Mysuru: With tribal leader Muthamma arrested by the police for allegedly stopping it from discharging its duties, the Kodagu district administration is unwilling to rehabilitate 200 more families that have left their line houses on plantations, where they are allegedly treated as bonded labour.
Ordering them to return to their homes, the administration has now decided to give sites in three different locations to the 520 tribals evicted in December last year from Diddalli, although they had demanded housing sites and farmland in one area, according to sources.
Protesting Muthamma’s arrest, her brother and another tribal leader, Appaji claimed she was asked to leave Bedagudda by the police before they took her into custody. When contacted, Kodagu Superintendent of Police Rajendra Prasad said Muthamma was arrested as she stopped the police from arresting her son, who was accused of stealing CCTV cameras by the social welfare department.
Asked why the 200 other families were being forced to go back to the line houses when the Revenue Minister himself had accepted that the tribals were treated as bonded labour on the plantations, Kodagu Deputy Commissioner, Richard Vincent D Souza said the idea was to rehabilitate the tribals in phases.
“As there are more than 1,000 such families in Kodagu, we plan to rehabilitate them in phases. We have provided them plastic tents for now and jobs under the NREGA scheme to level their own land. It will take six months before the houses are constructed. For now, we are giving them only sites, and will empower them with skill development programmes. We had planned to relocate them after the arrangements were made, but forest department hurried the eviction,” he added.
