sub-division, and post bifurcation of the State V.R. Puram, Koonavaram, Chinturu and Nellipaka mandals were added and most of the villages are going to be submerged under Polavaram project.
Out of 183 village Panchayats, 3.46 lakh tribal people are living in 977 habitations, mostly the primitive tribal groups Konda Reddy, Koya, Valmiki, Konda Kummari and Konda Kapu.
The Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) is taking care of all the panchayats under which RWS and Tribal Welfare Departments are running 417 protected drinking water schemes.
Both the departments claim they have dug 6,343 hand pumps in all the habitations. “For every pump it takes at least 250 to 400 feet in the Agency (forest) area. Only problem is that there is no power connection to villages for two to three decades in the past,” recalled Venugopala Rao, former engineer. Sathya Sai Baba water schemes, which were boon to many of the villages in Maredumilli and Y. Ramavaram mandals, were becoming defunct after they were handed over to respective village panchayats and local RWS authorities for maintenance.