BALIMELA RESERVOIR•The Balimela Reservoir is located in Malkangiri district,

Odisha, India on the river Sileru which is a tributary of

the Godavari river.

•1988

151 MALKANGIRI VILLAGES

• A half-hearted attempt was made in 1982 when the Odisha

government planned for a ‘hanging bridge’ at a cost of Rs 7

crore. But government lethargy resulted in the project never

taking off.

• A decade ago on June 28, 2008, 37 specially trained policemen

of Andhra Pradesh’s anti-Maoist Greyhound force became

target practice for Maoists while they crossed the Balimela

reservoir in Malkangiri district of Odisha on a ferry.

PROBLEM

•The Maoists always revelled in geographical isolation and

the locals had got accustomed to it.

•The Naveen Patnaik government went pillar to post,

requesting the home ministry and other agencies to

execute it under schemes for LWE affected areas, but no

concrete plan could emerge. It was considered simply

too risky.

STATE DECIDED TO GO ALONE

•The state, however, dug its heels and decided to go it

alone. And finally, a decade after the greyhounds incident,

the task was accomplished and a bridge called the

Gurupriya bridge is now ready for inauguration.

•But what was estimated at Rs 7 cr in 1982 has been

constructed at a cost of Rs 172.5 cr by Kolkata-based

Royal Infraconstru Ltd.

NOTES

The 910-metre bridge, constructed at a cost of over

Rs187 crore, is a dream come true for the over

30,000 people of the villages that have been cut off

from the mainland for nearly six decades after

construction of the major irrigation projects at

Machhkund in the 1960s and Balimela in the 80s. It

has finally become a reality 32 years after it was

first conceptualised.