Suryakanti Sabar, a tribal widow with her three children, is living in a dilapidated house at Bargaon village of Khariar block in Nuapada district.
The mud wall and roof of the main room collapsed during heavy rains three years ago. Her husband also died of tuberculosis that year. ‘When I am unable to feed the children, how can I build a houseIJ’ asks Suryakanti, who is now living in a terrible condition in the small veranda. Not being a BPl deprived her of a house under Indira Awas Yojana (IAY). She also she couldn’t avail the same under Biju Pucka Ghar Yojana (BPGY), because she is not enlisted in the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC), say the block officials.
To get a house under IAY a person should have to be a homeless BPl. For BPGY, inclusion in BPl is not mandatory, which helped many poor homeless until last year to get houses. However, owing to the PR department’s recent direction, the beneficiaries for BPGY are selected from the SECC list.
‘I am neither in SECC list, nor I am a BPl. What should I doIJ’ asks Pankajini Sabar of Bargaon village. The mud house, where she was living has collapsed. Her husband is a seasonal migrant, who is now working as a labourer in Surat. The money he sends is not sufficient to manage the family. ‘How can I repair the houseIJ’ asks Pankajini.
There are 15 such households in the village, who are living in dilapidated mud houses but have not been provided any house as some of them are not BPl while some others are not in SECC. ‘More than 50 per cent of the homeless persons in our Panchayat will not get house if a fresh survey of BPl and SECC is not conducted,’ says Sanjay Tiwari of the Panchayat, who is the district president of Krushak Morcha of BJP.
The situation is same everywhere. In Chanatmal village of Areda Panchayat in Khariar block, there are 21 homeless persons out of which seven are not enlisted in the SECC. ‘The SECC which was done four years ago should be updated. More than 2,000 households have not been included in SECC in Khariar block alone and the district figure of non-exclusion may exceed 10,000. The Government should take immediate step to update the list,’ adds Tiwari.