THIRUVANATHAPURAM: The Kinalur Self Help Farmers’ Council, comprising workers and farmers of the controversial Kinalur Estate in Kozhikode, has submitted a petition to Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan seeking issuance of deeds of their land at Kinalur, which they got as compensation.
The petition was handed over to the Chief Minister by U C Raman MLA of Kozhikode on behalf of the workers and farmers of the estate on Monday. In the petition they alleged that the distribution of deeds were being delayed by the former owner of the estate, Cochin Malabar Estate and Industries, for surplus profit.
At a press conference held here on Tuesday, U C Raman said that the farmers and workers at the Kinalur estate were facing various problems after the company Cochin Malabar Estate and Industries, which employed them, disbanded eight years ago when the price of rubber, which is mainly cultivated in the estate, fell sharply. Presently, as many as 1,200 families are settled on the Kinalur estate which is spread over 2,400 acres and they have been working on the properties they acquired from the company.
But the deeds of these properties were never given to them even after they repeatedly requested the authorities as the price of rubber started going up since the closure of the company. As a result, these families have been constantly under attacks from the real estate mafia, Raman alleged. He also said that in the petition they had also urged the State Government to back out from the move to acquire the estate for industrial development. Though the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation had acquired about 300 acres of land and felled over 60,000 high-yielding rubber trees in 1995, no industrial unit was set up here afterwards.