Meppayur: A colony of Scheduled Castes here is a picture of total neglect. The people in the Pulaprakunnu Sambhava colony are living in squalid conditions without basic facilities such as housing, water and electricity, among others. Efforts to develop the area, which is at Narakod in Meppayur panchayat in Kozhikode district, failed despite a government bid a few years ago.
A visit here revealed that the road leading to the colony is in tatters, and people can’t even walk on it. All, including women and children, are dependent on a pond, which is one kilometer away, for potable water. The colony residents can’t claim benefits under government schemes or apply for ration cards as they don’t have property possession certificates.
The dalits living in this colony only have voter identity cards and do not possess ration cards.
After 'Malayala Manorama' ran a story about their precarious situation in 2015, the then Kozhikode Collector S Prasanth visited the colony and took stock of the situation.
Following the instructions of the collector, a meeting of the officials from revenue, KSEB and panchayat, peoples’ representatives and colony residents was convened at the Meppayur panchayat office on October 15, 2015.
A decision was taken in the meeting to expedite the process of putting in place basic facilities and distribute requisite land documents for the residents. But sadly, apart from a street light and installation of a temporary 2,000 litre-capacity water tank, none of the decisions were implemented even after three years.
Though parliamentarian Mullapally Ramachandran announced that Rs 3 lakh would be set aside to dig a well, there was no progress on that front too.
Title deeds to be distributed: Collector
Kozhikode Collector Sambasiva Rao said that title deeds would be given to landless people of the colony, and steps would be taken to give houses to those with title deeds. Drinking water would be provided using the corpus fund of the Scheduled Caste Development department, and the colony residents would be issued ration, identity and aadhaar cards, added the collector.
The authorities have restarted the land survey work, which was stopped in 2016.
