The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : We need ‘hakku patras’, say slum-dwellers

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Tuesday, May 06, 2008
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We need ‘hakku patras’, say slum-dwellers

Swathi Shivanand

Time and again they are taken for a ride by politicians

Residents of K.S. Gardens slum have received possession certificates twice
These certificates merely declare that the person is a resident of the area

BANGALORE: What ranks highest on the wish list of the resident of a slum in Bangalore who lives in a house on a 10 X 10 ft patch of land?

The right to call that tiny bit of space his own, so that he is not evicted the minute a real estate shark takes a fancy to the land on which the slum stands. No wonder then that politicians cashing in on this desperate hope promise people in slums title deeds every time elections are round the corner.

But once elected, the most they do is give them possession certificates. But there is a catch: these certificates are no indication of ownership and have no value in the eyes of law.

It is a cruel joke for the 1,000-odd residents of Khader Sharif Gardens slum (earlier in Chamarajpet and now in Chickpet constituency) who have received possession certificates twice, once when the Congress was in power and again, amidst much fanfare, when the Janata Dal (Secular) MLA was elected.

“What we need is hakku patras (title deeds) that say we are the owners of the land on which our houses stand. No politician has ever acknowledged this promise,” says Kupamma, a resident of K.S. Gardens.

“Hakku patras” give people right over their houses which they use to take loans on them. It also means that they cannot be evicted at the will of any government agency at any point. Possession certificates, on the other hand, merely declare that the person is a resident of this area. NGOs working in slums say that hardly any resident of a slum in any part of the State has been given the “hakku patra.”

With government agencies not evincing much interest in providing residents with drinking water, sewage system and electricity, the initiative taken by elected representatives then become that much more important.

Khader Sharief Gardens stands as an example of this very lack of interest of the area politicians in improving the living conditions of its residents. While in some areas sewage flows out of the chambers often, in others it is hard to differentiate between water pipes and sewage pipes. As for electricity, Prabhu, a resident, says, “We never get monthly power bills. They send it once a year, pile up penalties and ask us to pay as much as Rs. 12,000. ”

But time and again election campaigns strike the same hackneyed note about better facilities and title deeds. As immediate compensation for votes, candidates splurge money on the days of campaigning. “Whatever the Election Commission’s guidelines, those who do not spend money cannot win. That’s the reality. In one election, a candidate spent as much as Rs. 90,000 for every team working for him. The other candidate spent only about Rs. 30,000 and he lost,” says M. Ravanan, general secretary of Bangalore Slum-dwellers Federation, who works in slums in the area.

The story almost always ends with the residents of slums being forgotten till the time of the next elections — the only time that this section of society is ever in focus, forming as they do a large segment of the voting public.

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