Electricity still eludes Chengara Samarabhoomi, which is homeland to as many as 598 poor working class families, near Konni in Pathanamthitta district which was declared totally electrified by Electricity Minister M.M. Mani on May 6.
Though there is a government order to provide temporary house number even to those who stay in temporary houses and poromboke land, the poor families at Chengara have been denied the same on the pretext that the land they occupied did not belong to them, said T.R. Sasi of the Ambedkar Memorial Model Village Development Society at Chengara. He told The Hindu that the government declaration of Pathanamthitta as an open defecation-free district too had made a mockery of the State machinery.
A majority of the Chengara families are yet to have own lavatories.
Chengara land struggle
A large group of landless people, under the aegis of the Sadhu Jana Vimochana Samyukta Vedi (SJVSV), had encroached upon the HML rubber plantation at Chengara in the midnight of August 4, 2007, demanding five acres of land for farming and ₹50,000 in cash towards initial farming expenses to each landless family.
They pitched tents on the occupied land and named it Chengara Samarabhoomi.
They started tapping rubber trees on the estate and cultivating other crops, eking out a living in due course.
Landless families
Many landless encroacher families have constructed permanent residential buildings in the occupied land, as the government failed to evict them or provide them with habitable land elsewhere.
As part of an internal understanding or agreement, each encroacher family has occupied 50 cents of land at Chengara Samarabhoomi.
They have fenced the occupied land and started cultivation there.
Now, Chengara is more or less a safe settlement for the 598 encroacher families who have been cultivating a variety of crops including banana, tapioca, coconut, and vegetables.
Toiling hard
“We eke out a living toiling hard on the 50 cents of land here and selling the harvest in the markets at Konni and Malayalappuzha, besides undertaking farm work in the surrounding villages,’’ said Gopalan, a resident.
Mr. Sasai said Chengara Samarabhoomi was yet to have a government-recognised anganwady, despite the Child Rights Protection Commission’s direction for the same.
He said that there were 27 children in Chengara Samarbhoomi besides 200 children studying at various schools in the surrounding areas of Attachakkal, Elimullu, Konni, and Konnappara. Most of the Chengara Samarabhoomi residents did not even have a voter identity card and the society was planning to move the Central Election Commission in this regard, Mr. Sasi said.
