Karnataka - Madikeri   

Madenur tribal people ready for relocation

Staff Correspondent

Congress opposes forcible shifting of families to Honsur

REACHING OUT: The former Minister Suma Vasant (left) and other Congress leaders during their visit to Madenur colony on Tuesday.

Madikeri: The tribal people at Madenur colony in Virajpet taluk of Kodagu have expressed their willingness to move to the forest fringes within Kodagu district, but not to Hunsur in Mysore district, according to the Congress leaders who visited the colony on Tuesday.

A team of the party comprising the former Minister Suma Vasant, Kodagu District Congress Committee president Veena Achaiah, and the former president of the zilla parishad J.A. Karumbaiah visited the colony. "We came here for a daily wage of 50 paise a day and many trees around here were planted by us and we can't be moved out easily", tribal people told the Congress leaders, according to Ms. Vasant.

Some tribal people said that families that were shifted from Madenur to Veeranahosalli in Hunsur had not been rehabilitated properly.

The Forest Department officials and a few representatives of a non-governmental organisation and elected representatives involved in the relocation of the tribal people held a meeting at Madenur colony on Monday to elicit the opinion of the tribal people to move out.

The tribal people reportedly told them that they should be shifted to the fringes in Kodagu or allowed to remain where they were.

Five non-tribal families living at Madenur had obtained "patta" (title deeds) from the authorities for their lands in the forests. They had cultivated coffee and had RTC as well.

Ms. Vasant said she had spoken to the Deputy Conservator of Forests, Wildlife Division, Hunsur, on Monday asking him to identify land within Kodagu district to resettle the tribal people as per their wishes.

The Congress was against forcible eviction of the tribal people, she said. She said the tribal people living at Dubare, which had been converted into a tourist resort, were in the lurch as their places had been taken over for developing the resort. Forest fringe lands could be identified to settle the tribal people in places such as Siddapura, Maldare, Polibetta, Thithimathi in Kodagu, she said.

The Congress leaders from Kodagu would present a report to the party leadership in Bangalore on Wednesday, she added.

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