How Gattumeedapalle in Andhra Pradesh turned into a ghost village
Gattumeedapalle, a village in Andhra Pradesh, has become a ghost town after decades of agricultural decline caused by failed monsoons and unsuccessful borewell drilling. Once a prosperous groundnut-growing hub, the village is now completely abandoned by its former residents.
Why it matters
It serves as a poignant case study of rural collapse driven by climate change and water scarcity in India.
Seven hairpin bends above Kosuvaripalle panchayat of Tamballapalle mandal of Annamayya district, the tar road comes to an abrupt end. At the top of a 200-foot hillock is Gattumeedapalle village. It exists on paper, with streetlights that still burn every evening till dawn, a village temple, and an elementary school.
Strange, not even a single resident is found. All sixty houses are empty, surrounded by an eerie silence, only to be disturbed by wind across the hillock.
Once home to 60 joint families and around 500 people, this hamlet is now a textbook case of silent rural collapse.
A cluster of strong stone-built houses, called ‘banda middelu’ in local parlance, constructed about six to eight decades ago, remains a testimony to the lapse of time, standing semi-dilapidated, engulfed by weeds and the walls turning old with neglect.
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