Around 50 Dalit families displaced due to the Salandi Sankar project are yet to be rehabilitated in Bhadrak district. The administration has so far rehabilitated 109 families staying on Government and private lands in the first phase. Sources said the administration is all set to rehabilitate 52 families in the second phase.
Regarding the rehabilitation of Dalit families of the Bilan Jena Sahi, the Irrigation Division Executive Engineer has requested the Tihidi Tehsildar to provide them alternative accommodations, said a report of the district administration while complying with a direction of the Odisha Human Rights Commission.
The administration in its report maintained that only 22 families who have been residing in their houses on the Government plots are yet to be rehabilitated as per Government norms and parameters though they have been identified two years back.
Activist Radhakanta Tripathy who has moved the commission requested the human rights watchdog to direct the State to act on war footing to provide alternative plots and benefits to the BPl-Dalit families of Bilana Jena Sahi.
However, the recent visit of an Assembly committee headed by MlA Pramila Mallik has brought a sense of fear among the locals of Bilana Jena Sahi villagers as the committee has reportedly suggested widening of river embankment.