A four-member delegation of the Odisha Dalit Adhikar Manch (ODAM) comprising Prasanta Mallick, Surendra Bhoi, Rajiv Naik and Dalli Mallick met Governor Prof Ganeshi Lal and handed over a memorandum to him on Saturday.
They cited that the after the cyclone Fani hit the State, creating large scale devastations, the most vulnerable section of the population, the Dalits, is bearing the brunt. They alleged that the marginalised section faced social discrimination during the cyclone while accessing shelter in schools, community centers and cyclone shelters by dominant caste people and forced to take shelter near trees.
They also highlighted the plight of the Dalit households whose thatched and asbestos houses were badly affected in cyclone and who have no homesteaded land to construct houses. “Dalit families are dependent on agriculture as agricultural workers and sharecroppers. Though they bear crop loss and unemployment due to loss of agriculture but they are not being compensated. In some places Dalit families faced discrimination and harassment claiming for relief and rehabilitation support,” they said.
The Manch demanded that Orissa Government Land Settlement (OGLS) Act, 1962 be properly implemented in the State to facilitate hundreds of eligible families to get homestead land for housing. Among others, they demanded basic amenities such as safe drinking water, toilet, linking road, electricity and most important community centers in the Dalit Bastis, identification of agriculture workers and sharecroppers and special package for rehabilitation of the families prone to distress migration, implementation of the PCR Act 1955 and SCs and STs (PoA) Act 1989 and advisories to officials and elected representatives to follow non –discriminatory practices during disaster management, relief and rehabilitation work to protect the Dalits.
The Manch also attracted the attention of Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Sudam Marandi on the issue.