On July 23, Revenue officials, led by a tahsildar, had reached Mukunuru, a Koya tribal habitation in Alluri Sitarama Raju (ASR) district, to enumerate the damages caused by the Godavari floods.
Little did they realise that they were in for trouble. The tribeswomen, irate over little, or insufficient food supplies in the hour crisis, did not allow the officials to go about their task and forced them to stay put in their habitation till evening.
Thanks to a few intermediaries, the officials, after being ‘freed’, had to beat a retreat and save themselves from being physically attacked by the women of the tribe, who had been craving for three meals a day for the last one week.
The women were, however, generous enough to serve the officials a late lunch before letting them cross the Sokileru stream and leave their habitation.
What surprised the officials was that the village volunteers too had sided with the inhabitants and non-cooperated with them in the task.
This was not a lone such instance in the flooded tribal habitations.
A few days ago, P. Gannavaram MLA K. Chittibabu had to leave a habitation in Konaseema district unable to answer the litany of complaints and queries from the irate flood victims.
One week ago, a tahsildar had been physically assaulted by the tribal women in Kunavaram mandal in ASR district.
Officials, irrespective of their cadre, and public representatives are not being allowed to enter the marooned habitations by the victims, mostly in the tribal areas.
Tales of woe
One may wonder what could be the reason for such a resistance, but their tales of woe show that their anger is not without reason.
“My family, which included two children, had to survive on one litre of milk for over one week at a relief camp. No officer had responded to our calls for immediate aid,” said a village volunteer of the Koya tribe at Mukunuru, and cited this experience of his as reason for not cooperating with the revenue officials.
“The tahsildar and other officers are taking note of only the thatched houses that have collapsed due to the flood. They are not recording the houses that are on the verge of collapse,” the village volunteer said.
“I cannot take the blame after the government releases the aid. So, I did not wish to join the officials in the enumeration task,” the volunteer told this correspondent who had accompanied the officials.
In many Koya tribal habitations, the victims are insisting on the enumeration staff to spend the night along with them in their habitation to experience their pain and then assess the damage.
To gather genuine database, the authorities have tried deputing officers from other mandals, but the strategy has not yielded the desired result.
