The road to Dandangi village in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh would lead to paddy, maize, and cotton fields. Till June. Now it just abruptly disappears into the backwaters, created by the cofferdam built last year for the construction of the Polavaram dam on the Godavari. A cofferdam is a temporary watertight enclosure built to expose the bed of a waterbody for the construction of a permanent structure and causes water to spill along the river bank on either sides.
An hour-long boat ride along the length of the river through the backwaters, and crossing one submerged village after another, leads to two parked tourist boats completely cut-off from the mainland.
The boat house five families left after the village was evacuated. “Can you see the half-submerged houses by the bank? That was our village,” says 45-year-old Polama Kundu, a resident of the now evacuated Devipatnam village in East Godavari. It had over 1,300 families, many of whom were engaged in fishing.
In mid-2020, most of the families were allocated houses in rehabilitation colonies in the district, but none of them shifted because the colonies were too far from the river, some as much as 60 km. In May this year, the district administration ordered immediate evacuation over fears that the village would get submerged during the monsoon.
This story is from the December 01, 2021 edition of Down To Earth.
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This story is from the December 01, 2021 edition of Down To Earth.
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