By Melka Miyar
For Daijiworld Media Network—Mangalore (CN)
Pics: Prajwal Ukkuda

Mangalore, Jun 26: Five families residing at Netravati layout near Pumpwell may soon be homeless as they have been told to vacate their houses. The past five generations of the families of Monappa, Gangu, Sesamma, Babu Mestri, and Kutti, have been residing in this place.

However, the land reforms tribunal has ordered the authorities to vacate them from their current residences. Nobody has spared a thought to how or where they will move to in the rainy season. The five families belong to the Nalike community and performing ‘Bhoota Kola’ is the major source of revenue for them. But they have no work during the monsoons as Bhoota Kola is not performed during this period.

According to Kutti, his great grandmother Korapalu had also lived in the same house. Later his grandmother Maire, and mother Achu, followed. His son Ashok is also living in this house. They have the records which indicate that they have paid house taxes since 1992.

The land belongs to a certain M H Nath and he had a dispute with Dhoomappa in the tribunal since several years. Dhoomappa had claimed that he was the tenant and the land should be transferred to him as per the Land Reforms Act. Finally, the tribunal rejected the plea of Dhoomappa and delivered the verdict favoring Nath. But nobody noticed the existence of these five houses on the land.

As they have been living here since a century they would also be entitled to some land rights. But the residents are totally unaware of when the government officials took the survey and claim they have received no intimation of the goings-on despite the courts and tribunals stating otherwise.

A third person seems to have benefitted from the illiteracy and ignorance of the five troubled families. They are unaware of their rights and have no idea how to go about fighting against the injustice being done to them.

This seems to be yet another example of how the numerous welfare programmes initiated by the government for upliftment of the scheduled caste, schedule tribe, and backward classes, fail to reach their rightful beneficiaries.