Telangana: Struggle for Houses and House Sites Intensifies
S Veeraiah
THE struggle for houses and house sites for the poor is expanding and intensifying in Telangana since it began nine months ago in Jakkaloddi of Warangal Municipal Corporation.
The struggle has spread to 23 districts now under the leadership of the Telangana Platform of Mass Organisations for Struggle. It is further expanding to some more districts. As many as 28,000 poor families have built huts in 47 centres on government lands, surplus lands and lands of outdated irrigation water tanks. The landless poor occupied and cultivated 11,000 acres of land in 78 centres.
Teams from CITU, AIDWA, DYFI and other mass organisations conducted a survey for a week and identified the poor people who do not own houses in 195 wards of 70 municipal towns and 172 divisions of 20 municipal corporations.
The AIAWU, AIKS, KVPS and other organisations conducted surveys in rural areas. Thousands of people participated in dharnas in front of tahsil offices on February 3 and submitted memoranda to the officials for houses and house sites.
Women turned out in big numbers demanding privacy and shelter. But the government does not seem to understand this reality.
After seeing the urge of the poor people, the state government, announced Rs 3 lakhs for people who got their own plots to build houses, in the budget speech. But Rs 3 lakhs is a meagre amount.
The platform of Mass Organisations for Struggle has demanded the government to increase this amount to Rs 5 lakhs as per the promise made by the chief minister some time back. But the government did not spell out anything about huts built in 47 centres in the state and about those who do not have even a piece of land or own house.
In this background, thousands of poor people staged maha dharna in Hyderabad on February 9, during the assembly session. Lakhs of acres of land is available in the state. Poor people are demanding these lands be allotted to them. It is their right. Everybody who is born on this land has every right to live on this land. That is why it is the responsibility of the government to allot housing sites and help the poor build their houses.
Many irrigation water tanks have become useless due to urbanisation. These lands also can be converted and allotted for house sites. But the government is irresponsible. A considerable part of these lands is already illegally occupied by big business, real estate, and people's representatives in collusion with the officials. It is in this background people feel that this is a now-or-never situation. That is why the struggle for houses and house sites and for agricultural lands is spreading fast.
As a part of this struggle, thousands of poor people staged a big dharna in Hyderabad on February 9. Despite granting permission for the dharna at Hyderabad, the police arrested 168 leaders of class and mass organisations and obstructed the people so that they do not reach Hyderabad. But thousands reached Hyderabad, overcoming all these hurdles created by the government.
At least now, the government should understand the needs of the people and solve the problem. Already, the police attacked many centres where huts were put up, and also tried to obstruct the people from participating in the maha dharna in Hyderabad. This shows the changing attitudes of governments. Except for the Left parties, all others have been adopting the policies of liberalisation and using police force against the fighting people.
Now, the issue of houses and house sites has come to the forefront. The government cannot move forward without responding to this issue. This is inevitable for the government due to the importance of this issue and also due to the ongoing struggles led by the Telangana Platform of Mass Organisations for Struggle. There are 30 lakh people who do not have their own houses.
In the background of rising land value, the government and officials are not in favour of allotting house sites for the poor free of cost. This has become a life-and-death question for the people. The importance of houses and house sites increased due to urbanisation and the real estate business. Workers from informal, unorganised sectors, agriculture labourers, poor peasants and other poor people are not able to pay rent. Prices of daily necessities have gone up. Expenditure on health and education is also rising. In this critical situation, almost one-fourth of the income is going for house rent. In this pressing situation, lakhs of people applied for allotment of houses and house sites in the state and waited for years together.
The state government has promised to allot double-bedroom houses for all the poor who do not own a house or house sites. The chief minister announced that 5.6 lakh houses would be built, of which one lakh would be in Hyderabad. People have been waiting with expectations for six years. But the government did not implement its promise. The government started to construct only 2,92,000 double-bedroom houses of which 1,30,000 houses were completed. Only 36,000 houses have been distributed to date. Now the government has stopped the scheme of double-bedroom houses.
The central government is also giving false promises in the name of ‘Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana’. Modi government announced that all the people would be provided with houses by the end of 2022. But no such houses were found in Telangana. This is 2023 and people are marching to struggle for houses. The BJP leaders in the state are trying to mask the failures of the Modi government and using every opportunity for their opportunistic political gains.
People expected a positive response from the government at least after this maha dharna. But the response is quite the opposite. Police officials started threatening on the very next day ie, on the 10th of this month, to remove all the huts.
While such is the situation on the field, BJP leaders ignore all these problems. They demanded the government on the floor of the assembly to allot a room for their MLAs to take a rest. They do not understand the problem of poor women who do not have shelter and privacy. This is the attitude of the BJP, which is trying to do anything to come to power in the state. It is unfortunate that in this situation also, the government is not responding positively towards the poor on this issue.
Some of the officials argue that poor people are taking the law into their hands. The same officials have turned a blind eye to the rich occupying government lands. The poor people need not take this risk if the government itself conducts a survey and allots houses and house sites for them.
Already, there is a GO No.58 (5.8.22), in which there are provisions to allot house sites for people below the poverty line who are already in possession of that site. The government can use these provisions and allot house sites for all those 28,000 hut dwellers in the state. Now it is the responsibility of the central and state governments to solve this problem.
The state government should increase the financial help to build houses from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 5 lakh and the central government should sanction Rs 10 lakhs to each poor family for this purpose. The state government should complete the construction of double-bedroom houses and allot them to eligible persons immediately.
If the central and state governments do not take any responsibility, the poor people do not have any other alternative except to continue fighting for their legitimate rights.
