Activists of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) pitched a tent in front of the Mangaluru City Corporation office at 10 a.m. on Monday and began a 24-hour dharna demanding house sites for the poor.
The ‘dharna’ will be on until 10 a.m. on Tuesday.
G.V.Srirama Reddy, secretary of the State unit of the party who addressed a gathering, urged those who were not given sites to lock the houses of legislators and councillors from the city to make them aware of a basic necessity such as a house.
He remarked that the government had increased the salaries and perks of MLAs, MLCs and ministers but the same elected representatives were not bothered about ensuring sites for poor.
The party’s district committee member Vasantha Achari said many poor applicants who had provided all relevant documents were waiting for housing sites for a long time. He lambasted what he called the government's double standards in land allotment. It was reserving 100-acre parcels for corporate investors; but when it came to allotting sites for the poor, officials claimed that government land was not available.
Although the State government had proposed in the 2015-16 Budget that it would acquire private land to create residential sites for the poor, the corporation council led by the Congress and its officials had not bothered to send a proposal to the government. It clearly showed the anti-poor attitude of the corporation, he said.
