Vizagapatam/Gazetteer/Koraput Taluk
KORAPUT TALUK.
Koraput taluk forms the portion of the 3,000 feet plateau just above, and east of, the town of Jeypore. It is perhaps the barest of vegetation of any part of that plateau, there being no forest anywhere in it except along the edge of the ghát to Jeypore. The landscape consists of an undulating expanse of red and brown earth, with laterite cropping out here and there and coarse grass growing in the hollows, thickly dotted with small red hills covered to their very tops with permanent dry cultivation, between which meander small rivulets the beds of which have been levelled and planted with paddy. Three-quarters of the people speak Uriya and a fifth talk Khond. After Vizagapatam, the taluk contains more Christians than any other. The head-quarters is —
Koraput, the residence of the Divisional Officer, the Superintendent of Police, and his Assistant (who live together in one large bungalow begun in 1873) and of the deputy tahsildar. The place contains the lines and hospital of a body of reserve police and a large sub-jail capable of holding 87 persons, and is a station of the Schleswig-Holstein Lutheran Mission. It is a neatly-kept village with a population of 1,560 persons, and lies on the main road which runs from Jeypore to the plains by the Pottangi ghát (see p. 139). The head-quarters of the officers in charge of Jeypore was transferred hither from Jeypore town in 1870, as it was fondly hoped that a place standing so high and so clear of jungle would be free from the malaria which infested Jeypore. Curiously enough, these expectations have by no means been fulfilled and the station is not healthy, the south-west monsoon driving through it with great violence and malaria (even the black-water variety) attacking residents. The latter is usually ascribed to the breeding ground for mosquitoes which is afforded by a nullah fed from springs which runs through the place, and in 1904-05, in the hope of removing this superfluous moisture, eucalyptus trees were planted round about the nullah and the latter was revetted throughout with stone. The trees all died, and so far no noticeable improvement has resulted from the revetment.