The Hindu Business Line : Rayagada revisited

One-street villages with no electricity or irrigation facilities, scarce drinking water and scarcer livelihood opportunities. Is this the same India where IT and ITES have showered wealth, and more important, confidence on our youngsters?

Rayagada (Orissa)

First of all it was a terrible letdown by Air Deccan. It was with a lot of trepidation that one had booked one's maiden flight on the carrier. But there was no choice; on Tuesday, Air Deccan is the only carrier that operates flights between Chennai and Visakhapatnam from where one had planned a 210-km road journey to Rayagada district headquarters in Orissa.

The Air Deccan experience began at the scanning point itself; the 25-minute delay was not due to the queue — not an unusual phenomenon at the Chennai airport these days, particularly in the mornings — but because the scanning machine had no power. And this was only at the Air Deccan point; passengers of Jet Airways and Indian Airlines comfortably cruised through their scan machines. Anyway, mercifully the power came, and one reached the check-in counter only to be told by a totally unrepentant Air Deccan staff member that the 9.20 flight had been rescheduled to 12 noon.

Saving grace

One had no option except to cool one's heels at the airport though one did ask why the airline had not informed its passengers. But we were told that this was a lapse on the part of the call centre... as though we cared! Fortunate enough to have a copy of Penguin India's latest offering Shooting water by Devyani Saltzman, one found a comfortable corner and settled down with the absorbing read and the three hours flew by.

Finally, when the flight took off at 12. 30 p.m. one had hoped that the "no frills carrier" would at least offer a glass of water by way of an apology. Nothing of the sort happened and even though resentful at having to buy refreshments after such a gruelling wait, one had a treat on a piece of brownie and fruit juice at a princely cost of Rs 50!

Landing at Vizag at 2.15 p.m., despite advice to the contrary from our local office, one decided to proceed to Rayagada. The first 30 odd km on NH 5 went off like a dream with the Indica comfortably cruising above 90 km. In fact, the entire 170 km till the Andhra border (Rayagada is the border district of Orissa adjoining Andhra Pradesh) was remarkable compared to the potholes one encountered as soon as one entered Oriya land.

One didn't even need the border tax that had to be paid at this point to be informed that the Andhra border had ended and Orissa border had begun. The bumps and the jolts that soon had my taxi driver Ramanna cursing under his breath, and my back protesting, were signal enough that nothing had changed in five years. I had decided to return to Rayagada, and from there to the villages in the Kashipur block, to do a follow-up study on the hunger deaths in this belt that had hit national and even international headlines in 2001.

Fear factor

By this time the sun had set and a dense dark had descended on the thick forests on either side of the narrow road. Ramanna kept wondering when one of his tyres would develop a puncture, cursing the Orissa Government all the time for the state of the roads. "There is not a single person around to even help; what kind of land is this," he complained. At times such as this the imagination naturally gets active and all the ghastly stories about naxal attacks and the land mines they lay out for police vehicles flashed before the mind's eye.

After the tiny car had wound its way around potholes and ditches for a tortuous 90 minutes, finally one glimpsed the lights of Rayagada. The dark windows that had been let down to enjoy the evening breeze had to be rolled up in a hurry as the stench of open sewers, along which polythene bags of all hues were making a filthy journey, hit the senses.

Remote existence

With this being the state of the district headquarters, one shuddered to think about the plight of the tribals tucked away in the remote villages of Kashipur block... one-street villages with no electricity or irrigation facilities, scarce drinking water and even scarcer livelihood opportunities.

Is this the same India where IT and ITES have showered wealth, and more important, confidence on our youngsters?

The India where the most powerful man in the world had recently come and joked and danced and laughed and signed a nuclear power pact? The answer.. or the absence of it ... lay in the dark womb of the unlighted villages 70 km away.

(To be continued)

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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