For the last three years, more than 70 families, of which a majority are from Hasalaru, a tribal community, have been living in makeshift tents near Kalasa in Chikkamagaluru district with no basic amenities like road, electricity and proper shelter.
All plantation workers at the estates in nearby villages, they were earlier provided with shelter by the estate owners. However, heavy rains that lashed parts of the district in 2019 rendered these families homeless. The estate owners asked them to leave the houses in the workers’ colony and make their own arrangements for shelter.
“With no place of our own, we put up tents in Survey Number 153 of Mavinakere and have been staying there since. We had applied to the panchayat seeking sanction of the same land for our dwelling. Though four acres have been sanctioned, we have not got our title deeds yet,” said Sanjeev, a member of the community.
