Members of Karnataka Dalit Sangharsha Samithi (DSS) staged a demonstration outside the office of Deputy Commissioner here on Monday putting forward various demands including confiscation of encroached government lands by the rich across the state and distribution of the same among landless poor.
Hundreds of activists associated with the organisations marched through the main roads of the city raising slogans against the government before arriving at the DC office premises.
“Various panels including A T Ramaswamy committee and V.Balasubramanian committee have unearthed the massive encroachment of valuable government lands across the state. As per the high court instructions, the government should clear these encroachments and distribute the same among landless farmers in the rural areas,” they demanded.
Condemning the harassment by the government agencies including Department of Forests on bagair hukum farmers, the agitating activists demanded that the government should initiate measures to regularise the bagair hukum lands to their genuine cultivators.
They also demanded that special revenue courts should be set up for trying land related cases under Karnataka Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands) Act, 1978, to speed up the judicial process.
“The government should consider the Justice A J Sadashiva panel report and implement its recommendations of internal reservation for castes classified under Scheduled Castes,” said Hanumanthappa Kakaragal, district president of the organisation.
The activists alleged that the government harassed poor people by deliberately delaying the payment to the beneficiaries who had got their houses built under Vajpayee Urban Housing Scheme, Indira Awaas Yojana and Basava Vasati Yojane in the district.
“We demand that the bills of the beneficiaries of all housing schemes should be cleared at the earliest.”
