Dalits of town near Ahmedabad protest against 5-yr delay in allocating housing plots set aside for them

By Our Representative
Hundreds of safai karmacharis, mainly belonging to the Dalit Valmiki community, have protested against the failure of the Gujarat government to allocate them land for building houses in Viramgam, a town situated in the neighbourhood of Ahmedabad, whose vicinity is likely to see major industrial activity in the near future. The local municipality gave a nod for two plots of land – Survey Nos 377 and 178-- measuring 21,954 square metres way back in 2010, so that they could build their own houses. But so far nothing has been done to allocate the land to the "neglected" families, many of whom are permanent members of municipality, while others are daily wagers.
Headed by Safai Kamdar Hak Rakshak Samiti, and supported by Ahmedabad-based Dalit rights NGO Navsarjan Trust, five representatives of the rally – Shanti Shankar, Rajesh Makwana (both of the Safai Hak Rakshak Samiti), Kirit Rathod, Ramilaben Parmar and Jayaben Parmar (of the Navsarjan Trust) – represented to the chief officer of the Varamgam municipality with a signed letter to bring an early solution to the long-pending issue. The representation said that the delay in allocating plots has been happening despite repeated reminders by the district collector Ahmedabad to hand them over to them.
Kirit Rathod told Counterview at the end of the rally that the last plea by the district collector reminding the local officials of Viramgam to act was sent on May 23, 2014, “and so far he has sent as many as three other reminders over the last three years.” However, he added, “The local officials are not sensitive towards the issue at all. They have simply ignored the Dalits’ right to get the plots under a government scheme, forcing us to take out a rally to pressure the officialdom to act.”

Kirit Rathod, second from left, after handing over letter

Rathod said, the plots are not being allocated to the Dalits despite the fact that Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel, as former revenue minister last year “assured during her visit to Viramgam that the plots would be allocated.” He added, “This was not for the first time that she gave the assurance. She did this at least twice earlier. Yet, the local officialdom has failed to act, and the Dalits are not being allocated any land.”
Rathod said, this is not the only issue that the Dalits face. “Even if they get land, it would not be easy for them to build houses. What they will get is just about Rs 40,000 from the government, while the rest of the amount – Rs 60,000 – they would be given as soft loan. You cannot be expected to build even a small room with Rs 1 lakh. They will have to shell our rest of the money from their own pocket. It is indeed a tall order.”
Rathod further said, unlike in the big cities, where the slum-dwellers are being offered free flats, the government has “no scheme for the smaller towns, operating under as municipalities, where the poor could get their own house free of cost.” He added, “There is a clear effort to neglect the plight of the poorer sections of smaller towns, which are fast becoming part of the fast industrial process around Ahmedabad.”

Comments

US govt funding 'dubious PR firm' to discredit anti-GM, anti-pesticide activists

By Our Representative The Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) has vocally condemned the financial support provided by the US Government to questionable public relations firms aimed at undermining the efforts of activists opposed to pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in India.

Modi govt distancing from Adanis? MoEFCC 'defers' 1500 MW project in Western Ghats

By Rajiv Shah Is the Narendra Modi government, in its third but what would appear to be a weaker avatar, seeking to show that it would keep a distance, albeit temporarily, from its most favorite business house, the Adanis? It would seem so if the latest move of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) latest to "defer" the Adani Energy’s application for 1500 MW Warasgaon-Warangi Pump Storage Project is any indication.

Bayer's business model: 'Monopoly control over chemicals, seeds'

By Bharat Dogra* The Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has rendered a great public service by very recently publishing a report titled ‘Bayer’s Toxic Trails’ which reveals how the German agrochemical giant Bayer has been lobbying hard to promote glyphosate and GMOs, or trying to “capture public policy to pursue its private interests.” This report, written by Joao Camargo and Hans Van Scharen, follows Bayer’s toxic trail as “it maintains monopolistic control of the seed and pesticides markets, fights off regulatory challenges to its toxic products, tries to limit legal liability, and exercises political influence.”

Militants, with ten times number of arms compared to those in J&K, 'roaming freely' in Manipur

By Sandeep Pandey* The violence which shows no sign of abating in the ongoing Meitei-Kuki conflict in Manipur is a matter of concern. The alienation of the two communities and hatred generated for each other is unprecedented. The Meiteis cannot leave Manipur by road because the next district North on the way to Kohima in Nagaland is Kangpokpi, a Kuki dominated area where the young Kuki men and women are guarding the district borders and would not let any Meitei pass through the national highway.

105,000 sign protest petition, allege Nestlé’s 'double standard' over added sugar in baby food

By Kritischer Konsum* 105,000 people have signed a petition calling on Nestlé to stop adding sugar to its baby food products marketed in lower-income countries. It was handed over today at the multinational’s headquarters in Vevey, where the NGOs Public Eye, IBFAN and EKO dumped the symbolic equivalent of 10 million sugar cubes, representing the added sugar consumed each day by babies fed with Cerelac cereals. In Switzerland, such products are sold with no added sugar. The leading baby food corporation must put an end to this harmful double standard.

Can voting truly resolve the Kashmir issue? Past experience suggests optimism may be misplaced

By Raqif Makhdoomi* In the politically charged atmosphere of Jammu and Kashmir, election slogans resonated deeply: "Jail Ka Badla, Vote Sa" (Jail’s Revenge, Vote) and "Article 370 Ka Badla, Vote Sa" (Article 370’s Revenge, Vote). These catchphrases dominated the assembly election campaigns, particularly across Kashmir.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

NITI Aayog’s pandemic preparedness report learns 'all the wrong lessons' from Covid-19 response

Counterview Desk The Universal Health Organisation (UHO), a forum seeking to offer "impartial, truthful, unbiased and relevant information on health" so as to ensure that every citizen makes informed choices pertaining to health, has said that the NITI Aayog’s Report on Future Pandemic Preparedness , though labelled as prepared by an “expert” group, "falls flat" for "even a layperson".

How retraints were imposed on academic freedom on the IIM-Ahmedabad campus

By Sandeep Pandey* This is the seventh consecutive academic year when I would have gone as a visiting faculty member to the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad to teach an Elective course on Transformational Social Movements to the second year of Post Graduate Programme students. But the invitation has not come so far and it looks like it is the end of my teaching stint at IIM, at least, so long as the Bhartiya Janata Party remains in power at the centre.

Search This Blog