Hundreds slum dwellers from 30 slums in the city under the banner of the Odisha Basti Sangharsh Samiti staged a massive rally at the lower PMG here on Wednesday demanding land patta.
They demanded disbursement of permanent land pattas to them without any further delay. They also submitted 2,400 applications collected from different slums to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik demanding early supply of land pattas to them.
Besides, they submitted a memorandum appealing to the Chief Minister to frame a land policy for slum dwellers, reservation of land for poor as per the Odisha Government land Settlement Rules, 1983 and recovery of land from the people who have illegally acquired or taken multiple plots by filing false affidavits. The rally was addressed by RTI activist Pradip Pradhan, social activist Prafulla Samantara and slum dwellers’ leaders Pratap Sahu and Sachikant Pradhan.
“The slum dwellers are suffering for years due to sewerage problem, bad sanitation, lack of drinking water, electricity and road connectivity, etc. Though they have been staying in slums since 30 to 40 years, the Government has not considered allotting land in their names. Rather, they have been forcibly displaced,” said Pradip Prahdan.
“If Ministers, MlAs, officers have been allotted lands then why slum dwellers will not be allotted minimum 40 x 30-sqft land in Bhubaneswar,” questioned Pradhan.