BENGALURU: Over 400 families of the Kudiya community living in flood-affected Kodagu district will be provided nutritious food and supplies to help them rehabilitate from damage caused by floods and landslides. The community, a scheduled tribe, will receive support from the Social Welfare Department.
A team of officials from the department visited the flood-hit district and assessed the damage caused, their immediate needs as well as long-term rehabilitation requirements. The move comes as officials found that the 400 families of the tribe were not included in an earlier scheme in which vulnerable and marginalised communities and those belonging to Scheduled Tribes living in forest areas of Mysuru, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Chikkamagaluru and Shivamogga districts, were receiving additional food supplies, as well as their allotted rations.
Families from these communities were being provided 15 kg of staple grains such as rice, wheat, or ragi; 5 kg of tur dal; 5 kg of pulses such as horse gram, cowpea or green gram; 2 litres of cooking oil; 4 kg of sugar and jaggery, 45 eggs, and 1 kg Nandini ghee every month. As many as 41,476 tribal families living in 8 districts in the state are being provided with this aid. The government had allotted a total of `60 crore annual grant for the same.
Priyank Kharge, Minister for Social Welfare, said, “Our surveys showed that many families belonging to the marginalised Kudiya community were not protected by the welfare net. Chances of malnutrition are also higher among marginalised communities. These families will be given nutritious food, and we will ensure that we will do all that we can to enable with infrastructure and livelihood opportunities”.