Sudipto Mondal/The Hindu
 
Mangalore, Jan 24: Vasu Shetty died at the age of 65 in early 2003; he was suffering from a mental disorder. "In the last 10 years of his life, he had become prone to hallucinations and could often be seen walking around the neighbourhood grazing imaginary cattle. Sometimes he would walk into the playground and act like he was ploughing land," recounts his friend Pooappa Karkera.

Mr. Karkera believes that his friend's illness was caused by the trauma of being ousted from his 10-acre farm in Kalavaru village of Mangalore taluk.

Vasu Shetty's was one of the 624 families displaced from the villages of Bala and Kalavaru villages in October 1992 to make way for industrial development.

Later, the 2000-acre Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Limited project came up on the land. The displaced people now live in a rehabilitation colony built by the refinery in Chelaru village, 10 kilometres from Surathkal. The colony funded by MRPL and built by Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board was handed over to the district administration in 1998.

While the other displaced people might not have lost their mental balance, they are still a demoralised lot. Out of the displaced families, 280 people are employed by MRPL. The rest have taken Rs. 1,40,000 each in lieu of a job.

In a letter to the Government on September 18, 1996 MRPL expressed its inability to absorb more people from the displaced families. The letter said, "The refinery being a highly technical and an automated plant, employment opportunities are limited."

Struggle broken

For 427 days, at a stretch, the displaced people demonstrated in front of the refinery. That was more than a decade ago; they were demanding that the company adhere to the "one job per displaced family" rule. Many people were arrested during that struggle.

Venu Vinod Shetty, one of the organisers at that time, reveals that towards the end many people simply tired of the struggle and settled for money in lieu of jobs at the refinery.

Most of the 350 families that had accepted the money at that time are today penniless. The money, after being divided among squabbling family members, disappeared within a few months.

Sesi Poojarithi (80) was one of the many women who participated in the stand-off against the refinery for jobs but she too finally settled for the money. Today, she is in her deathbed suffering from an ailment that hasn't yet been diagnosed; her family members do not have the money to take her to a hospital. Her three sons and one unmarried daughter are all unemployed.

Her daughter says, "None of us have any job or permanent source of income. With our limited resources, it is a choice between getting treatment for my mother and buying food for the family. We are just hoping that we can afford her funeral expenses."

Sunny D'Souza, secretary of the Dakshina Kannada unit of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, says that, particularly in this district, only one person from a family is actually involved in farming whereas the rest find employment in cities. If the farmer were to ever sell the land all the family members must get a share.

Devappa Poojary (45) had five acres of land in Kalavaru. He says that whatever compensation was given got divided between him and his five brothers. They took the money and went back to their jobs in Bombay and Bangalore whereas he is still here without a job or a permanent source of income. "How can the Government say that money and houses can compensate the loss of a livelihood?" he asks.

Farm labourers

Seena Padakamaya (60) was an agricultural labourer before the acquisition. He says that all he did for the first 45 years of his life was work on a farm. For the last 15 years since he came to Chelaru he has just been doing odd jobs. "I am too old to learn a new trade," he says. There are 52 Dalit families in the Chelaru rehabilitation colony, all former agricultural labourers, and most of them do not have any kind of permanent job.

Venu Vinod Shetty, who is also the former president of the displaced people's welfare committee, says, "There should be some employment generating initiatives or skills training schemes by the Government for the displaced people; particularly uneducated people and Dalits. May be MRPL can also start some such activity."

In MRPL

Dayanand Suvarna, former secretary of the displaced people's welfare association, says that in most cases people who have been employed by MRPL have deserted their families and have broken out of the joint family system.

An old man in his seventies reluctantly reveals that his son works in MRPL and has moved to the official residential quarters.

The old man, who doesn't want to be identified, accuses his son of deserting him and the rest of the family of eight. Members of other families where similar desertions have happened are reluctant to speak. For them it is a touchy issue.

On the converse, there are also some very large families where the person employed in MRPL is the sole bread-winner. "That one person's life is like that of a tethered animal," says Dayanand Suvarna

Pooappa Karkera, who also lives in the colony, quips, "The Government says ‘one job per displaced family'. What wrong have the others in the family done that they must sit at home?"