Kerala’s Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had brought Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh to declare Kannur as India’s first Zero landless district but that programme has now proved to be a farce with information coming out that the district still has over 5,000 Adivasi families who do not own land to live or cultivate.

The Congress-led UDF Government headed by Chandy had launched the Zero landless scheme on September 30 with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi presenting Pattas (title deeds) for three-cent lands to a number of beneficiaries claiming that there would be no family in Kerala without land to live on by the time the term of the present Government came to an end.

That the programme was riddled with problems was obvious from the very start of it with the Revenue authorities taking back the Pattas from some beneficiaries after the Kerala Water Authority claimed that the land given to them was owned by it. The Pattas were returned after news broke about it but it is not yet clear whether the poor people had got the allotted lands.

“The allotment of other people’s lands and rocky lands to beneficiaries could be termed as an administrative error. But what has happened in Kannur is nothing but a hypocritical drama staged to betray the poor,” said an activist of the Adivasi Bhoo Samrakshana Samithi, an organisation fighting for the land rights of tribes people.

Kannur was declared the country’s first Zero landless district on November 1, the State Formation Day, by Jairam Ramesh. As per Government records, Pattas were distributed to 11,103 beneficiaries including 85 Adivasi families in the district on that day. But the fact is that there are still over 5,000 landless families in Thalipparambu and Thalssery taluks of the district.

The Samithi says that the Government’s act was nothing less than betrayal of Adivasis, victims of land usurpation and governmental apathy. “The November 1 programme of Patta distribution and the declaration of Zero landless District was just a public relations exercise of a Government that is neck-deep in corruption charges,” said the Samithi volunteer.

There are thousands of Adivasis in Kannur district who had years ago applied for the one-acre-per-family land promised to them as per an agreement of 2001. These people had not submitted new applications for land as per the Zero landless programme as their old applications were with the authorities.

That these Adivasis did not file new applications was interpreted by the authorities as a sign of absence of more landless families in the district. With the Government officially declaring that Kannur has no more landless people, it would be difficult for these Adivasis from Iritti, Pervaoor, Alakkode and other areas to file new applications.

At the same time, there are allegations that many of those who were given the title deeds for lands are yet to know about the lands allotted to them. Reports on original land owners objecting to allocation of their lands to the programme’s beneficiaries like in the case of Vellanad in Thiruvananthapuram has generated anxiety among many beneficiaries in Kannur also.