On a doli and a prayer  Premium

Kosi’s story: A Gutti Koya Adivasi woman in Bhadradri Kothagudem district, Telangana, was carried in a makeshift stretcher 3.5km through dense forest to nearest healthcare facility. Her journey highlights critical gaps in road access & daily travails of tribal people living in isolated habitations.

On the afternoon of September 5, when labour pain struck Kosi, 26, a Gutti Koya Adivasi woman from the remote tribal hamlet of Korkatpadu in Telangana’s Bhadradri Kothagudem district, she couldn’t have prepared herself for the excruciating journey that lay ahead of her. Strapped to a doli—a makeshift stretcher consisting of a wooden cot secured with jute ropes to a log—her vulnerability was apparent as she was lugged to the nearest healthcare facility through a rugged 3.5-kilometre stretch of dense forest. 

From the pucca road, she was first taken to a Primary Health Centre in Satyanarayanapuram in Charla mandal in an autorickshaw and then to the well-equipped Government Area Hospital in Bhadrachalam in a 108 ambulance, a government service across India.

Late that night, Kosi gave birth to a healthy boy weighing 2.6 kg through emergency C-Section. This was her first baby, said the medical staff, citing Kosi as a positive example because usually, the tribes marry in their late teens and have babies soon after. 

The young woman’s ordeal in accessing healthcare has once again turned the spotlight on the critical gaps in road access and the daily travails of tribal people living in isolated habitations in the State, particularly during the monsoon. 

Korkatpadu is located approximately 360 km from the State capital Hyderabad, and in the heart of the tribal territory of Bhadrachalam Agency, near the Chhattisgarh border. It is one of the eight Gutti Koya settlements in Charla mandal that remain disconnected from mainstream infrastructure, even mobile connectivity. In all, 79 tribal hamlets in the district await road connectivity. Most are deep within the forest, some up to 10 km within. 

A recurring ordeal 

The daily commute (they are mostly farm labourers in fields up to 15 km away) is an ordeal for the people of Korkatpadu as the forest pathway to the hamlet of 48 huts, some made in the traditional round way, often turns into a muddy trail, making it difficult to even walk. “When we heard about Kosi’s labour pain, some of us got together and quickly made a doli. We had a tough time crossing the slippery stream beds and slushy path surrounded by thick forest. We prayed to our village deity, Maoli Matha, and made our way through the forest. Despite the rough, slippery terrain, Kosi’s mother accompanied us,” recalls one of Kosi’s relatives, who shouldered the doli from Korkatpadu to Bodanalli, where the pucca road begins.