Thousands of tribal of interior villagers of Maoist-hit Bijapur district reached district headquarters to start three-day protest in front of collector’s office demanding that money of tendu patta procurement to be given in cash as they have to face many difficulties to reach banks and many of them don’t have bank accounts.
Most of these villagers are of Gangaloor, Cherlapal and other interior areas which are located south of the district. Some of these villages are 50 km from district headquarters with no road connectivity.
The tribals have also demanded that the bonus given on the paddy procurement should also be given in cash by the government, and opening of schools and hospitals in their area and police atrocities should stop.
“The administration is saying to open bank accounts, which we don’t have because we are poor and live in interior and secondly people having bank accounts have to walk for 40 km to reach banks . We are demanding that the tendu-patta procurement money should be given in cash,” said Somari, who was protesting outside the collector told reporters
Meanwhile, the police have sealed the district headquarters and extra police forces have been deployed in the city following the protest. Talks between the tribal representatives and administration are being conducted.
Bijapur Collector said that district administration will provide every help to tribals.
“Those people who have bank accounts, the procurement money will be transferred in their accounts and we will pay them with help of bank-sakhis (banking correspondents), who will reach their villager to pay them their money. We have 11 banking correspondents and recruiting about 30 others in next four days,” collector Ritesh Agarwal told reporters.
Tendu-Pattta is procured in Chhattisgarh at Rs 4,000 per sack from the tribals and this year the government procured tendu-patta of about Rs 100 crores from Bijapur district itself. The total population of Bijapur is 2.55 lakh.
“The road connectively is till Gangaloor and most of these tribals are from more than a dozen of villages which are beyond Gangaloor. In 2018, just before the legislative assembly elections, the money was paid to them in cash because of non-connectivity and pressure of the then tribal minister Mahesh Gagda, who was from Bijapur. Since then, the tribals of these area are demanding that tendu-patta procurement money should be given in cash,” said a senior government officer posted in the region.
The officer further said that their demand should be addressed.
“This is fact that they are facing problem. Some of them have to walk for more than 40 km. Most of these tribals don’t have motorbike and hence they rent a four-wheeler to reach bank but owing to lockdown, the vehicles have also stopped. The government should recruit banking correspondents and send it to their villages or the government should arrange vehicle for them,” said the officer.
Activists believe that the government is not listening to problems that are being faced by tribals during lockdown.
“There demands are genuine…Thousands of tribals from Gangaloor, Cherlapal and other villages in Bijapur reached the district headquarters after walking for a day. The tribals are demanding that they should be paid in cash for tendu patta procurement, which the government is paying through the banks. Bank branches are very less in tribal areas…For some tribals, this distance is up to 50 and 60 kilometers,” said Himanshu Kumar, a tribal rights activist working in Bastar.
Kumar claimed that there is no bus or other means of transport available for the tribals to reach these banks.
“Thousands of tribal families do not even have bank accounts due to which they are not getting payment. The tribals had told the collector a month ago that they should be paid in cash but they did not listen, therefore they have started this protest,” said Kumar.
