Coimbatore: The Central Government and the Government of Tamil Nadu have happily announced that the One Country One Ration Scheme will come into effect from today, but the bitter truth is that many people in the country, mostly tribals, do not even have a ration card.
Coimbatore: The Central Government and the Government of Tamil Nadu have happily announced that the One Country One Ration Scheme will come into effect from today, but the bitter truth is that many people in the country, mostly tribals, do not even have a ration card.
Social activists say the government is not making any effort to trace the tribals who do not even have the basic documents that an Indian citizen should have.
The Malasar and Ervalar tribes live in the forests around the Aliyar next to Pollachi, Coimbatore district. Ottakaradupandianpathi a village situated 8 km away from Aliyar use to be inhabited by 40 families but only 10 families live there now as others have migrated to nearby estates in search of livelihood.
In the village, the people used to stack rocks vertically to look like a wall. The wall is believed to have been inhabited by dwarfs known as the Pandyan tribals. The people of the area say that they scattered leaves on the rocks and lived under them.
We spoke to members of the Students' Federation of India who have been doing research in the area. They said, "All the people living here are daily wage laborers. They do not even have basic documents like Aadhar card, voter card, ration card and patta. It is a pity that there is not even a single toilet in the area while people elsewhere keep talking about clean India . We spoke many times to the Tahsildar in the area regarding this and he said nothing can be done because there's no scheme under which this can be done.
They suffer without birth certificates and caste certificates to enroll their children in school. If students want to go to school, they have to trek 8 km to Aliyar on a forest path frequented by elephants. Due to pandemic, education has become impossible and online education is a faraway dream to them."
Paramasivan, the district chairman of the Tribal Welfare Association said there are no facilities like electricity, roads, toilets or drinking water. Students are told to attend online education when there are no signals in the area. He alleged that they demanded around four or five tribal villages be brought together and special classes be taken, but no effort has been made about it. He says only if this is accomplished, the sheep and cow herding generation will be able to move on to the next stage.
He further added that those who work on the farm on private estates for a long time do not have anything like voter card, Aadhar card, voter card, caste certificate, birth certificate or tribal welfare board card for three generations due to lack of awareness. He questioned how the officials can leave this unnoticed and unattended. He accused that the authorities can issue the documents within a single day but they have not. He lamented alleged due to lack of documents the tribals are not in a position to even receive COVID-19 relief.
He said people who have made forests their world for more than 60 years are unable to blend into a community and are sidelined. He said all the documents can be issued in one place if the district administration, revenue inspector, village administration, Tahsildhar come together and make an effort, but this is still a distant dream to the tribals.