Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi leader Thol. Thirumavalavan has urged the State government to issue pattas for the Scheduled Caste residents of Samalapuram village near Palladam in Tiruppur district after the Water Resources Department issued a notice to remove encroachments.
He met the residents, who are mostly from the Arunthathiyar community within the Scheduled Castes, at Samalapuram on Sunday. Speaking to mediapersons, he said around 135 families from the community had been residing in this village for nearly a century. Other residents of the village had received house site pattas, but they had not been issued to the Scheduled Caste residents yet, he charged.
“The State government must immediately intervene in this issue,” Mr. Thirumavalavan said, adding that the VCK would take their grievances to the attention of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin. Terming these residents as encroachers is “unacceptable” and that the authorities must not attempt to evict them, he said.
The notice issued by the Water Resources Department on March 1 claimed that the residents had encroached on the banks of the Samalapuram tank. It asked them to remove the encroaching houses within 21 days. Failing this, the department would take steps to remove them. The residents should have to bear the costs of this removal process, according to the notice.
