Land for less in Kerala

KOTTAYAM: “Landlessness” has been an issue in a land dearth state like Kerela where the Zero Landless Scheme has been launched in an ambition to provide land to the landless. (27)

For the scheme, the district authority of Kottayam has received 4057 applications from 26 villages for land, out of which 30 people were declared eligible to given 3 cents of land each.

“We have already identified and acquired 91.921 cents of land at Panachikadu and 9.390 cents of land at Aymanam. Those land are already allotted to the beneficiaries,” said Monsy, Tahsildar, Kottayam.

However, he said the process of identifying beneficiaries and acquiring land is still going on and if the number of beneficiaries exceeds in accordance to the land available in Kottayam, then we have to shift them to Idukki district as per the guidelines given by the state government.

“We came across a major problem while shifting the people to other places (even inside Kottayam) because they denied to leave their premises as they have been living in the natives since a long time,” he added.

UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has launched the Zero Landless Scheme in Kerala on Sept 30 this year. The state government has given a deadline to complete the scheme by 2015. Recently Kannur has been declared the first zero landless district in India. Till now, the district authority of Kottayam has already identified and allotted land to 30 beneficiaries in two months. With such a pace, the Kottayam may got the tag of zero landless district in the near future.