Odisha Praja Sangharsha Samiti State president Er Debashisha Hota felicitated Northern Division RDC Er Suresh Chandra Dalei along with his court officers and staff members for their move to provide justice to hundreds of Dalit people whose caste has been wrongly recorded depriving them of all Government benefits for last 14 years.

The RDC has instituted 1,113 cases for rectification of the records pertaining to caste of hundreds of people of Angul and Dhenkanal districts. The RDC has directed the Dhenkanal Settlement Officer along with all Tehsildars of Dhenkanal and Angul districts to submit their field verification reports immediately for hearing of the cases. State Secretary Kalandi Charan Behera was present.

Here it is noteworthy that, on June 12, 2009, a letter on a proposal of rectification of all land RORs from “Saara” to “Sabar” had been submitted by the then Principal Secretary in ST and SC Development Department. Unfortunately, the proposal is still under consideration of the Government in the Revenue and Disaster Management Department. For the deliberate negligence, the poor “Sabar” tribals are deprived of getting any Government benefits for last 14 years.

Even if in some places, the father’s caste is recorded as Saara, his son’s caste has been recorded as Sabar. Due to this type of mistakes by the officials, the father is not recognized as ST, whereas son is recognized as ST.

Against this serious injustice, on March 30, 2022, more than 2,000 Sabar tribals had demonstrated before the Member, Board of Revenue at Cuttack by taking out a huge auto rally from Dhenkanal town. The cases had been recommended for hearing at the Northern Division RDC.