Even seven years after 85 Chengara agitator-families were rehabilitated near Periye in the district, their woes continue to remain unabated with the authorities failing to implement the assured package or issue title deeds to the allotted plots.
The handful of the families who got rehabilitated at the Kaliyadukkam locality which predominantly features laterite soil allege that the ₹11.50-crore package had been scuttled.
Pattika Jathi Varga Aikyavedi State patron Aithiyoor Surendran told a press conference here on Friday that the previous United Democratic Front (UDF) government had allotted 166 acres of land and handed over 70% of it to SC/ST communities, other backward communities, and the financially weaker strata among forward castes, he said.
₹11.50 crore
Families from Pathanamthitta were rehabilitated under the K.R. Narayanan Cooperative Welfare Society chaired by District Collector and is said to have been allocated ₹11.50 crore as part of a special package to help them do farming in 50 cents each for those from SC/ST communities and 25 cents each for general category families.
Amidst complaints that the families were left in the lurch owing to uninhabitable conditions of the land allotted to them, Mr. Surendran said they were deprived assistance offered by Krishi Bhavan and the panchayat citing that they did not possess title deeds.
The issue was vociferously raised even before the first district-level title deed disbursal in the State, held in Kanhangad in May as part of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s first anniversary celebrations.
Mr. Surendran asked the authorities to take swift steps to hand over title deeds to the displaced families so that they could avail themselves of various facilities offered to marginalised groups.
The press meet was addressed by Aikyavedi chairman Thrissur Sivaraman, general secretary Vaikom Kuttappan, and State secretary Pattom Sasidharan, besides local activists of the forum.
