The Adivasi Kshema Samithi (AKS), a feeder organisation of the CPM, has announced a district-wide stir raising various issues, mainly the tribal land rights.
“We will hold rallies across the district on September 16 and 17, followed by a collectorate march on September 24,” said K C Kunhiraman, former MLA and state president of the AKS.
“The UDF government has failed to live up to its promises to provide land for all the landless Adivasis in the district. No sincere efforts have been made by the government to mitigate the longstanding problem,” Kunhiraman told ‘Express’.
“The government should implement the Forest Rights Act and speed up land reform. The Chief Minister had promised to take initiative to retrieve the land illegally possessed by private parties and distribute it to landless tribal people. But we are being taken for a ride for quite some time now,” he said, adding that private landowners illegally hold 2,845 acres of land in the district.
He also questioned the authenticity of the UDF government’s ‘Zero Landless Citizen’ scheme. According to a list published by the government, Wayanad district has the minimum number of landless people, while Thiruvananthapuram topped the list. “The government says there are only 2,33,232 landless people in the entire state and in Wayanad there are less than 2,000 who are eligible to receive land. But, in reality, there are more than 13,000 tribal people in the district who don’t own a piece of land,” he said.
According to the list, of the 2,94,595 applicants, 2,33,232 were found eligible.More than 42,500 applications were rejected. Under the scheme, the government would provide a minimum of three cents of land to the applicants and set up basic infrastructure, he said.
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