Bhubaneswar: As Kotia has become a major conflict point between the Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, inhabitants of many villages in the adjacent areas of Koraput districts have agreed to be included with Andhra Pradesh.

As they are made to sway between the two states’ dispute, the inhabitants of certain villages like Singhajhola, Turku, Jabada and Turku coming under Kumuganda gram panchayat of Bandhugaon block in Koraput district showed their disdain by professing of not get any basic facilities from the Odisha government.

The people think that, unlike the Odisha government, Andhra Pradesh is giving major priority to the development of these villages on the borders by providing all the basic facilities. The residents also claimed that the government of Odisha came to be thinking about them only after the emergence of the Kotia dispute, otherwise the State government does not empathize with them. The government of Andhra Pradesh has constructed roads and other basic infrastructures in these villages.

“In Kotia, the Odisha government is now spending crores of rupees, but why the State government is ignoring the residents of Jadawa village in Bandhugaon block,” Kandagori questioned.

The residents of the Jadawa village, Bandhugaon block said that the areas in the village do not have proper road and drinking water facilities. The condition of the roads is such an ambulance or medical facilities cannot reach our village. So people from the village have no other way but to carry the patients to the hospital in cots or baskets.

The villagers claim the government officials who visit the villages only give frivolous promises to resolve their issues whenever approached, but there is no result.

-OdishaAge