Karnataka - Madikeri   

`Relocation not the answer to tribal people's problems'

Staff Correspondent

`Provide them amenities in the forests itself'

Madikeri: President of Budakattu Krishikara Sangha J.P. Raju has urged the district administration to provide basic amenities for tribal people wherever they lived in the forests.

The Forest department or non-governmental organisations should not endeavour to relocate tribal people to other areas,

he told presspersons here on Wednesday. Passage of the Tribal Bill in Parliament recently gave the tribal people the right to enjoy benefits accorded to them from time to time.

Mr. Raju alleged that Kencha who belonged to the tribal community was killed in the Kolangeri "hadi" (colony) at Murkal in Nagarahole park last month. He had reportedly died in an accident in the forests. But forest personnel had forced the tribals to burn his body instead of burying it. This had led to suspicion. A probe would help arrive at the truth, he said.

Mr. Raju alleged that sub-standard materials, including farm implements, had been supplied to the tribal people in the Bommadu, Kakkabe, Malambi and Doddareshme colonies by the Department of Integrated Tribal Development Project. He urged the authorities to institute a probe into it.

Even community halls constructed at those places were of poor quality, he said.

The sangha would urge the Delimitation Commission to retain all the three Assembly segments in Kodagu and continue reservation of Virajpet Assembly constituency for the tribal people.

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