The Hindu
Mangalore, Jan 22: The memory of a rainy day in October 1992 refuses to go away for 42-year-old Nonnaiah Ekkaru, who was once a farm worker. That was the day bulldozers hired by the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board demolished the hut in which he lived along with his family of 10.
His family was one among the 624 from the villages of Bala and Kalavaru in Mangalore taluk that were rendered homeless at the height of the monsoon that year. The 2,000-acre Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL) project subsequently came up on their land. "Suddenly, we were out in the rain with nowhere to go," recalls Mr. Ekkaru. "We were left to scour the streets with our women, children, old people, livestock and belongings," recounts Venu Vinod Shetty, a former president of the welfare committee formed by the displaced people.
The displaced people were homeless for eight months. The rehabilitation colony for them was finally set up at Chelaru, near Surathkal in June 1993 – six months after a government order announced a rehabilitation and resettlement package for the displaced people.
Around 400 families (close to 2,000 people) moved into the new colony. The rest accepted money in lieu of sites in the 100-acre colony, 30 km from Mangalore city.
The package was to give project affected families financial assistance, jobs and housing sites.
In addition, the government order stipulated the colony must have "asphalted roads, a shopping complex, community hall, higher primary school, street lights, bus shelter, place of religious worship, and office of the village accountant, sites for burial ground/cremation/post office/commercial banks/co-operative society/ration shop/parks/primary health centre /rural veterinary dispensary / sports pavilion/public meeting and grazing field."
Close to 15 years after the rehabilitation colony was built there is not even clean drinking water available at Chelaru whose population has now swelled to 3,000.
For the first five years, the colony was maintained by the KIADB and all the development projects here were funded by MRPL. The trouble started when the colony was integrated with the local Chelaru Gram Panchayat.
The infrastructure provided by KIADB and MRPL slowly disintegrated. "This is a ghost town," says Seena Padakamaya (60), a resident who tags along during a visit to the colony. Travelling around the colony, on the remnants of the road, reflects the extent of neglect at Chelaru.
There are no banks or a co-operative society here as stipulated by the Government. The shopping complex is just a cluster of three shops – one departmental store and a barber shop – as for the third shop nobody even knows what it sells because it has been closed for a long time. People here have to travel 10 km to Surathkal to buy even rice and vegetables.
Who is responsible?
An MRPL spokesperson said the company had spared no expense while developing the colony and that it was in a bad state today because of the lack of maintenance.
Deputy Commissioner (Dakshina Kannada) M. Maheswar Rao said: "We will do our best to set things right in Chelaru. Our current focus is on water supply and street lighting in the area. But the zilla panchayat and local authorities have to do a better job of operating and maintaining the civic infrastructure provided."
A.M. Kunjappa, chief executive officer of the Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat, said: "We will examine the matter."