KOLLAM: Kerala Pulayar Maha Sabha general secretary and SCST Samyuktha Samithi general convener Punnala Sreekumar and Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha president C.K.Janu demanded that agricultural land should be allotted to all landless people including plantation workers and agricultural labourers. Addressing a news conference here on Friday, after the conclusion of the ‘Prakshobha yathra’ in the Kollam district, they urged the Government to implement a special package in this regard. The leaders said that the Government was planning to give the Aralam farm land to the land mafia. They criticised the State Government for sabotaging the Tribal Act introduced for the welfare of the tribals by the Union Government. They said the Communists had given up the struggle for land reforms. The ‘Prakshobha yathra’ started from Kasaragod on October 10, will conclude at Neyyattinkara on Saturday. The leaders said that around 20 lakh people would participate in the blockade of the Secretariat and Collectorates on November 5. The blockade is being organised to highlight the demand to end the notion that the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes needed only three cents or five cents of land. A second land reforms should be implemented to provide sufficient agricultural land for these sections, they said.
Implementation of the agreement reached between the adivasis and the Government, providing access to higher education for Scheduled Castes, PSC appointments to the aided sector and writing-off the loans availed of by the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were the other demands. They said that the political parties had been deciding the agenda of the Scheduled Castes so far. Now on, these communities themselves will decide their agenda. The land invested in the land bank should be shared among them, they said.