About Koraput
Koraput is one of the 69 districts of India identified as being notably disadvantaged regarding poverty, hunger, infant mortality, immunization, literacy, school enrolment and gender disparity.
Once covered with dense forest that supported hunting and gathering, in addition to “shifting cultivation” agriculture, mineral-rich Koraput district is undergoing rapid deforestation and incursion by mining interests, hydroelectric dams and other development projects. Climate change has impacted the tribals’ traditional agricultural methods on the uplands, resulting in erosion and decreasing crop yields. Many are obliged to migrate for work during non-agricultural seasons, yet exploitation of labourers undermines this survival strategy as well.
Monsoon is the most critical time. Food stores from last year’s harvest are depleted but crops have not yet matured in the current season. Heavy rainfall contaminates surface water sources causing water-borne disease. Mosquitoes breed in stagnant pools and spread Malaria, which causes thousands of cases and nearly 200 deaths each year in the district, mostly children. Public Health Centres are far from interior villages and transportation is limited so most illness goes untreated.
Winter is the festival season, centred on harvest activities, but nights are cold in Koraput’s hills (1,000 meters) for those without warm bedding and winter clothes. Migrant labourers pack their bags when harvest is over in order to bring in additional resources to tide their families through the year.
Summer is hot and dry. Without irrigation, little can be farmed in this season so food is scarce. Agricultural work is unavailable to the landless at this time, so the poorest men, and sometimes their families, must migrate to the cities to perform construction work where high temperatures and humidity make long days of hard labour in the sun a misery.
Our Operational Area
SPREAD is particularly concerned with those communities that continue to be displaced and marginalized due to hydroelectric projects, expansion of industries and other development programmes. Displacement causes not only loss of land and livelihood, but hampers access to resources and damages the social fabric and culture of these communities.
We work in __ villages of __ gram panchayats in 6 blocks of Koraput district.
