Five hundred residents of Charigharia village under the Satabhaya Gram Panchayat in Rajnagar block refused to leave their homes on October 24 even as Cyclone Dana roared its way towards Odisha’s coastal district of Kendrapara. The reason: The government’s slipshod attitude towards granting them land pattas or titles.
The residents stated that they were ready to die, rather than take shelter in the nearby cyclone shelter at Okilapala in protest against the authorities’ refusal to grant them titles.
“We are ready to be buried in a watery grave as the authorities have refused to provide us land. As a result, our fate is hanging in the balance thanks to the poor implementation of the ambitious Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 in our village within the Bhitarkanika National Park,” Babuli Moharana, a 56-year-old resident of Charigharia told Down To Earth (DTE).
“Most residents of Charigharia are fisher folk and farmers. Poverty is widespread. We urged the administration many times to grant us land pattas as our ancestors were born here. But the officials did not pay any heed to our demands for which we decided to stay in our unsafe thatched house to face nature’s fury as the government betrayed us,” said 82-year-old resident Parikhita Mandal.
Maniram Sardar, a 63-year-old resident, stated his parents and other family members of Gobindapur village under Satabhaya Gram Panchayat perished in the cyclone that struck the area on October 29, 1971. “Hence, we shifted to Charigharia village within Bhitarkanika in 1972. But the officials have yet to grant us land pattas. Another problem for us and for outsiders is the difficult muddy village road to pass through and the marching sea,” Sardar added.
Mantu Sardar, 48, another resident of Charigharia, said their main grievance is the lack of basic amenities like proper roads, clean and safe drinking water, health care facilities and non-inclusion of their names in the land pattas.
“We decided to stay in our village to face Cyclone Dana in protest against the government’s violation of the Forest Rights Act by not giving us our legal right over the lands where we have been residing since long. We are ready to die in the cyclone to highlight our demands for the sake of our future generation,” said Mantu.
When contacted, Prasana Parida, the sarapanch (village head) of Satabhaya Gram Panchayat said, “I visited Charigharia village on October 23 and 24 and requested the residents to leave their village and to stay in the cyclone shelter which is just two kilometres from the village. I also told them this is not the time for them to raise the issue of land pattas. But they did not pay any to heed my pleas. I have informed the tahasildar (revenue official) and block development officer (BDO) of Rajnagar to take proper action.”
Nisan Mitra, the BDO of Rajnagar, told DTE that the administration’s nodal officer at Rajnagar had been directed to shift all the villagers of Charigharia to cyclone shelters immediately.
Continuous downpour since the last two days have led to water logging in low-lying areas of the region as the cyclone prepares to make landfall.
“We shifted more than 75,000 people to safer places. Many trees were uprooted and thatched houses collapsed in the cyclone,” said Ashok Das, the district emergency officer of Kendrapara.