A convention of landless people in Kolar town has decided to lay siege to the City Municipal Council (CMC) office on August 7 demanding sanction of sites to the landless families to construct houses of their own.
The convention, organised jointly by the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and Janavadi Mahila Sanghatane (JMS), also decided to submit applications en masse, seeking sites, to the CMC authorities during the protest.
The landless people will lock the CMC office if the people’s representatives and authorities failed to respond to their demand within a month, it warned.
Inaugurating the convention, DYFI State secretary B. Rajashekharmurthy said shelter to poor people is the need of the hour, not smart cities. “Let the Centre and State governments first provide houses to the people to live with dignity,” Mr. Murthy said.
Poor people cannot afford to have a shelter in smart cities, which are being created after snatching land from the farmers, he said.
He criticised Varthur Prakash, Kolar MLA, and K.H. Muniyappa, Kolar MP, for ‘neglecting’ the needs of the people of their area.
Addressing the gathering, JMS State unit president V. Geetha criticised the CMC and the district administration for not granting sites to the poor since last 25 years. “The authorities failed even to convene a meeting of the Ashraya Samithi led by the MLA”, she said. More than 20,000 families in Kolar town are without own houses and are residing in rented houses since over 60 years or so, she said.
M. Vijaykrishna presided over the meeting. DYFI district president B.V. Sampangi, amd JMS leader Asha were present.
