PALAKKAD: The financial backwardness and poor living conditions are reasons for ostracization of Chakkaliya Dalits at the Ambedkar Colony in Muthalamada in Palakkad, retired judge and State SC/ST commission chairman P. N. Vijayakumar said. The commission which held an adalath in the colony in the presence of the district collector P Marykutty told DC that other communities including the Gounders, Ezhavas, Chettiyars shunned the Chakkaliyas.
He said that as most of the Chakkaliyas, who lived three to four families in one house, were uneducated and being exploited even by the government. “I received a complaint about the village extension officer of the revenue department taking money from a Chakkaliya and it was passed to the Collector at the adalath,” the chairman said.
Funds had to be released immediately for renovation of Chakkaliya houses as most of them were leaking, he said. Most of the Chakkaliyas are farm labourer and form the majority in the colony, with 90 other SC families and over 20 Ezhava and Gounder families each. The caste issue in the colony was aggravated after an Ezhava man eloped with a Chakkliya woman some weeks ago.
