Editor's note: This is the fourth part of a series that looks into the irregularities in Kerala government's Life Mission project.
Read the previous parts - Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
There are quite a few consultancy contracts for the Kerala government’s Life Mission scheme, meant to provide housing for the poor and landless in the state.
In a meeting held on August 5, 2019, to review the Life Mission scheme and chaired by the chief minister, it was decided that a “professional publicity/PR agency’s assistance can be used to launch a global campaign to help build flats through CSR/sponsorship/public participation”.
Accordingly, a Kochi-based public relations company got involved in the scheme as a consultant even though the government has its own Information and Public Relations Department (PRD). The agency was tasked with creating video and audio experiences, competitions, etc. to promote the Life Mission scheme, increase the scheme’s presence on social media, make the online community aware of it and gradually motivate them to contribute to the scheme.
The agency submitted a financial bid of Rs 17.01 lakh to undertake the PR tasks for Phases 1 and 2 of Life Mission. But, the CEO of the Mission intervened and reduced the amount to Rs 14.13 lakh.
The government has a Chennai-based company also as a consultant for the scheme. The firm has been awarded the consultancy contract for the construction of housing complexes at 56 places in Phase III of Life Mission. And the fee? Rs 14 crore. Life Mission justified the contract saying that since it did not have its own engineering department, the project management consultancy was tasked with overseeing the project.
The long wait
Despite having so many consultants, the scheme doesn’t seem to be progressing fast enough. In fact, it has got mired in controversy, even as hundreds of homeless people in each panchayat continue to wait for its benefits.
Even those who had applied in the first phase of the scheme in 2017 and were declared eligible are still dreaming of owning a home. With new controversies erupting, many are losing hope.
The landless are the ones facing the biggest problem. Under the scheme, those in the general category get Rs 2 lakh and those belonging to the Scheduled Castes get Rs 2.25 lakh to buy 3 cents of land.
But in most panchayats, about 70% of those included on the eligible list are unable to buy land. In the Chottanikkara, Mulanthuruthy, Edakkattuvayal and Amballur panchayats in Ernakulam district, for example, 174 people who were included on the list have not been able to buy land.
That is because, in Kerala, that amount granted under the scheme can get land only in interior places without road access or in swamps.
The rigid, impractical rules and conditions of the scheme are denying benefits to even those who deserve them. In one panchayat, for instance, of the 500 applications received in the first phase, 409 were rejected “as per rules”.
Consequently, those whose welfare the government had intended by implementing the scheme continue to suffer as it stays out of their reach.
6 families in one room
The life of the adivasis in Laksham Veed Colony at Vettikal in Ernakulam’s Chottanikkara panchayath exposes the hollowness of the scheme’s selection criteria.
There are 17 people of six families living in a one-room house in the colony. Successive governments had delayed their rehabilitation saying they did not possess a caste certificate. But even after getting the certificate, they have not found any relief.
Even though two of the seven families have been included in the Life Mission scheme, officials said the remaining four were ineligible as they already have a house (the one-room house).
Selling fields for houses
While poor people continue to suffer, the government carries on with many activities their name — like the conspiracy that is on to accord permission for construction of houses in fields all over Kerala in an attempt to hide the fact that it is almost impossible to get three cents of land for Rs 2 lakh anywhere in the state.
The state government has been granting permission to the homeless people to build houses on three or four cents of land under the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act.
The land is being sold on the pretext of helping the poor under the scheme. Embankments and bunds leading to fields are converted into pathways and land prepared for sale by planting coconut trees. Also, while the land is sold as a whole, it is bought by five or 10 people to get a discount.
In ward 14 of Parappookkara panchayat in Thrissur district, the land given to beneficiaries adjoins fields. Four families who have been living in rented houses for more than 22 years are paying Rs 2 lakh each for 3 cents each in Madappad.
However, for every family that has benefitted from the scheme, there are hundreds still waiting for assistance.
Paralysed, life in tatters
Dasan, a construction worker, has been applying for the Life scheme since 2017. He has been paralysed and bed-ridden after falling from a building five years ago and suffering a spinal injury.
The house he stays in at a hill border is in the name of his mother Kalyani of Manniamkotte house in Kondazhi. No vehicle can reach there to take Dasan for treatment.
He applied for a house at any place where vehicles can come, but it was not considered as he did not have a ration card. The ration card is in the mother's name and Dasan doesn’t have his own home or an address to apply for one.
In April 2019, the floor for a 580-square-foot house adjacent to a road was laid, but the work couldn’t progress as it was not eligible for assistance from any existing housing schemes.
Living in a house about to collapse
Like Dasan, Jalaja and her mother Karthiyani, too, are in need of urgent help. Their house in Karuvally, Kakkassery, in Thrissur district, could collapse any time.
When the property, including the house, was divided, they had to move to a part with a room, kitchen and bathroom on three cents of land. This part is weak and in danger of falling.
Jalaja had applied for a house under the Life scheme at the Elavally panchayat office three years ago. However, it was rejected as the name on the ration card is that of her brother who stays abroad. Her application was not considered even after she got supporting certificates from the MLA and the collector.
Widow, son under a leaking roof
Pushpa, the widow of Mani of Mullassery, Parambanthalli, in Thrissur district, has also been seeking assistance for three years for her house on three cents of land that she got after partition in the family, but her application has not been considered.
She lives with her son Abhinav in fear in the house, which has a leaky roof that makes life difficult during rains. Her application was rejected on the grounds that she did not have a ration card.
She got the ration card and applied for the second time. She was, however, told that those who were landless and those affected by floods would get priority in the scheme.
The ‘convenience’ of flats
While many are seeking benefit to get out a predicament, those who get assistance are also left in a quandary.
The first Life flat complex in Kannur district is coming up at Kadambur in Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's Assembly constituency. The construction is on. The project will have 44 flats on 45 cents of land and will cost Rs 5.27 crore. There is no need to pay for the land as it belongs to the panchayat.
Each flat in the complex, with an area of about 529 square feet, will cost Rs 11.98 lakh. That is despite the land being free.
Under the same Life scheme, the government provides Rs 4 lakh as an aid for constructing an individual house of about the same area. And the beneficiary has to bear the additional cost of buying land. This is an example of how detached the scheme is from ground reality.
That probably is not a concern for the government. What it is concerned about are large flat complex projects that offer many 'conveniences', including preparing the design and awarding construction contracts.
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Reporting team: Jayan Menon, Zakir Hussain, M A Johnson, Jayachandran Ilankath, K Jayaprakash Babu, Mahesh Guptah, Ramesh Ezhuthachan, Arun Ezhuthachan, Mintu P Jacob, Nahas Muhammad, Joji Simon, Pratheesh G Nair, Naseeb Karattil, Shinto Joseph, Jiku Varghese Jacob and Sijith Payyannur.
Compilation: Ajish Muraleedharan
