Over 25 tribal families living in the Adibasi Sahi near Kherasa village under Jagatsinghpur municipality are deprived of minimum amenities, besides land patta (RoR), for decades.
Even as they live within the Jagatsinghpur civic body area, facilities like housing, electricity, water supply, roads and programmes under the Swachha Bharat scheme have not reached them till now.
The reason for the denial of facilities to them is that they reside by encroaching upon an Irrigation department’s pasture land. They have no land records in their names. As such, they don’t have resident and caste certificates.
The Adibasi Sahi is situated on the heart of the town, adjacent to a newly constructed court building and embankment of Machhagaion branch canal. They have been living there for many years without electricity, road , pipe drinking water , healthcare and education. Without a school, the parents are sending their minor children to Kherasa village Angawanwadi Centre, about a half km from the slum, informed Kandan Murmu, a tribal resident.
He claimed that his father late lusa Murmu had come to Jagatsinghpur in the mid-fifties and settled there. Since then the tribal people have been flocking the town seeking job, informed Murmu.
Masho Murmu, another tribal resident, said that the children of the slum are facing malnutrition. Besides, the parents are not sending their girl children to school, and a few boys who were studying in the Padmapur Seva Ashrama in Erasama have returned back home recently due to non-submission of caste and income certificates. He stated that the Revenue Department was not issuing caste and income certificates to them as they don’t possess any land.
“Neither the district administration nor the municipality is serious about giving us land patta. Consequently, we are not being able to avail the benefits of any Government welfare schemes. We have apprised the authorities on our problems, but in vain,” said Kalandi Marandi.
He informed that the tribals, however, have voter identity card, Aadhaar card, bank pass book, PAN card and food card. Eight of them are getting old age pensions.
The municipality has sufficient funds to provide amenities for the tribal people, but non possession of land is a handicap, said Municipality executive officer Krushna Chandra Mohanty, when asked.
Meanwhile, reports said hundreds of tribal families are living in Jagatsinghpur, Redhua, Kandarpur, Mandasahi, Nuapola, Naugaon and a few pockets of Eurasia and Balikuda blocks but these hapless people have to struggle to get recorded homestead land in their names.
The Vasundhara scheme which aims to provide homestead plots of 10 decimals to the landless families has not covered these people yet. The Odisha Revenue and Disaster Management Department in 2004 had instructed all district Collectors to make a survey of landless families for their inclusion under the Vasundhara scheme but no concrete steps were taken in Jagatsinghpur.