For three years on the trot, different parts of the state have been devastated by floods and landslides. But rebuilding, compensation and relief works have fallen short as the state has not received the expected funds from the Centre.
Year after year, the State Government has received only a fraction of the relief funds it had sought. The effect of this is on the common man whose life has been ruined as restructuring and relief is slow in coming.
68-year-old G Raju, resident of Male Thirike Betta in Virajpet taluk of Kodagu district saw his house getting buried due to a landslide on August 8, 2019. Two years after the incident, he still runs from pillar to post to avail the house sanctioned by the State Government. He says he was unable to even retrieve his belongings as he had to shell out nearly Rs 20,000 for manpower to clear the debris. Two chief officers of the panchayat concerned have come and gone, but Raju continues pleading with the administration to help him get his sanctioned house.
“I live in a rented house now and pay Rs 7,000 rent every month. Survey of the house damage was conducted and I was promised a new house. But now, they say the government does not have funds,” he laments.
Exactly a year before that, Sangeetha Thomas D’Souza (39) lost her house to floods in Nellihudikeri village, also in Kodagu. Besides her, nearly 300 families in the gram panchayat limits lost their houses to the floods. Most of them continue to reside in tarpaulin tents, pleading with the administration to rebuild their houses.
“The government denied sanctioning the houses as they accused us for residing on ‘paisari’ land (waste, forest lands declared as government property, not notified as protected forests or as forest reserves). Our families have been residing there for four generations and nobody evicted us. But when floods hit the place, we are blamed,” rues Sangeetha. “But we fought as one for eight months and were sanctioned 1,367 sqft land each for a rehabilitation house.”
An eight-acre site was identified to rehabilitate the families. But no work has begun to build the houses. Sangeetha lost her husband 10 months ago, and lives a hard life with her two daughters. “The rehabilitation house could bring back some hope,” she says. Such miseries echo across the state from districts repeatedly most affected by floods.
KODAGU
The district has been a major victim of natural disasters since 2018. Despite the travails of the people, sanctioned amounts for relief works remain far below estimates.
BELAGAVI
KALABURAGI
HASSAN
BAGALKOT
VIJAYAPURA
MYSURU
DHARWAD
GADAG
(With inputs from Prajna GR in Madikeri; Ramkrishna Badseshi in Kalaburgi, Uday Kumar B R in Hassan, Mahesh M Goudar in Vijayapura, Naushad Bijapur in Belagavi, K Shiva Kumar in
Mysuru, Mallikarjun Hiremath in Dharwad and Raghottam Koppar in Gadag)