About 4,000 slum dwellers from four municipal corporations held a rally here under the banner of the Odisha Basti Sangharsha Samiti demanding patta for homestead lands and a CBI probe into land scam involving influential persons across the State.
The slum dwellers came in a rally from the Ram Mandir Square to the lower PMG where a meeting was held under chairmanship of Samiti president Pratap Kumar Sahoo.
RTI activist Pradeep Pradhan and social worker Abdul Walli alleged that the Government is snatching away lands from slum dwellers while hundreds of acres of land have been grabbed by politicians, bureaucrats and Government officials.
later, a five-member team led by social worker Sachchikant Pradhan went to the Chief Minister’s office and handed over 4,000 applications.
They all demanded 800 sq ft homestead land for each slum dweller in all five municipal corporations of the State. They too demanded slum dwellers be included under the Pradhan Manti Awas Yojana and all facilities be provided to them by forming Slum Welfare Board.
Among others, lawyer Sudheer Mohanty, Sanjukta Panigrahi, Ranjulata Mohapatra, Panchanan Nayak, Golapi Sahoo, Prafulla Parida, Dhaneswar Barik and Malati Hembrum were present.