The Border Security Force (BSF) launched a ‘Boat Ambulance Service’ in the Balimela Reservoir for the people of Swabhimaan Anchal in Malkangiri district on the Republic Day on Wednesday.
BSF DIG Sanjay Kumar Singh inaugurated the service by the side of Gurupriya Bridge. This will facilitate in providing emergency medical services to around 10,000 people of over 35 villages of the area.
Recently, BSF DG Pankaj Kumar Singh, who visited the area, had realised that the people of the Swabhiman Anchal should be provided with medical facilities as patients face lots of difficulties to cross the reservoir to visit hospital in Chitrakonda.
Though the State Government has built the Guripriya Bridge, most of the residents are unable to get ambulance service due to lack of roads to come to the main land. They used to carry ailing persons to hospitals on slings or bamboo stretchers through forest areas.
Swabhiman Anchal, popularly known as Cutoff Area, was created when the Balimela Reservoir was erected in 1977 which isolated 151 villages from the mainland. After the decades, the turning point came in 2018 when the Gurupriya Bridge was built, making feasible for the security personnel and the State administration to venture into the Maoist bastion with a vision of development in the region.
The boat ambulance is equipped with oxygen cylinders, drip system, emergency medicines, a physician, paramedical staffs and stretchers. BSF officers will arrange the ambulance to shift the patients to the nearby hospital once they cross the Balimela Reservoir.