Patiala: The Dalits of this district’s Kansuha village are deprived of their allocated share of common land for farming for the last more than two years, and while they await auction to take that over, the upper caste community is alleged to have grabbed that portion.
The Dalits of Kansuha have now filed a formal complaint with Patiala’s deputy commissioner and panchayat development department.MGNREGA Front president Raj Kumar Kansuha said: “Out of the 11-acre panchayat land at my village, about 3 acres are meant for the Dalit farmers, but for more than two years, and the panchayat has not conducted any auction for it, and now the upper caste people have that land which is our constitutional entitlement. The administration disregards our grievances.”
Samana’s Khudadpur village has a comparable case, where the panchayat has auctioned only a small part of its 28-acre common land, while the rest has gone under alleged encroachment. A villager said on the condition of anonymity that the complaints lodged against the sarpanch had gone unheard. Of the 9.5 acre common land that was auctioned, about 6 acres went to the schedule castes, including dummy bidders, while 3.5 acres remains vacant. The sarpanch is alleged to have grabbed the remaining 15 acres.
We also published the following articles recently
Farmers of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha and Ujara Roku Sangharash Committee staged a protest outside the SDM office in Rajpura, demanding the return of 533 acres of unused land acquired by the Punjab Government in 1994 for a private company. They submitted a memorandum to the SDM, urging immediate de-notification and return of the land to original owners.
A 56-year-old clerk in Thanjavur was arrested for accepting a 1,250 bribe to issue a tax receipt for house construction. The complainant, Philipraj, reported the corruption to the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, leading to the arrest of the clerk. Additionally, authorities confiscated around 50,000 from a document storage room during the raid.
