Taking note of the plight of people of Kurubanmuzhy, a forest-side village that remains marooned when the Pampa is in spate, Ranni legislator Pramod Narayanan on Saturday took the initiative to dispatch emergency assistance to local residents there.
Acting on a directive by the MLA to the District Tribal Welfare officer, a medical team visited the location and delivered food kits to the people. Temporary classrooms have been arranged for school students as they are unable to attend the classes physically.
With the causeway to Kurumbanmuzhy across the Pampa remaining submerged over the past two weeks, the MLA also issued directives to restore the lone remaining route to the location via Perunthenaruvi and Channa, which has been in disrepair.
The tribal development office, meanwhile, was also directed to deploy four-wheel drive vehicles to transport school students along the forest route on a daily basis.
Kurumbanmuzhy, a village surrounded by the Sabarimala forests on three sides and the Pampa on the rest, becomes isolated whenever the level of water in the Pampa rises. The residents of all three colonies here are dependent on the causeway for their routine travel and for education, and medical purposes.
With the 2018 mega floods bringing in a huge volume of silt deposit, the height difference between the causeway and the riverbed has come down to just about four ft. This has caused the causeway to submerge whenever water level in the river rises, throwing people’s life out of gear.
Though the authorities have promised to construct a new bridge to the location, the proposal is yet to receive approval. A request by the local residents to clear the river bed of the debris generated during the construction works by the KSEB on the Perunthenaruvi dam too appears to have fallen in deaf years.
