Chief Secretary E.K. Bharat Bhushan will preside over a meeting of top officials, including the District Collector, on the issue of alienated tribal land at Attappady, at Government Guest House here at 9 a.m. on Saturday.
The meeting is a follow-up to the direction issued by the Prime Minister’s Office to the Chief Secretary three months ago on solving the issue of alienated tribal land and landlessness of tribal people at Attappady, which has witnessed the death of 36 tribal infants from malnutrition since January this year.
T.K.A. Nair, Adviser to the Prime Minister, had visited Attappady three months ago, and made various recommendations for solving the tribal people’s problems.
The tribal and social organisations of Attappady had alleged that the State government was not addressing the crucial issue of tribal land alienation. A survey conducted by the Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP) of Attappady block in the early 1980s found that the tribal people had been alienated of 10,796.16 acres of land.
