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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | They got a plot but sleep on the road, cook in the open-Santosh Singh

They got a plot but sleep on the road, cook in the open-Santosh Singh

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published Published on Jun 7, 2012   modified Modified on Jun 7, 2012

Araria, Bihar: Exactly a year ago, just before the rains, Kumiya Devi got her three-decimal (1,306.8-square foot) plot at Kajra in Araria district under the Mahadalit Vikas Yojana, the Nitish Kumar government’s showpiece scheme to distribute land to landless Dalits.
 
Before she could build her home, a seasonal stream flooded the plot and her 10-year-old son Aklu drowned in it while going to school. Reason: there was no approach road to or from the plot — because it was next to agricultural land owned by upper-caste villagers who refused to give up land for a road.

One year later, nothing has changed.

Kumiya and her 87 fellow beneficiaries — all daily wage labourers — don’t have even a thatched hut on their plots, let alone the pucca Indira Awas Yojana dwelling the scheme was meant to deliver. Incidentally, all their plots came from land bought, as The Indian Express reported yesterday, from villagers at dirt cheap rates and sold to the government at four to five times the cost via an alleged nexus of brokers and government officials.

The scheme, meant to empower the poorest of the Dalits, has delivered them land — and little else.

Pramila Devi and husband Rajesh Rishidev raised a thatched hut on their plot after they were told that “some officers might come for inspection”. The hut today is uninhabitable.

“I cannot cook inside because the walls are straw and dry bamboo sticks, and the hut can catch fire,” Pramila told The Indian Express. “I cook in the open with all members of the family sitting around the fire so the wind does not blow it out.”

Pramila and Rajesh’s neighbours Jilani Devi and Lahiri Rishidev have only been able to raise a curved bamboo-stick frame padded with straw on their plot. The tent-like structure is open from two sides, and stands in the middle of an open field. “We sleep by the side of the road,” said Lahiri Rishidev, a father of two children.

An approach road to Kajra was a mandatory requirement under the Mahadalit Vikas Yojana. A circular issued by the revenue and land reforms department clearly stipulates that land given to Mahadalit families should be near habitation and easily accessible.

Asked why the road had not been built, Vijay Kumar Singh, joint secretary in the revenue and land reforms department, said, “We accept there has been inordinate delay in land plotting and giving Dalits final possession. Once we allot land to the rest of the 64,314 Mahadalit families, we will start the process for building approach roads”.

Singh said several circle officers had been reprimanded for delay in giving possession of land to beneficiaries.

On Indira Awas allotment to Scheduled Caste families, state Rural Development Minister Nitish Mishra said, “As per our records, we have to give Indira Awas houses to 1.06 lakh Mahadalit families surveyed by the revenue and land reforms department. We have initiated the process of giving Indira Awas to several of them. As and when the revenue and land reforms department gives us the list of other land beneficiaries, we will put them up for allotment for the next financial year.”

If the lack of a road has left families stranded in Kajra, a few kilometres away, other beneficiary families are saddled with a legal dispute they had nothing to do with.

Records accessed by The Indian Express show that in Belgachhi in Raniganj block, land allotted to Mahadalit families — Khata number 25, Khesra number 234 — has been disputed for over four decades. At least four people were killed in the late 1980s when the dispute turned violent.

In fact, the state government survey shows the plot as part of “controversial Khata 25”, which saw tillers fighting with landlords who, in turn, dragged the government to court.

But Raniganj circle officer Ramvilas Jha — the same official who, working with his relative, allegedly fleeced the exchequer (reported by this paper in Part 1 of this published yesterday) — purchased land from one Razi Hamad on April 1, 2011, and distributed it among 71 families.

Said Surendra Noniya, one of the tillers: “I am not going to fight Mahadalits, but I will surely fight the landlord who sold it illegally to the state government.” Jha, however, claimed there is no dispute.

The Indian Express also visited Gaya, where 2,196 Mahadalit families were allotted plots. In Konch and Guraru blocks, many beneficiaries who were allotted plots in February are yet to get possession or registration papers.

Like in Kajra, many plots are inaccessible. In Barma village, where 31 families have been allotted land, no approach road has been built. The area is at least a kilometre from the nearest habitation. “We are still living by the side of the road,” said Gita Devi, a beneficiary.

At adjoining Malpa village, where 15 Mahadalits were given land, no one has got papers or plots. Said Rajiya Devi, one of the beneficiaries, “When we go to the circle officer’s office, no one listens to us. Can you complain about this to Nitish Babu?

The Indian Express, 7 June, 2012, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/they-got-a-plot-but-sleep-on-the-road-cook-in-the-open/958915/


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