Work on sub health centre in Kurumalai tribal hamlet near Vellore begins

Work on the development of a sub-health centre in Kurumalai, a tribal hamlet close to Anaicut in Vellore, started on Wednesday.
This comes a day after The Hindu revealed a information report of a 31-year-old tribal girl L. Soundarya, who needed to be carried on a makeshift fabric stretcher from Vellakal, a tribal hamlet in Athiyur village panchayat on the Kurumalai hillock, to the foothills for therapy. She was handled at a non-public hospital in Usur village, round 15 km from Athiyur, in Anaicut, close to Vellore, as a result of lack of correct sub-health centres within the tribal villages on the hillock.
Subsequently, a staff of senior officers from numerous departments together with well being, income, social welfare, forest division and rural improvement within the district administration inspected Kurumalai hamlet on the hillock on Wednesday to evaluate the opportunity of offering street entry to distant tribal hamlets on the steepy hillock. The inspection was additionally geared toward kickstarting the work for the sub-health centre. “Now we have recognized authorities land for the brand new sub-health centre within the hamlet. Work on the brand new facility will likely be accomplished in three months,” Ok. Arthi, Mission Director, District Rural Growth Company (DRDA), instructed The Hindu.  

Sanctioned round an 12 months in the past at a price of ₹11.8 lakh, the brand new sub-health centre received caught as a result of concurrence from the State Forest Division as a portion of 30 cents of land that was recognized for the aim earlier comes below the Kurumalai reserve forest (RF). In consequence, income officers recognized another plot of 6,000 sq ft that belongs to the State authorities within the tribal hamlet to start out the development on Wednesday.
 
In the meantime, the present make-shift well being centre will likely be run on a portion of the federal government college within the hamlet. “A medical staff together with the physician and assist employees have been supplied with a jeep for transport by the Anaicut Panchayat Union (Vellore),” stated Ok. Banumathi, Deputy Director (DD) of Well being Providers (Vellore).
 
Throughout the inspection, the staff led by DRDA’s undertaking director, Arthi, additionally surveyed the present pathway that’s meant for livestock from Kurumalai hamlet to Vellakal hamlet, a distance of round 2.5 km, to put a bitumen street. Highway inspectors took measurements of the steep hillock at each 50 metres to evaluate the opportunity of street formation. Of the two.5 km pathway, two km comes below reserve forest with solely three ft of width obtainable.
 
Officers stated that below the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, the District Forest Officer (DFO) may give a nod for land acquisition in a reserve forest as much as one hectare. At current, the DRDA wants 0.6 hectares of land from the RF to widen the present 3-foot-wide pathway right into a 10-foot bitumen street to offer an entry route for residents in Vellakal hamlet to Kurumalai. In consequence, a gathering between the DFO (Vellore) and the district administration led by Collector P. Kumaravel Pandian will likely be held quickly to expedite the paperwork for the street work, officers stated.